1796 by Bruno Manuel dos Anjos Marques Albano

CENTURY

The Story of the Seattle World's Fair, 1962

* #• * -*•

8PW'*(^^!W

#^:

-iLH

SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

0 0 1 DO OSMflTlt, S

miffamsmesm'mmmMmmmim

fmmwMmm::> msmm

mmmmmmmm-

SPW NORTHWEST SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY REFERENCE BOOK

m *m

NOT TO BE TAKEN FROM THIS ROOM

2035138

O.R917.972 0 Sel821M f• i I •

" ; :£-> ^ i !

^ffm

>««* .... , — ': ' • - .

.-*

* * > *.,**.*.' *** *

\ -

J.L

"w-^r, •

liiii^i"

The Story of the Seattle World's Fair, 1962

C E N T U R Y

By MURRAY (yiORGAN With Special Photography by Steven C. Wilson

Published by Acme Press, Incorporated, 2120 Fourth Avenue, Seattle 1 Distributed by University of Washington Press, Seattle 5 Manuscript copyright ® 1963 by Murray Morgan Photographs copyright © 1963 by Steven C. W i l s o n : Pages-4,8, 16,18,19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 40, 54, 55, 56, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 88, 90, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107,108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 126, 134, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 150, 156. Other photographs or illustrations courtesy of Century 21 Exposition, Incorporated, or copyright by Acme Press.

Published March, 1963 Art Direction by R. T. Matthiesen Associates Typography by Pacifictype, Incorporated, Seattle 1 Lithographed in U.S.A. by Acme Press, Incorporated <aP"°

SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRAE Contents

Personnel

Exhibitors

Foreword

Chapter One

The Fair That 'Couldn't Be Done'

Chapter Two

From O u t Of The Past

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Partners Should Be Fifty-Fifty

Chapter Five

Fifteen M i l l i o n A n d None To Spend

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Yes, A Fairâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;But H o w A n d Where?

Saved By The Beep-Beep-Beep

A Long Winter Of Discontent

113

Chapter Eight

Money, Money, Money

127

Chapter Nine

A World's Fair, Really-

135

Chapter Ten

The Space Needle Story

147

Chapter Eleven

157

Afterword

158

Addendum

The Seattle World's Fair!

2035138

Personnel Honorary Officers Governor Albert D. Rosellini, Honorary Chairman General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Honorary President Senator Warren G. Magnuson Senator Henry M. Jackson Representative Thomas M. Pelly Representative Jack Westland Representative Julia Butler Hansen Representative Catherine May Representative Walt Horan Representative Thor Tollefson Representative Don Magnuson Mayor Gordon S. Clinton W o r l d ' s Fair C o m m i s s i o n Edward E. Carlson, Chairman Victor Rosellini, Vice Chairman Alfred R. Rochester, Executive Director Lieutenant Governor John A. Cherberg Senator Howard Bargreen Councilman J. D. Braman Clarence C Dill Senator Herbert H. Freise Paul S. Friedlander Senator Michael J. Gallagher Senator Reuben A. Knoblauch H. Dewayne Kreager Representative Audley F. Mahaffey Representative Ray Olsen Representative Leonard A. Sawyer Representative Jeanette Testu

Century 21 Exposition, Incorporated William S. Street, Chairman Joseph P. Gandy, President Ewen C Dingwall, Vice President and General Manager Otto Brandt, Vice President, Public Relations Lee Moran, Vice President, Exhibits Iver H. Cederwall, Vice President, Concessions and Amusements Robert B. Colwell, Vice President, Site and Building Development L. E. Karrer, Vice President, Operations and Services D. E. Skinner, Vice President, Underwriting Michael Dederer, Vice President, Advance Tickets/Second Board Chairman Norman Davis, Vice President, Fine Arts Edward P. Tremper, Vice President Budget and Finance Lowell Hunt, Vice President, Expo-Lodging Service A. W. Morton, Vice President, Transportation and Parking Harry L. Carr, Vice President James B. Douglas, Vice President D. Roy Johnson, Vice President J. Elroy McCaw, Vice President Fred Paulsell, Treasurer Harry Henke III, Assistant Vice President Willis Camp, Assistant Vice President Arthur Cooperstein, Controller Jay Rockey, Director, Public Relations Division Donald I. Foster, Director, Exhibits Division George K. Whitney, Director, Concessions and Amusements Division Clayton Young, Director, Site and Building Development Division Frederic Schumacher, Director, Operations and Services Division Donald Fry, Director, Underwriting Division Louis Larsen, Director, Special Events Division Harold Shaw, Director, Performing Arts Division

Architects Paul Thiry, Primary Architect: Washington State Coliseum; Foreign Commerce and Industry Minoru Yamasaki/Naramore, Bain, Brady and Johanson: Federal Science Pavilion John Graham: Space Needle Walker and McGough: Foreign Commerce and Industry Robert B. Price and Associates: Domestic Commerce and Industry Waldron and Dietz: Domestic Commerce and Industry Naramore, Bain, Brady and Johanson: Boulevards of the World Durham, Anderson and Freed: Food Circus B. Marcus Priteca and Jas. B. Chiarelli: Opera House Kirk, Wallace, McKinley and Associates: Playhouse and Fine Arts Building Bassetti and Morse: Entry gates Tucker and Shields: Sky Ride Terminals Wendell H. Lovett: Grounds furniture Âťv Wendell H. Lovett and Ted Bower: Concession kiosks Richard Bouillon: Flag Plaza Shimizu and Matsushita, John Phillips: International Fountain DESIGNER: Herb Rosenthal

Exhibitors National Exhibitors AFRICAN NATIONS Mrs. Juanita Russell, Manager BERLIN Dieter Gassmann, Manager BRAZIL J. P. do Rio Branco, Commissioner General Ruy Pereira da Silva, Deputy Antonio Ferreira da Rocha, Deputy CANADA Glen Bannerman, Commissioner General R. E. H. Ogilvie, Deputy DENMARK Povl Boetius, Commissioner General Henning Kristiansen, Deputy EUROPEAN COMMUNITY Dr. Werner Klaer, Commissioner General Andre Lamy, Deputy G. L. G. de Milly, Representative FRANCE Dr. Pierre Piganiol, Commissioner General Georges Dumesnil, Deputy INDIA Anthony G. Meneses, Commissioner General P. J. Menon, Commissioner General Mrs. P. Johari, Deputy JAPAN Masato Fujisaki, Commissioner General Noboru Takasugi, Commissioner General Tetsunoskue Chaki, Deputy KOREA II Woo Lee, Commissioner General Yong Kook Chang, Commissioner General Jhong Woo, Deputy Mun B. Chong, Deputy MEXICO Oscar Urrutia, Commissioner General Lenin Molina, Deputy Mrs. Adela Ocampo de Gonzalez, Deputy PHILIPPINES Luis Ma. Araneta, Commissioner General Teodoro Abueva, Deputy Mrs. Adelfa Caugma, Deputy Vincente Correa, Deputy REPUBLIC OF CHINA Yun-cheng Lu, Commissioner General Chia-Chiu Lai, Commissioner General C. T. Tan, Deputy Ching-yen Chang, Deputy SAN MARINO Andrew G. Haley, Commissioner General Andrew G. Haley Jr., Deputy SWEDEN Karl Reinhold Riesbeck, Commissioner General Kurt Johnsson, Deputy THAILAND Visutr Arthayukti, Commissioner General Col. C. C. Kambhu, Deputy UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC Tewfik Abdel Mageed, Commissioner General Ahmed Kamal Abdel Salam, Commissioner General Saad el Shagie, Deputy Ahmed Mourad, Deputy UNITED KINGDOM Cecil Cooke, Commissioner General G. E. Farndell, Deputy UNITED NATIONS Andrew Cordier, Commissioner General Martin Chamberlain, Deputy UNITED STATES Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus, Commissioner General Craig Colgate Jr., Deputy

C o m m e r c i a l Exhibitors Aluminum Industry American Biltrite Rubber Company American Cancer Society American Gas Association American Institute of Architects .American Institute of Decorators American Library Association Arizona State Government Baldwin Piano and Organ Company Bekins Moving and Storage Company Bell Telephone System Bulova Watch Company California Artificial Flower Company California and Hawaiian Sugar Refining Canadian Pacific Airlines Carl Forslund, Incorporated Carnation Company Central Association/Seattle Area Industrial Council Christian Witness in Century 21 Churches of Christ, Scientist Davis Sons Company/Gorham Company/Lenox China Company Dishmaster Corporation Douglas Fir Plywood Association E. I. du Pont de Nemours Eastman Kodak Company Electric Utilities of Washington Encyclopaedia Britannica Fieldcrest Mills Ford Motor Company Forest Products Industry General Electric Company General Insurance Company General Motors Corporation Great Southwestern Land Company Gulf American Land Corporation Gym Dandy Play Area Hammond Industries, Incorporated H. J. Heinz Company International Business Machines International Good Music International Design Awards Gallery Johnson's Wax League of Women Voters Lions Club International Masonic Hospitality Lounge Mobil Oil Company Monte-Copter, Incorporated Nalley's, Incorporated National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Bank of Commerce/Alaska State Government National Cash Register Company National Park Service New York World's Fair Northwest Designer Craftsmen Northwest Orient Airlines Oldsmobile Division Oregon State Government Palm Springs Exhibit Pan American World Airways Peace Corps People-to-People Program Port of Seattle Radio Corporation of America REA Express, Incorporated Rohr Corporation Rotary International Salvation Army Schulmerich Carillons Seattle-First National Bank Sermons from Science Seventh Day Adventists Society of American Foresters Standard Oil Company of California Transport 21 Railroad Exhibit United Air Lines United States Department of Commerce United States Plywood Corporation United States Rubber Company Veterans of World War I Washington State Dental Association Washington State Host Exhibit Washington State International Trade Fair Western Airlines/Samsonite Luggage

A young monkey

which was part of the mother-child

affection

experiment

in the United States Science

Pavilion.

Foreword

This is the account of an improbable success. It describes the growth of something that in all logic should have developed into a regional exposition but which blossomed into a world's fair—and a fair that unprecedentedly ended its six-month run w i t h money in the bank, its Monorail on the streets, and a complex of permanent buildings which —granted the miracles of continued good management, good w i l l and good luck—can become one of the most beautiful and useful civic centers in America. In telling this success story, I have concentrated less on what the Seattle World's Fair seemed like to me (a fair, like a person, is different things to different people) than on how the fair came to be. Not that this is a how-to-do-it, a manual for cities and states dreaming of a world's fair of their o w n . I doubt that any city in the future—not even Seattle—will see coalesce a set of dreamers and doers, of visionary businessmen and hard-headed elected officials, of sacrificers and graspers, of all-out salesmen and idealistic architects c o m parable to the i m p r o m p t u collection w h o transformed the rundown slope stretching from the Seattle Civic A u d i t o r i u m toward Elliott Bay into an attraction that sold ten million tickets. Those w h o want to know the secret ingredients for success in such projects w i l l learn from this book that in Seattle it took vision, guts, friends in Washington, and a considerable obtuseness in deciding when one was licked. This story is told in the terms of those w h o participated. Where pertinent I have quoted the official documents; where possible, the people w h o were there. In w r i t i n g the story of the Seattle World's Fair at such close range, I have found the undeniable handicap of short perspective balanced by the advantage of fresh memories. No one of w h o m I asked an interview said no. Many gave many hours. A n d I am indebted to the World's Fair Commission and the Century 21 Corporation for opening their books, letter files and accounts to me. Space does not permit mention of all w h o have given time and thought to answering my questions, but some must be singled out: Edward E. Carlson, Joseph Gandy, Ewen Dingwall, Alfred Rochester, Albert D. Rosellini, Warren G. Magnuson, Ray Olsen, W i l liam Goodloe, and Harold S. Shefelman all granted long interviews; Jim Faber resurrected some of his early files and added touches of gaiety to the b o o k ; Hank Londean of Acme Press was a thoughtful editorial consultant; Jay Rockey and Cyrus Noe displayed the unobtrusive helpfulness of the best of public relations men. As always I found I could lean on the staffs of the Seattle Public Library, the University of Washington Library, the Tacoma Public Library, the State Archives, the State Historical Library and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer for research help. As one of the many local residents w h o long was apathetic if not antagonistic toward the fair, doubtful of its desirability and skeptical of its chances of success, I have enjoyed w r i t i n g this case history of a community achievement forced on the majority by a hard-to-discourage handful. They were right and I was w r o n g : the j o b could be done and was w o r t h doing.

-MURRAY

MORGAN

Presidential Gate

india

1,1/

International Mall

Playhouse

Presidential ^ Court • Fine Arts

Opera House

Show | Street

Arena

Pavilion

Of1 FA

l 'arjTJ

ifourth I European \Commur\ities

Japan

Mexico

Exhibit Fair

-J

of July Lanel

Cam

International iPlaza Brazil

^<^-

Stadium

United'M Arab

'IIIInter national

Fountain . ;

: -^

;

«S> :

I J:::::

United Nations Way Washington State Coliseum

mam X../

Gay way

A*=4% Food Circus

International Plaza : .4. Republic National and Space

Monorail Terminal

of (

Aeronautics

Hall of Industry

Administration

1ILJ C American Way

7 r? < : General F, Flectric vi ii on

v. |S i-

•

% ! mm. I

i •

„ A

Elect rid- Power "%\^Pa^flidnyW'

Math ••

• 'ilk

Friendship Mall

v._4'

•

^ —* |

p..,"/''//( Pal*

- ^

^i:; / . J ^

j /7/?//eo/ 5/a/es Science ^Pavilion

4 , ..,

„4 r

Pore/

Pa vilion

i'Vr"

Chapter

One

The Fair That 'Couldn't Be Done'

The world's fair that couldn't be—Seattle's Century 21 Exposition—after t w o postponements totaling three years and civic disbelief that sometimes seemed

total,

opened precisely on schedule. Seconds before three o'clock Eastern Standard Time on April 21,1962, President John F. Kennedy took time out from a Florida vacation to press the same nugget-encrusted telegraph key that President W i l l i a m Howard Taft had used to open Seattle's Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909 and that six other presidents fingered on other ceremonial occasions. Taft's tap had sent a wireless impulse to Seattle. M o d e r n living is not satisfied by anything so uncomplicated. Kennedy's touch activated a computer in Andover, Maine, which focused a radio telescope on the star Cassiopeia A—60,000,000,000,000,000 miles away—picking up a vibration that had started across space exactly ten thousand years before and relaying it to Seattle, where its arrival set bells ringing, people cheering, cannon b o o m i n g , and t w o thousand balloons inscribed w i t h the invitation "SEE YOU IN SEATTLE" floating upward. The doors of the exhibits swung open. The dream was real.

Helicopters hovered uselessly under the low clouds ready to radio instructions to motorists on ways of extricating themselves from traffic jams that failed to jell. The extra guards detailed to keep the anticipated mob of early arrivals from storming the gates chatted casually w i t h the thin lines of curiosity seekers. For blocks around, parking lot operators looked aghast at their unfilled spaces, then thoughtfully at their price signs. O n the grounds attendants in the out-of-the-way booths smiled like wallflowers at the sound of approaching steps. Where was everybody? " I t was like a debut," one of the fair's creators said later. " W e knew she was beautiful, we knew she was w o n d e r f u l , we knew she was captivating. But we were the parents. What w o u l d the w o r l d think?" The "fair is fabulous!" the headlines shouted dutifully the next day. Each news story started w i t h a puff of praise. Visitors and participants were quoted saying the expected things. But the observant reader could detect signs of disquiet in the reassurances of the fair officials that they were really pleased w i t h the attendance, honest, honest and truly. Columnist Emmett Watson repeated the advice of an old showman: " D o n ' t panic." The consultants had had their say long before the fair opened. For tens of thousands of dollars a try, they had studied the spoors of past expositions, the availability of housing, the vacation practices of a changing America, weather charts, the cracks in the ceiling and each other's predictions. From this research they had projected estimates ranging from 7,500,000 to 12,500,000â&#x20AC;&#x201D;which left a fair margin for error. The most recent informed guess had been made by Economics Research Associates after the advance ticket sale ran five times above the most hopeful prediction. The consultants on April 9 predicted that attendance w o u l d be around 9,250,000. They added that a 10,000,000 projection w o u l d be unrealistic, but not as unrealistic as 12,000,000 or 15,000,000. During the one hundred eighty-four days between President Kennedy's tap of the telegraph key and Joe Gandy's closing rap of the gavel, 9,609,969 persons had paid their way onto the fairgrounds. Unused advance sale tickets pushed paid admission sales slightly past the ten million mark. These figures were reasonably close to the final prediction of the Economics Research Associates, and, for that matter, to the long-range guess made five years earlier by the Stanford Research Institute. The nearly correct totals, however, were the sum of a large number of offsetting bad guesses. In the age of computers and researchers, people can still surprise the experts. They didn't come on the days when they were expected to come and they arrived in w e l come but unanticipated abundance on days when the forecasts were dreary. Sunshine and holidays, both expected to boost the gate, proved boxoffice poison, but rain was no discouragement. Cloudy days lured people to the fairgrounds, and the summer obliged by being unprecedentedly overcast, though less rain fell from the cloudy skies. It was not only housing the tourists located w i t h nonchalant savoir faire: they found parking w i t h an ease that made all pre-fair predictions, and the quarter million dollar Interbay parking development, look silly. Talk of the parking shortage, it developed, had eliminated the parking shortage as property owners on the perimeter of the fair unexpectedly and belatedly tore d o w n old buildings in the hope of instant money. Consultants and experts unwilling to hazard a guess on anything else had been dead

certain of one thing. They knew what a majority of fairgoers wanted at a fair: fun and games. The first professional that any of the Seattle fair officials talked to—a man some consider the outstanding authority on exposition management—warned in A p r i l , 1956: "The amusement phase is the most important single phase of a fair. Amusement attractions bring people to the fair. People w i l l not come voluntarily for the educational factors. Whistler's Mother w o n ' t draw anyone." Grover Whalen, the veteran of the New York World's Fair and other promotions, was on record to similar effect. "People give many reasons for going to a fair—but what they really want to see is the bear ride the bicycle." After the United States had agreed to sponsor the largest scientific exhibit ever assembled, showmen counseled against overplaying the Science Pavilion in the publicity. "The kind of figures people come to fairs to see," one warned, "aren't fed into c o m puters." "Remember Sally Rand!" became a battle cry of those breasting the stream of educational and cultural exhibits. Old-timers whispered of "Little Egypt" at Chicago and the Igorrote Village at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Late in 1961 State Senator Reuben Knoblauch complained to the World's Fair C o m mission that too much emphasis and space was being devoted to an art exhibit which he said w o u l d not draw the crowds that high class entertainment or a skin show w o u l d attract. State Representative Len Sawyer, a member of the Commission, agreed and added that a cadaver in a medical exhibit in Canada was outdrawing an art exhibit. So a Show Street was included, along w i t h the Gayway w i t h its rides and games. The Seattle Censor Board was persuaded to raise its eyes to the heavens while the girls bared their breasts. An impresario named Gracie Hansen—short, raucous and witty—emerged from the backwoods, found financial support in Seattle's staid Chinese community, and sponsored a girlie show up to gambling casino specifications for nudity and chic. Some imaginative Californians imported a pack of risque puppets. Other shows, from bad to indifferent, were organized to slop up the lascivious overflow. They were left high and dry. True, the puppets made a m i n t ; Gracie managed to finish in the black; and some of the other attractions were around for the last hurrah. But throughout the fair, Show Street was a financial embarrassment, in such trouble that not even well-publicized, carefully rehearshed trouble w i t h the police could produce a profit. Meanwhile, what of Whistler's Mother? She turned a pretty penny. The fine arts show—featuring a collection of minor old masters, magnificent art by the Indians of the Pacific Northwest Coast, works of disputed merit by American and European painters of the past decade, and late in the fair, an exciting exhibit of the works of living Pacific Northwest artists and sculptors—drew 1,432,352 paying customers, which was more than all the girlie shows combined. This was due in part to art's inclusion as a participating attraction in the advance ticket sale—but Show Street had also been represented there. The box office triumph of Whistler's Mother over undraped girls was only a hint of what the Seattle World's Fair was doing to the dogma that people in large numbers w o u l d be repelled by the threat of culture and education. W h i l e the doubly endowed

beauties of Show Street were exposing themselves in embarrassing privacy, the visitors to the fairgrounds were standing in line for hours under the blaze of sun or the seep of rain, for a chance to edge their way into the Ford M o t o r Company Pavilion, to ride in the " b u b b l e a t o r " into the State of Washington's unimaginative theme exhibit, or to peer inside the organized confusion of John Glenn's space capsule. The International Business Machines Pavilion, which featured the kind of figures that could be fed into computers, drew 3,083,072 visitors; the Bell System Pavilion, 3,543,360; Douglas Fir Plywood Association's House of the Future, an estimated 3,500,000; Library 21 (a glimpse into the research procedures of the future), 1,800,000; the Electric Utilities display, 3,600,000; the General Electric Company's show, 2,001,998. Yet most of these were routine exhibits, prepared at a late moment when their sponsors belatedly accepted the fact that there really w o u l d be a fair and it w o u l d be well to be represented. Nor, w i t h few exceptions, most notably Britain, Mexico and the Philippines, were the foreign exhibitions memorable expressions of national cultures, though they too drew so well that most of the sponsors may have wished they had started earlier and devoted more effort and ingenuity to the organization of the space they received almost rent free. The memorable attraction of the Seattle World's Fair—its Sally Rand and Little Egypt, the thing the old-timers w i l l probably be talking about when the next century is a reality rather than a projection—was the United States Science Pavilion. More than t w o out of three visitors (6,770,109 out of 9,609,969) sought out the exhibit that the pros had warned was black plague at the box office. They did not have to pay to see science on display, but entry was often not w i t h o u t its price in effort. Nowhere on the line-entangled fairgrounds did queues stretch as frequently or as far as at the formal entrance to the House of Science. (It was possible to sneak in a side door w i t h o u t waiting.) Here was the justification for Bob Hope's jibe about the scientists' invention of a Seattle World's Fair doll—you w i n d it up and it stands in line. But seldom in the history of human queuing has waiting been more justified, or done amid such serene splendor as the Seattle-born Niesi, M i n o r u Yamasaki, had created for his country's showcase of science. Alistair Cooke, of the Manchester Guardian, otherwise the severest critic of the fair, could not restrain his raptures: " I t lies, happily, along the southwestern edge of the fair, away from the main architectural babel . . . five high slender aluminum arches rising above graceful plots of buildings enclosing a court of pools punctuated by jetting fountains. The six flanking buildings are slabs of prestressed concrete of such crystalline purity that even on the dull days their reflection was as difficult to bear as Alpine snows. Their facades are evenly broken up with continuous Gothic arches used as a kind of filigree. As you come closer and are surrounded by the concrete surfaces everywhere, and the delicate and rippling interplay of light and water, arches and scintillating stone, it is as if the Gothic style had passed w i t h o u t a break through the Renaissance and the eighteenth century, in and out of Spain, and had achieved a final sensuous purity in the twentieth century. It is as if Venice had just been built." W i t h i n this pleasure dome that Congress had decreed, scientists and technicians under the imaginative direction of Commissioner Athelstan Spilhaus, on leave as dean

of the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology, performed the near miracle of staging a show unmarred by advertising, uncluttered by reverence for the technology of production, which emerged as a statement, in many variations on the single theme, that science is a delightful intellectual pursuit, a never-ending hunt for harmony and beauty. Nor was this message merely implicit. It was stated clearly and beautifully in the movie by Charles Eames that greeted the visitors as they entered the House of Science: "Science is essentially an artistic or philosophical enterprise, carried on for its o w n sake. In this it is more akin to play than to work. But it is a quite sophisticated play in which the scientist views nature as a system of interlocking puzzles. He assumes that the puzzles have a solution, that they w i l l be f a i r . . . His motivation: fascination w i t h the puzzle itself. His m e t h o d : a curious interplay between experiment and idea. His pleasures are those of any artist. High on the list of prerequisites for being a scientist is a quality that defines the rich human being as much as it does the scientist: his ability and his desire to reach out w i t h his mind and his imagination to something outside himself." They ate it up, these people w h o the pros had claimed could not be drawn to a fair by anything intellectual. Ate it up and came back for more. The Science Pavilion drew more people back for a second look than the next five exhibits combined. One happy improvisation, a total success, was the Plaza of the States, suggested at a late date by Governor Rosellini. The original plan had been to welcome dignitaries in the Stadium, but the governor, w i t h a politician's feeling for the chill that can settle on a small gathering in a large place, argued for a more compact setting. The Plaza of the States proved a suitable display case for ceremonies welcoming VIPs ranging from John Glenn and Gherman Titov to Elvis Presley and Prince Phillip. President Kennedy visited the fair only once, during the construction period. His scheduled visit late during the season was canceled because of the buildup of Russian missiles in Cuba. President Eisenhower had toured the site during the early construction. There was one exhibit on the fairgrounds that, unheralded and unpromoted, drew more attention even than the elegances of the intellect. It was people. At one stage during the fair an organization interested in learning what people really do at fairs put private eyes to trailing selected couples around the fairgrounds. They found that the most constant human activity was not eating nor exhibit hopping, but people-watching. Everybody seemed to enjoy that. They watched each other eat strawberry waffles from Belgium and Mongolian steaks that might have given a Mongolian pause. They watched each other watch the grimly mechanical International Fountain, and the W i l d Mouse, and the Bayanihan dancers risk their ankles amid the clap-clap of heavy staves as a ritual rice dance came to its climax. They watched each other shop in the Spanish Village, laugh at the puppets' prurient jokes, try to pick out landmarks from atop the Space Needle, sigh at the shortness of the Monorail ride. They watched each other watch each other watch each other. No one seemed to object to being part of the act. Everyone seemed at home in his

role. After all, as Dr. Spilhaus replied when a horrified aide rushed to him on opening day w i t h the w o r d that the visitors were sitting d o w n on the floor of the House of Science movie, " W h y not. It's their house."

So it was.

:4:4

Have sexâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;spelled S-E-Xâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and plenty

of it, the experts

forewarned.

lltfNftl J mJKL...mi

H 81 S

' : *^St-Âť-4MJ

;; |

. . . but everyone was astonished, the experts most of all, when the Fine Arts Pavilion outdazzled and out-attracted a flamboyant thoroughfare called Show Street. Dedicated art lovers, and the novices, and the curious crowded into the Fine Arts Pavilion in a force of 1,432,352 to see modern and antique art. And they reactedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as here around jean Tinguely's sporadically motorized sculpture of spare parts, rubber and welding called Narwa.

PI#Ir:;-:

men ill lllliil

!«44WW| :S44M«f4

lilli

i t •••,-

The Plaza of the States and the Washington

State

Coliseum.

Boulevard 21, showing the General Electric Pavilion, the Hydroelectric Pavilion, the igloo-shaped Alaska Pavilion, the Transport 21 Pavilion of the railroads, the Natural Gas Pavilion, and the Ford Company Pavilion.

The Coliseum at night, with the General Motors Exhibit in the foreground and the aluminum cubicle World of Century 21 theme exhibit at the rear.

The Hall of Industry, containing the exhibits of the Carnation Company, H. j. Heinz, Johnson's Wax, United Air Lines, Northwest Orient Airlines, the Rohr Aircraft Company, Bekins Storage Company, REA Express, and the National Cash Register Company.

West Berlin

Pavilion

Swedish

Pavilion

Philippine

WKHB&-'-- •.•'

Pavilion

Bell System Standard Oil

ft tm.

Pavilion Pavilion

I *& •«

£1 4

.v""'T -

1 *«4

-If- "1

""^>

itf^Bfcl

The United States Science Pavilion; Colonel John Glenn's space capsule in the National Space and Aeronautics Administration Pavilion; a long line of visitors queued outside the entrance to the Ford Motor Company's simulated space journey theater.

dmz A E ROVrTTTROXTXC

h%-Âťmtwm m ;

%M Mmmwtt m $m$r 1QAO, T M I M O M i . T H I M R i

* I

^ml&z

Chapter Two

From Out Of The Past

In the beginning there was confusion. A n d about the beginning of the Seattle World's Fair of 1962 there remains confusion, but the legend has embedded itself beyond uprooting that the Century 21 Exposition materialized at a martini luncheon at the Washington Athletic Club in January of 1955. Since there was such a luncheon, that is as good a place as any to begin this improbable success story. The mists of time, not to say martinis, cloud the details of the historic occasion. There is no agreement as to what f o o d was served that noon, nor even whether the luncheon included protein. The dramatis

personae

ascribed to the production have

w i t h time become virtually coextensive w i t h the Seattle City Directory. Eliminating the apocrypha, we find the irreducible m i n i m u m of boys w h o were bellied up to the bar on that chill day to have been D o n Follett, then manager of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce; Ross Cunningham, a durable ornament of The Seattle Times editorial hierarchy, and Al Rochester, the buoyant boulevardier of the Seattle City Council.

Cunningham recalls the presence of Denney Givens, a nonflamboyant Seattle businessman; Rochester doesn't. Give or take Mr. Givens, in such a gathering the man most likely to suggest the extravagance of a city of half a million people attempting to host a world's fair, it seems to me, w o u l d have been Alfred R. Rochester. A spare, ruddy man of sixty, Rochester had been born in Seattle in 1895, in a house at the intersection of Rochester Avenue (now Twenty-Eighth) and Yesler Way. His parents, professional people, had not been among the settlers w h o arrived off Alki Point in the brig Exact to found the t o w n on a rainy November day in 1851, but they had been around long enough to qualify as pioneers. Their boy A l , by birth, background and inclination, is a veritable old-timer. "Everything that has happened in Seattle since it became a real city, everything except the fire, has happened in my lifetime," Rochester contends. Those w h o feel his claim extravagant must remember that hyperbole is the hallmark of the old-timer. Rochester has the stigmata of the early Seattleite. He is streaked w i t h a booster spirit of the vintage of Doc Maynard, the town's first physician and first boomer, w h o was sure that he and Seattle could do anything. (Doc went broke.) Rochester has the o p t i mism that led the Seattleites of the 1870s, on learning that the Northern Pacific had outrageously chosen neighboring Tacoma as its western terminus, to take pick in hand and start laying railroad track across the mountains; and he has some of their luck. The do-it-yourself railroad crews didn't get anywhere near the farmlands of the Inland Empire, but coal was found near the point where their homemade line petered out. Many an early settler was prudent and prudish, distressed by the mores of the local Indians and the morals of the other local settlers. This is not a strain inherited by Rochester. Tough, wry and tolerant, he bears easily the burden of knowledge that the flesh of many of his fellow men may be weak and w i l l i n g . In a time when many a local politician frets publicly and professionally about government spending in the state and federal echelons, Rochester keeps the faith of the early Seattle settlers. He does not break into a sweat at the thought of major appropriations; he is dry as a bone in the face of taxes; what rouses his apprehension is the thought that some of the state and federal money might be spent outside Seattle. In this attitude he is the spit and image of the pioneers w h o campaigned to make Seattle the seat of King County; the businessmen w h o fought to turn the t o w n into a terminus of government-backed railroads; the politicians w h o helped secure the assay office, which served as a magnet for tons of northern g o l d ; the industrialists w h o picked off the contract for the U. S. S. Nebraska and later, during the First W o r l d War, presided over the transformation of the city from a mill t o w n into the largest shipyard in the w o r l d ; the engineers and city officials w h o promoted the government locks linking Seattle's lakes to salt water, thus extending the industrial waterfront; the sports buffs w h o built the first Boeing planes and convinced dubious bureaucrats of their effectiveness for war and air mail. The idea of a mixed economy is enduring. Not that the only ingredients in Seattle's success have been luck and an instinct for a federal buck. The old-timers had confidence, energy, some foresight, and a willingness to plunge. More failed than succeeded in business, but they kept trying. They built the mills that sent billions of board feet of lumber to the seaports of the w o r l d ; they organized shipping and made their city the nexus of Puget Sound transportation and

marketing. When Seattle burned, they rebuilt it on a solider and bolder pattern. W h e n the gold rush to Alaska began, they brazenly proclaimed themselves entrepot and unofficial capital of the new territoryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and got away w i t h it. This coup of annexing Alaska was the greatest single factor in establishing Seattle as the dominant city of the Pacific Northwest. In 1909 Seattle celebrated its accomplishment (and indicated its aspirations) by staging the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition began w i t h a conversation in the Alaska Club in 1905. (The record is silent on the subject of martinis.) Godfrey Chealander, w h o had served as the representative of Alaska at the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland that summer, approached J. E. Chilberg, a Seattle banker then president of the Alaska Club, and asked why shouldn't Seattle commemorate, in 1907, the discovery of gold in the Yukon Territory ten years earlier, thereby making himself and Seattle rich. Chilberg referred Chealander to W i l l i a m M. Sheffield, the club secretary. Chealander found Sheffield in conversation w i t h James W o o d , an editor of The Seattle Times. Both found the proposal " b u l l y . " (Almost no one, it seems, registers disapproval of the general idea of a community's hosting a fair; negatives don't begin to f l o w and demurrers to spout until the talks turn to money and effort.) The t w o men did have doubts that the Alaska Club had a broad enough base to serve as sponsor of the proposed Jubilee of Gold. Since most of the Alaska Club's members also were members of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the question of an observance was referred to the larger body. The Chamber played host to a meeting of civic leaders. Chealander's proposals were advanced, accepted and expanded. The businessmen were charmed w i t h the idea of t h r o w i n g a party, but they wanted to celebrate not just Alaska and the Yukon but British Columbia, Oregon, Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;why not Japan and the Philippines and China andâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;aw, make it the w h o l e Pacific Basin. Thus the original proposal ballooned w i t h talk and hope into something far bigger than Alaska. Before leaving the meeting, the community leaders expressed unanimous approval of the idea of the exposition. W i t h equal whole-heartedness they designated Chilberg as president-to-be of the corporation-to-be; R. A. Ballinger, first vice-president (he resigned to become secretary of interior in President Taft's cabinet and was replaced by H. C. Henry), and I. A. Nadeau as director general. E. C. Hughes was asked to draw up the papers for the new corporation, to be called the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Corporation. Fifty Seattle businessmen were named directors (Henry Broderick is the sole survivor), but the by-laws provided that the corporation's business was to be managed by an executive committee whose members were to be chosen by Chilberg and to serve at his pleasure. There was to be no question that Chilberg was boss. A constant in the exposition business is that somebody else wants to hold a show on your date. Before the seventeen-man executive committee held its first meeting, Chilberg was waited on by a delegation from Norfolk, Virginia, w h o respectfully submitted that the three hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown outranked the tenth anniversary of some sourdough's stumbling on nuggets in a northern creek. Chilberg, w h o already was discovering that the gestation period for fairs is longer than the conceivers imagine in the first flush of their enthusiasm, agreed to yield 1907 to Virginia. The executive committee, at its first meeting, decided that Seattle's show should be held in 1909 and run from June 1 to October 16.

In a statement of purpose, the sponsors said, "Seattle has assumed the task of introducing half of the w o r l d , which is developed almost to the ultimate, to that other half which to all intents and purposes of trade, is developed not at all and w h i c h , for the rest of the centuries to come, is to be the field of the world's greatest w o r k . " W i t h a purpose like that, the management was not bashful about importuning the government for money. W i l l H. Parry caught the train to Washington, D. C , and came back w i t h a promise of $600,000 of federal largess. It was not enough but it was a starter. An offering was made of stock in the corporation. In a one-day campaign, 63,500 shares were sold at $10 a share, and promises came in for another $165,000 w o r t h . There was enough money on hand to stage a fairâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but where? Several adequate sites were considered for the A-Y-P Exposition. Only one had the advantage of serving a dual purpose. That was the University of Washington's large but nearly virgin campus on Union Bay. Acquired in 1893 when the University outgrew its d o w n t o w n campus on the present site of the Olympic Hotel, the new campus still was more forest than lawn. Its few buildings were desperately overcrowded. Just the cost of logging and leveling the campus seemed beyond the University's resources. One member of the executive committee of the A-Y-P was Professor Edmond S. Meany, journalist-naturalist-historian-and-promoter. As a Republican state legislator in 1893, Meany had been chairman of the House committee that selected the campus site. N o w he convinced his fellow A-Y-P committee members that locating the Exposition on Union Bay w o u l d not only provide a beautiful location, lake-fringed and w i t h a view of the mountains, but that it w o u l d leave the University a legacy of landscaping and useful architecture. There was one major drawback to the campus site. State law, then as now, prohibited the sale of liquor on the campus. Discreet inquiries were made to see if the Legislature might relax the law for the occasion but they were rebuffed. Alcohol had burnished the spirits and bulwarked the finances of previous fairs from Paris to Chicago, and Exposition officials were dubious about inviting the w o r l d to a teetotal party. Ultimately Meany convinced them that the delights of the view w o u l d make up for the drought. O n June 16, 1906, a committee waited on the board of regents to propose that the students and faculty share their wilderness w i t h the Exposition. The regents had reservations. The juxtaposition of classes and carnival might make teaching more difficult, but after some chin-stroking they decided that landscaping and buildings w o u l d be w o r t h the months of distraction. The regents signed a lease w i t h the A-Y-P Corporation. The Legislature came through w i t h a million dollars. Olmstead Brothers, the landscaping firm that had laid out Central Park in New York and the grounds for the 1893 world's fair in Chicago (and once had prepared a city plan for Tacoma, only to have it rejected as visionary) were hired to prepare the Exposition grounds. More than one hundred acres of forest and thicket had to be cleared. There were those w h o cried when the loggers attacked the forest by the lake, but even the scorners of progress were pleased as the formal gardens took shape around the central p o o l , and the buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;some permanent, some intended to be temporary, but all giving the impression of magnificenceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;rose from the shorn earth.

"The wilderness was pushed back once and for a l l , " says historian Charles M. Gates in The First Century

at the University

of Washington,

" a n d as this task was accom-

plished the relationships of buildings and intervening grounds were viewed in a new perspective. Distances appeared shorter than before, permitting a wider distribution of structures over the tract as a whole. At the same time there came an acceptance of the idea that specialized programs, whether devoted to science, the arts, or engineering, should have their o w n buildings and facilities instead of being intermingled." Thus the modern University of Washington was born. Of the permanent structures, one was to be the University auditorium, another a laboratory for chemistry and pharmacy, and the third the headquarters for the College of Engineering. As things w o r k e d out, many of the temporary buildings were pressed into University use after the Expos i t i o n . The Law S c h o o l a n d t h e G e r m a n D e p a r t m e n t c o m m a n d e e r e d t h e O r e g o n Building; the California Building became first a museum, then the student commons; the Washington State Building was remodeled to serve as the University Library, and the Education and Journalism departments jostled each other in the former Educational Building. These hermit crab acquisitions were not an unmixed blessing, since the temporary structures developed creaks, groans and sags of spectacular intensity and in some cases became too dangerous for occupancy. But the presence of the Exposition buildings did help the University through a period of expansion and left Seattle w i t h the memory that a fair can provide lasting benefits. W h i l e the grounds were taking shape and the buildings were sprouting, the A-Y-P Corporation ieaders went hunting exhibitors. Alaska and Oregon agreed to put up buildings, but Japan was the only foreign country to come in as a full participant. The sponsors decided to concentrate on commercial exhibits. The business recession of 1907-08 made their prey wary—for a time there was talk of calling off the show—but in the end the buildings were filled. O n June 1,1909, exactly at noon, President W i l l i a m Howard Taft, sitting in the W h i t e House, pressed a wireless button that fired a cannon in Seattle, signaling the opening of the Exposition. O n that first day, 72,748 persons paid $31,415.25 to enter and another 7,228 got in free: a first day attendance of 79,976. Through the run of the Exposition, daily attendance averaged 27,105. Every weekday was dedicated to the honor of some worthy, or community, or organization. There were Grocers' Day, Royal Arcanum Day, Skagit Valley Day, W. C. T. U. Day, National Prison Congress Day; there was a day for anyone named Smith; there were three days honoring the International Order of O d d Fellows; there were days for the Welsh, the Swedes, the Shriners, the Norwegians, the barbers, the Maccabbees, the dentists, the Japanese, and separate days for Alaskans and Alaskan children. The low draw—14,708 (8,174 paid) —was on Washington State College Day. O n September 6, Seattle Day, a record 118,824 (111,021 paid) pushed into the grounds. Photographs of the Exposition reveal the pathways dark w i t h soberly clad men, their high-crowned derbies set four-square. (Seattle in 1909 still was a predominantly male community.) Ladies at the Exposition favored the cultural exhibits, particularly the daily concerts, while the men thronged the Pay Streak, as the amusement area was k n o w n . The Pay Streak sported a company of dancing girls, reputedly from Greece, Turkey, Algiers and Egypt, led by Princess Zamara, w h o used live snakes in her dance.

,,:„,..

KIT

ffass

&r*

... ,„„..,,

The visit of President William Howard Taft was the high point of all high points at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, old-timers recalled. Taft sampled, signed and smiled his way through a brief but eventful tour through the buildings around the Court of Honor at the A-Y-P Exposition. The buildings later became the University of Washington, and the pool became the Frosh Pond.

ii^iimmi'"

But even Princess Zamara's love dream dance paled as an attraction when compared to the concession featuring a rematch of the M o n i t o r and the Merrimac. The simulated naval war drew gross receipts of $139,596 as compared to $43,587 for Zamara and her fellow exotics. Japan, the only Asiatic nation to put up a building, also sent to Seattle a battleship under the command of Admiral Ijichi. Exposition President Chilberg, in recalling the wonders of the Exposition more than forty years afterwards, was charmed by the recollection of visits w i t h the admiral: " M y office w o u l d receive w o r d by telephone from Consul T. Tanaka that the admiral w o u l d do himself the honor of calling on the president at 10 a. m. I w o u l d dress in my Prince Albert coat and striped pants, w i t h my silk hat on the desk, and champagne in the cooler. The admiral w o u l d arrive promptly, accompanied by his staff. Salutations w o u l d be made formally and I w o u l d propose a toast to his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. The admiral w o u l d reply by proposing a toast to his Excellency, the President of the United States. There being no language in which w e could converse, we bowed politely and the call was over. "Later w o r d w o u l d be received from Consul Tanaka that the admiral w o u l d be honored to have the president call on board ship at 10 o'clock. The president w o u l d call precisely on time and the same formalities w o u l d be carried out, excepting that the admiral proposed the toast to the President of the United States and I f o l l o w e d w i t h the toast to the Emperor. It was the rule that the champagne glasses must be emptied in honor of each toast." W h i l e few foreign dignitaries put in appearances, American luminaries were present in glowing profusion. A m o n g those w h o delivered addresses from the bunting-draped rostrums were James J. Hill, Charles Evans Hughes and William Jennings Bryan, but the triumph of the management came w h e n , w i t h closing only t w o weeks away, the President of the United States bestowed his bulky presence upon the Exposition. United States Senator Samuel H. Piles and Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger, a former officer in the A-Y-P Corporation and former mayor of Seattle, were credited w i t h influencing the President's decision to make the trip, though W i l l i a m Howard Taft, w h o in the previous decade had logged a quarter-million miles by ship and railroad, needed little urging to sally forth. The presidential election was less than a year in the past, but Taft, wearing his three hundred-pound campaign smile, shook hands and made simple jokes w i t h election eve avidity. W h i l e reviewing the All Nations Military Parade, during which children spelled out his name, he remarked that it was lucky his name was short and simple. In the Government Building, Taft paused to study a tropical fish and, ever the Yale man, observed that the fish looked like the Princeton coat of arms. In the Alaska Building, the President studied the exhibit of a million dollars in gold nuggets and dust, then tried his hand at panning sand imported from the Fairbanks district. Wrapping a towel around his ample midsection, Taft swirled the sand until a nugget w o r t h about five dollars w o r k e d its way to the surface. He pocketed it. At the Hawaiian Pavilion, a native girl from the mixed octet tried to throw a golden lei over his shoulders, but the President warded her off, explaining " I ' m not in Hawaii now and if it w i l l please you just as well I w i l l wear it on my a r m . "

A t the Philippine Exhibit Taft, a former commissioner to the Philippines, spotted a tray of red poker chips and held up his hands in mock horror at the habits the A m e r i cans were teaching their wards. In the Agriculture Building he risked loss of the Yakima vote when he mistook a winesap for a Jonathan. He signed the register at the W e n atchee b o o t h , " W i l l i a m H. Taft, Everything, Washington." A n d so it went. In an afternoon speech at the Natural Amphitheater on the Exposition grounds, he urged Congress to subsidize the construction of merchant ships. The next day the President slipped off to the Seattle Golf Club and was presented a silver loving cup for defeating " o n e of the leading golf players in this section" t w o up in nine holes: Taft 6 4 5 5 5 5 5 4

6-45

H. C. Henry 6 4 5 4 6 5 6 4

7-47

By the time the President departed on Chester Thome's yacht for Tacoma, Seattle was sure it had arrived as a metropolis. After the President's visit, the final fortnight was anticlimactic. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was attended by 3,740,000 persons during its r u n ; 2,765,000 paid to get in. Gate receipts totalled $1,092,336. W h e n C. R. Collins closed the books of the corporation, he w r o t e the figure $785,221.10—in black ink. The profits were given to the Anti-Tuberculosis League and the Seaman's Institute. Al Rochester was thirteen in 1909 and the A-Y-P Exposition glows in his memory like this morning's sunrise. Give him an opening and he's off and reminiscing. " I w o r k e d at the A-Y-P for Frank Bouckaert, w h o o w n e d the Army and Navy Tea Room at the foot of the Pay Streak. He was my Sunday school teacher at the Tabernacle Baptist Church. Opening day—the weather was clear—I remember w o r k i n g about sixteen hours straight on a hand operated bread-slicer at the tea shop. The place was too fancy for Pay Streak and after one week I was out of a j o b , but I held onto my season pass to the grounds. I learned to shill for the shows. W h e n the barker w o u l d say, 'The little ladies w i l l retire, the band w i l l play, and the show starts immediately,' I w o u l d make a pass at the box office, go in, then sneak out for a repeat of the w h o l e routine. I got to see all the shows. " I t wasn't just the Pay Streak w i t h its games, or the M o n i t o r fighting the Merrimac, or the Igorrote village where the girls' costumes satisfied a lot of boying curiosity. It was the w h o l e thing—the concerts at the Music Pavilion, the Eskimo Village, the Cascades—a pond that was a waterfall, the Forestry Building where every log weighed twenty-five tons and contained enough board feet to build five houses. It was the bagpipers, and the coming of the President, and the speech by W i l l i a m Jennings Bryan where his admirers stormed the platform, crazy as bobby-soxers, and broke up the furniture for souvenirs and ripped the silver buttons off the Great Commoner's Prince Albert coat, and I was there on the platform, clutching his coat-tails. "There were warships in Elliott Bay—Japanese as well as American—and at night their searchlights w o u l d chase each other across the sky. The first cross-country auto race, New York to Seattle, finished on the fairgrounds. President Taft had started it w i t h the same button-push that opened the fair. A Ford w o n , in twenty-three days, and

Henry Ford was there to welcome the winner, though I don't remember that he was famous then. Special trains came up from California, twenty coaches long, w i t h smoking permitted on every coach, and the mail and telegrams delivered at each stop. People on the streets spoke languages you couldn't understand; couldn't even guess what they were. " O h , the w o n d e r of it! A n d it was all happening right here in Seattle." As the golden anniversary of the A-Y-P approached, any number of old-timers and embryo promoters had the idea of celebrating the occasion w i t h another fair. Some of them w o u l d drop by City Hall to tell the politicians about their visions. Al Rochester recalls visits from proponents of a fair. "There was an old man w h o had incorporated a world's fair years ago. All he got out of it was the incorporation papers but he wanted to try again. A n d Johnny Angel, w h o had been a part of the old Radio Speaker John C. Stevenson political machine, popped in periodically to say something ought to be done about another fair. But it was all talk. Nobody did anything. The wheels were spinning but the machine wasn't moving. " I did some talking myself," Rochester recalled later. "I've always thought Seattle ought to do more to call attention to Seattle. The Lord has been good to us, and Uncle Sam has been good to us, and it seemed to me high time for the city to stir up something for its o w n benefit. Especially our landed gentry. There were too many sons of the pioneers sitting around on their status quos. It made me tired, those fellows w h o had inherited swamps and hills and scabby old office buildings, sitting around the Rainier Club listening to their arteries getting hard, w h i l e their property values went up and up and up because somebody else was building planes and freeways. It seemed to me everyone ought to get together and celebrate Seattle as the gateway to the Orient, the gateway to Alaska, and the gateway home from the various wars. "So one time in 1954 in the middle of the summer when I ran into Don Follett, the Chamber manager, at Dooley's on Second Avenue, I asked him w h y he didn't have a world's fair in '59 to mark fifty years after A-Y-P. He said it was a good idea and he'd take it up w i t h his masters." Half a year went by. During the last week in January, 1955, as Rochester recalls it, he walked into the Washington Athletic Club bar during the noon hour. Follett was at the far end of the bar talking to Ross Cunningham. Rochester's version goes as follows: " I walked up to Don and asked, 'Whatever happened to that committee you were going to form to put on a world's fair for us?' A n d he said the Chamber people had talked it over but that their feeling was that if the Chamber sponsored it, the rest of the community w o u l d write the idea off as a ' c o n ' operation in w h i c h some businessmen were trying to bag a quick bundle. The Chamber felt the sponsorship should be broader. "Then Cunningham said, 'A world's fair should be sponsored officially.' " A n d I said, ' W e l l , minor though I be, I am official. W h y d o n ' t I start something going?' "Follett said, 'If the City Council proposes it, the Chamber w i l l undoubtedly support it.' "Cunningham told me, 'The Times w i l l give it full support, and I think The Post-Intelligencer w o u l d , too.' "

Rochester recalls there was more talk. He does not remember whether he had lunch w i t h the others. He thinks he probably didn't, for there was a 2 p. m. meeting of the Council that day. His guess is that Denney Givens, w h o m Ross Cunningham recalls as having been present, probably came for lunch after he had left. The alternate version of the event is given by Cunningham. He recalls that he was having lunch w i t h Follett and Givens, w h o was then w o r k i n g for Follett, and that the three of them were discussing ways of getting some action in t o w n . A number of p r o j ects were scheduled to climax in 1959 and they talked of staging a celebration to draw attention to them and observe the half-centennial of the A-Y-P. At this point they saw Rochester coming into the room and Cunningham recalls saying, "Let's buy him a drink and sell him on the fair idea." Denney Givens recalls being present at the discussion. His memory is that it was Follett w h o touted Rochester on the idea of a fair. "As I remember i t , " Givens said long afterward, " A l snapped up the idea like a pup grabbing a string of wieners. It was made for h i m . " Whatever the origin of the message, Rochester carried the w o r d back to City Hall. Late that afternoon he dropped in at the city attorney's office to talk w i t h A. C. Van Soelen. Rochester admits to having had some misgivings about h o w the city attorney w o u l d react to the idea of a fair. "Van's a very slow man to spend a public buck. I thought he might say 'impossible.' But he's an old-timer and he had the spirit." Actually few men have fonder memories of the A-Y-P Exposition, and what it meant to Seattle, than Van Soelen. He was of high school age at the time of the A-Y-P, but he had to drop out of school for financial reasons. He was w o r k i n g as a beginning telegrapher, and could afford only a few visits to the Exposition. He loved what he saw, but what had pleased him most was Seattle's spurt of growth in 1909 and 1910. The Post Office had to add about fifty clerks and carriers. Young Van Soelen was one of them. W o r k i n g nights at the Post Office, he was able to finish high school, then go on to earn a law degree. He thought the Exposition was as fine a thing as had ever happened to Seattle. When Rochester had explained that he was interested in promoting a world's fair to commemorate the A-Y-P, Van Soelen was both reminiscent and rhapsodic. The o l d timers roamed through the good old days for a time, until, as Van Soelen recalls it, " A l says, ' W e l l , that gets us right d o w n to the point. H o w do we put the show on the road?'" " W e l l , let's see how they did it for the Exposition," said Van Soelen. " T o stage it in 1909 they must have asked the Legislature for help in 1907." He went to the shelves of leather-backed books that line his office wall and pulled out the Session Laws of 1907. There he found the resolution recognizing and authorizing the Exposition and making a million-dollar appropriation. " I ' d say that the way to go about it is for the Council to memorialize the Legislature and ask them to appoint a committee to study the feasibility of a fair," said Van Soelen. " I ' l l draft one for you. If they set up a c o m mittee we have a foot in the d o o r . " During the next t w o days Rochester discussed the idea of a memorial informally w i t h his fellow Council members. They said sure, go ahead and introduce it and they'd pass it.

O n Thursday night, January 27, 1955, Rochester found Van Soelen's draft of the memorial on his desk. He asked Ellen Jovick, a secretary to the City Council to stay late. Rochester made some changes, resulting in a six-whereas statement: "NOW,

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL

SEATTLE That your memorialists, Washington,

respectfully

State of Washington

the City Council

petition

in legislative

the Senate and House of Representatives session assembled to make proper

such an interim

committee,

recommendation

to the Legislature

desirability Washington,

and feasibility to-wit,

the State of Washington

with

the power

to investigate

and

of the State of Washington

of a World's

on the fiftieth

Pacific Exposition,

OF THE CITY OF

of the City of Seattle, State of

Fair and Exposition

anniversary

of the World's

of the

provision make

concerning

to be held in

Fair of the

the year 1959, and the active participation

for

proper the

Seattle,

Alaska-Yukontherein

along the lines of similar action taken by the State Legis-

lature of 1907 . . ." The memorial avoided direct mention of money. There was only the guarded reference to "lines of similar action taken by the State Legislature of 1907." Nor did Rochester's accompanying statement suggest anything so crass as financing. Potential benefits glowed in each paragraph, and prosperity to come suffused the horizon. No man to neglect the publicity of the m o m e n t in his dreams over the future, Rochester sent copies or the memorial and statement to all the King County members of the Legislature and to personal friends among the legislators from other counties. Mrs. Jovick also cranked out copies for the press. The P-l and Times each ran stories on Sunday. The first printed mention of the proposed world's fair appeared on deep inside pages of The Post-Intelligencer and The Times on Sunday, January 30. O n Monday, January 3 1 , the memorial was introduced in the Seattle City Council for first reading. Rochester crossed off his name as the sponsor of the proposal and wrote in " b y the C o u n c i l . " The f o l l o w i n g day, State Senator W i l l i a m Goodloe, Republican, of Seattle, along w i t h the other King County legislators found on his desk on the Senate floor a mimeographed copy of the proposed memorial. Goodloe had missed the story in the papers. He recalls feeling instant enthusiasm for the project. No sooner had Goodloe finished reading the draft than he left the Senate chamber, climbed the echoing steps to the bill drafting room and asked Walter Williams Jr., w h o was in charge of the preparation of bills, to write one creating a commission to study the feasibility of holding a fair. The State of Washington had played host to the National Conference of Governors a year or so earlier and a commission had been set up to handle the preparations. Goodloe suggested that Williams write a bill similar to that setting up the conference commission. "Put in, o h , $5,000 for expenses," he suggested. Then, since he wanted to represent the Senate on the world's fair commission and since he was sure that Governor Arthur B. Langlie, w i t h w h o m he was feuding, w o u l d not appoint h i m , he added, " D r a w the bill so that Governor Langlie w i l l appoint three committee members and name the chairman, but the president of the Senate w i l l name t w o senators, and the speaker of the House t w o representatives." So it was that w h i l e the Seattle City Council did not formally adopt the memorial to the Legislature until Monday, February 7, the Senate on February 3 heard the first reading of a bill doing as it was to be asked.

Favorable action by the Legislature was by no means certain. The 1955 Legislature was faced by many problemsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and was something of a problem itself. The Republicans controlled the Senate, twenty-four to twenty-two. The Democrats controlled

the

House, fifty to forty-nine, but the Democratic ranks were weakened by the presence of a half-dozen men of deep conservatism. The Republican party was rent by a feud between Governor Langlie and Attorney General Don Eastvold, and there were lesser fissures the Democrats could on occasion exploit. Steering a bill through both houses and across the governor's desk was akin to guiding a wagon train through country occupied by interpenetrating and mutually hostile tribes. Goodloe's bill was scheduled to be referred to the Committee on State Resources, Forestry and Lands, but Goodloe maneuvered to have it assigned to the Judiciary C o m mittee, of which he was chairman. The Judiciary Committee responded dutifully w i t h a favorable vote though, as Goodloe recalls, "there were some growls that I, a conservative, was recommending the expenditure of $5,000 on smoke for a pipe d r e a m . " Doubts on the floor of the Senate were more numerous and more vigorous. The state was in its customary financial b i n d , and many a senator could think of places in his o w n district where $5,000 w o u l d be extremely useful. Furthermore, though G o o d loe's bill, unlike the memorial, did not specify Seattle as the site, it did call for the world's fair to commemorate the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition; senators from eastern Washington were sure that spots beyond the mountains w o u l d be out. The final vote in the Senate came on February 16. The yeas numbered twenty-nine: Senators Andrews, Bargreen, Dahl, Dixon, Flanagan, Gallagher, Goodloe, Greive, Hofmeister, Jackson, Knoblauch, Nordquist, Nunamaker, Peterson, Raugust, Riley, Rogers, Rosellini, Ryder, Sears, Shannon, Sutherland, T o d d , W a l l , Washington, Wilson, W i n b e r g , Zahn and Zednick. There were fifteen nays: Barlow, Clark, Copeland, Cowen, Ganders, Gissberg, Hall, Happy, Ivy, Keefe, Lennart, Lindsay, Luvera, M c M u l l e n and Roup. Hoff and Pearson were absent. The House Rules Committee showed a distressing inclination toward party-pooperism. Committee discussions are in secret but w o r d leaked out that a majority was inclined to keep the bill bottled up. Goodloe and Senator Albert Rosellini doubleteamed the recalcitrant representatives in cloak room lobbying. Ross Cunningham of The Times and Stub Nelson of The P-l, w h o were covering the Legislature, applied pressure w i t h stories and tried persuasion in the corridors. Not until the closing days, when Goodloe judiciously bottled up in his committee a number of bills important to some of the more reluctant representatives, was the bill sprung loose w i t h a favorable recommendation. Once on the floor it passed w i t h o u t opposition. Governor Langlie signed the bill creating the Commission to study the feasibility of a fair w i t h o u t enthusiasm. Goodloe, the bill's sponsor, was not called in for the customary publicity photograph. He learned of the signing in the newspapers. But Lieutenant Governor Emmett Anderson, the president of the Senate, named Goodloe along w i t h Senator A n d r e w W i n b e r g as the Senate representatives on the World's Fair C o m mission; Speaker of the House John O'Brien selected Representatives Ray L. Olsen and Donald F. M c D e r m o t t ; and Governor Langlie chose Edward E. Carlson, Paul H. Sceva and Alfred Williams. Langlie designated Eddie Carlson as chairman, a decisive decision.

***--;-%'*â&#x20AC;¢ . **

Chapter Three

Yes, A Fairâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;But How And Where?

One afternoon late in the spring of 1955, young Eddie Carlson, heir apparent to the president of Western Hotels, Incorporated, was in the office of the president of the chain, S. W. Thurston, absorbing some fatherly advice. The import of Thurston's remarks was that while civic activities are fine and desirable on the part of a business executive, it is possible to overplay the community leader bit. Carlson, w h o recognized that he had earned his reputation as a pushover for committee assignments, was nodding agreement. The phone blinked. Thurston answered, then handed the receiver to Carlson. "The governor's office is calling y o u . " Edward E. Carlson and Governor Arthur B. Langlie had long been on a first name basis. Though the governor was a college generation ahead of Carlson at the University of Washington, they were fraternity brothers in Phi Kappa Sigma. Carlson had w o r k e d for Langlie on civic projects during Langlie's terms as mayor. So Art told Eddie that the recent Legislature had established a Commission to study the feasibility of holding a world's fair, and that he thought Eddie, as a recognized spokesman for the hotel

industry, which w o u l d be deeply involved in any fair, should be on the committee. Carlson thought otherwise. Under the approving gaze of Thurston, Eddie gave Art a lot of reasons why he couldn't. Langlie knew his man w e l l . W h e n Carlson had finished, the governor said, "Eddie, if you people in private business expect those of us in public life to do a responsible and businesslike j o b , then w e must be able to turn to capable citizens in the business community, from time to time, and get their help." Thinking back on it long afterwards, Carlson said, "You can't say no to the governor of your state when he puts it that way." So Carlson said yes. A n d the governor said, "As long as you are going to be on the committee, you're chairman." Langlie laughed and Carlson laughed, and when Carlson had hung up, President Thurston asked, w i t h o u t the hint of a smile, " W h a t have you let yourself in for this time?" " I ' m to head up a committee which is to make a study and report to the next Legislature on whether its feasible for the state to put on a world's fair." "Oh." Edward E. Carlson is a dark-haired, blue-eyed man w i t h the compact build of a college coxswain (which he had tried out for) and the compact, short gestures of a pro boxer (which he never tried). The words that his friends use most often in describing him are " c o m p e t e n t " and " c o m p e t i t i v e . " The words that stand out in his o w n conversation are " o b j e c t i v i t y , " "responsibility" and " i d e a l i s m ; " of the three, the most frequent is " o b j e c t i v i t y . " Carlson was born in Tacoma on June 4, 1911. His childhood was not easy. To the problems faced by a boy of small stature were added those of a periodically broken family; he alternated between living w i t h his parents in Tacoma and his grandparents in Seattle. He was educated in the Tacoma and Seattle public schoolsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;attending Lincoln High School in each t o w n , but graduating from Seattle's Lincoln. He has been a hotel man all his w o r k i n g life. Having to w o r k his way through high school, Carlson got a j o b parking cars nights in a hotel garage. It was, somehow, love at first sight. He never doubted that his career lay in hostelries. Summer vacations he worked at M o u n t Baker Lodge. W h i l e going to college he clerked at the Benjamin Franklin, and on leaving school in 1933, at the bottom of the depression, he started clerking at the Roosevelt Western Hotel in Seattle. The Western chain was then only three years o l d . Incorporated by Thurston and the late Frank Dupar, Western at first consisted of a loosely-knit group of small hotels in Wenatchee, Bellingham, Walla Walla, Olympia and other miniature metropolises. The small-town operation has, across the years, raised the Big W flag over such venerable hotels as San Francisco's St. Francis, Seattle's Olympic, and Denver's Cosmopolitan; it has built the Bayshore Inn in Vancouver, B. C , the Alameda in Mexico City, the Guatemala-Biltmore in Guatemala City; and it operates westernized hotels and restaurants in Kyoto and Tokyo. This was all far in the future w h e n , in 1935, the twenty-four-year-old clerk, Eddie Carlson, was appointed manager of one of Western's lesser houses, the President Hotel in M o u n t Vernon, Washington, a caravansary so minuscule that it boasted neither restaurant nor coffee shop. Carlson was convinced that rooms w i t h o u t f o o d were like

pretzels w i t h o u t beer, but he recognized his opinion as pure theory. He wanted to learn objectively about restaurants. So evenings and weekends the manager of the President Hotel w o u l d shuck his conservative suit and drive hastily from M o u n t Vernon to Bellingham, there to don the bagged hat and white apron of a fry cook in the Leopold Hotel. He learned the hotel restaurant business from the problems of popping grease to the techniques of arranging banquets, and when he put a coffee shop in at the President, it made money. The experience gained at M o u n t Vernon put Carlson in line for an appointment outside the Western chain. In 1937 he became manager of the Rainier Club, symbol of success and conservatism in Seattle. The opulence of the membership, however, did not mean that the management could take a relaxed view of finances. A friend of Carlson's recalls that not long ago, in his role as Seattle World's Fair impresario, Eddie was host at a party at the Rainier Club. Walking d o w n an aisle, he ducked into an empty dining room and switched off the lights. "It's reflex," he explained sheepishly. " I was manager here during the depression." It took the Navy to pry Carlson loose from the hushed charms of the chateau at Seattle's Fourth Avenue and Marion Street. He volunteered in 1942, going in as a lieutenant j . g . in supply, coming out in 1946 a lieutenant commander. Returning to Seattle, he rejoined Western Hotels as assistant to President Thurston. He became the president of Western Hotels in 1960. The first meeting of the State of Washington World's Fair Commission was held in Parlor A of the Olympic Hotel at noon on August 19, 1955, w i t h all seven members in attendance, plus seven guests. Everyone there hoped that somebody else present knew h o w to plan a fair. But as they browsed on steaks and coffee and sampled each other's conversation, each came to the terrifying realization that the others were looking hopefully to him. In his opening remarks, Eddie Carlson said that this first meeting w o u l d necessarily be exploratory; that since their assignment was to determine whether a world's fair was feasible he felt they should try to analyze, objectively, the purpose of such a fair; that they should decide whether a fair meeting the purpose could be held as early as 1959; that if it could be, then where, and finally they should consider ways in which it could be financed. They were not flying completely blind. Oregon was considering hosting a party in observance of the centennial of its statehood. Governor Patterson had appointed a committee to calculate feasibility. The Oregon group, better financed than

their

Washington counterparts, had spent $10,000 on a Stanford Research Institute report. Carlson had been able to borrow a copy. Although the SRI survey had explored the possibilities of a regional exposition for Oregon rather than a world's fair for Washington, many of the basic considerations were the same. The prospects as outlined in the report were not such as w o u l d set an objective man aflame w i t h optimism about a successful world's fair. To put on even an adequate regional show, the SRI prospectus said, it w o u l d be necessary to get city, county and state co-operation in financing the exposition and preparing the site. The dominant basic industries of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;lumber and w o o d products, agriculture and f o o d processing, light metals and energyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;would have to participate generously. In

going out for contributions, the promoters w o u l d have to face the fact that other, and proven, media of advertising were competing for the same dollars; few industries w o u l d be eager to build and maintain large and expensive exhibits. The rains of spring and fall, probable if not inevitable, argued against opening prior to June or closing later than October, meaning a run of only one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty days. Still, it was thought, a celebration, properly organized and p r o m o t e d , might draw between five and seven million visitors, half of them from outside of Oregon, one out of every five from outside the Northwest. The average visitor could be expected to spend $2.85 at the exposition, of which the operating corporation w o u l d receive about $1.70. This should leave an operating profit of from one million to three and a half millionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; but that w o u l d not be enough to pay the costs of acquiring and developing the site. Additional underwriting w o u l d have to come from somewhere. The survey added up to the conclusion that a regional exposition was feasible, but only if large industrial groups gave generous support, if facilities were provided which did not have to be paid for out of income from the exposition, and if experienced and competent people were brought in to run the show. In addition to these borrowed warnings, Chairman Carlson reminded the c o m missioners that Washington and Oregon each were eyeing the same summer and their shows might compete; that a Washington world's fair w o u l d also be competing for attention w i t h such annual activities as the Puyallup Western Washington Fair, the Washington State International Trade Fair at Seattle, and Greater Seattle, Incorporated's summertime Seafair activities. W i t h such a plethora of problems, the Commission w o u l d have to remain cool and objective. They needed all the help they could get. Councilman Rochester cited the gains that might f l o w from a fair. He recalled that many of the visitors to the A-Y-P had either stayed or had come back later to live in Washington. Another fair might stimulate g r o w t h , and growth was needed to provide the markets to attract industry. Further, the A-Y-P had left Seattle w i t h a heritage of a campus that had enabled the University of Washington to become one of the nation's leading institutions of learning. " I f a site could be found which could be developed so that it w o u l d have lasting value to the city or the state," Rochester said, " I am sure finances can be raised." Charles W. Hunlock, chairman of the Washington State Advertising Commission, thought a fair could make a substantial contribution to the w h o l e local economy, providing the finances could be w o r k e d out. " I f w e do it, let's do it in a big way." Walter Van Camp, executive vice-president of Greater Seattle, Incorporated, said he thought the estimated attendance figures for an Oregon centennial were high. But he thought that a fair w o u l d complement rather than rival Greater Seattle's activities. Don Follett, executive vice-president of the Seattle Chamber, said that the area needed a good shot in the arm, that a fair w o u l d be " a dramatic effort to give impetus." He suggested that any fair be built on the theme of trade w i t h Pacific Rim countries. Chamber President Stanley Stretton thought it advisable to get as w i d e a basis of support as possible. He thought that perhaps the w h o l e Pacific Northwest should sponsor a fairâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Alaska, Oregon and British Columbia, as well as Washington. A n d he warned that it no longer was easy to tap corporations for a contribution, because they were being continually importuned to support schools, hospitals, symphonies, and scores of

other w o r t h w h i l e activities. The facts were that there were more mouths than teats. It was 1:30 p.m. and the background had been sketched in. The guests left and the commissioners began the long business of making decisions. Spokane's Alfred Williams asked a fundamental question: "Suppose w e find a fair feasible and ask the Legislature for a very large appropriation? Can w e get it?" Representative M c D e r m o t t was sanguine. He thought the House w o u l d go along. Senator Goodloe recalled that even getting the first $5,000 to finance the feasibility survey had been a struggle. Discussion revealed the probability that enthusiasm for the project w o u l d decrease in direct ratio to the distance from Seattle. The Spokane Chamber was reported to be cool to the idea of using state money to promote a show in Seattle. So there they were, face to face w i t h the basic problems of money and site. Eddie Carlson observed that if the Army w o u l d relinquish Seattle's old Fort Lawton for a fair, or if the Navy w o u l d make available the empty acres of Sandpoint Naval Air Station on Lake Washington, it w o u l d provide the Commission w i t h a starting point for its consideration. Representative Ray Olsen was asked to check informally w i t h Senators Jackson and Magnuson, w h o knew their way around the Department of Defense, to see what the chances w o u l d be of using one of the federal facilities. Representative M c D e r m o t t was told that he had volunteered to be executive secretary, empowered to sign vouchers and handle nominal expenses. The commissioners wondered if they could find extra sources of revenues to support their researches. The chairman undertook to check w i t h the Oregon Centennial Commission to see if the two proposed 1959 celebrations could be co-ordinated, and to ask the Stanford Research Institute how much it w o u l d charge to expand the Oregon survey to cover a possible Washington world's fair. It was mentioned that eventually, if an exposition were found to be feasible, a nonprofit corporation should be formed. Carlson said future meetings w o u l d be held about once a m o n t h . They adjourned at 2:20 p. m. The show had started on the long, long road. There were detours. The Navy had $70,000,000 tied up in its Sandpoint facilities and was thinking in terms of more funds rather than give-away. The Army wasn't w i l l i n g to surrender its view property overlooking Puget Sound to a newly-commissioned commission. Stanford Research Institute wanted $6,000 for a survey, and even w i t h the O l y m p i c Hotel picking up the tab for the luncheon meetings, the commissioners couldn't figure out a way to stretch their $5,000 appropriation that far. By December, the W o r l d Fair's Commission had decided to use home talent in determining public reaction to a world's fair. Two University of Washington professors â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Dr. Nathanael H. Engle, director of the Bureau of Business Research, and Dr. Charles J. Miller of the College of Business Administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;were retained to conduct a selective postcard poll (four hundred postcards) and intensive personal interviews w i t h twenty Seattle-area business leaders to determine public attitude toward the project. W h i l e the professors were sampling, the commissioners were surveying possible sites in the Seattle area. Proposals ranged from the Western Washington Fair grounds in Puyallup to the garbage d u m p at the edge of the University of Washington campus; from Duwamish Head, where it was proposed to fill in the tidelands, to Lake Union, where the idea

was to create a one hundred and five-acre island; from W o o d l a n d Park and Green Lake to First Hill. A n d there was still hopeful talk that the Army or Navy might yield fragments of their empires. The first site to draw really serious consideration was in the Port of Seattle's proposed Duwamish and Lower Green River development area. The thought was that the main grounds could lie just up the river from the Duwamish Drive-In Theater. U. S. Highway 99 w o u l d provide access to the fairgrounds (though there were shudders at the thought of tangling traffic from the huge Boeing Company plant w i t h fair traffic) and the proximity of the highway to the fairgrounds w o u l d call attention to the exposition. The Port's power to condemn could be used in the acquisition of property. Buildings left over might be converted to industrial use as the A-Y-P buildings had been to educational use. The commissioners held study sessions w i t h the Seattle-King County

Industrial

Development Council, the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the Port of Seattle, whose attitude was sympathetic but not w i l d l y enthusiastic. The difficulties in designing fair buildings that might do duty later as factories were discussed. The lack of enthusiasm of private industrial land developersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;such as the railroadsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for the Duwamish-Green River project was cited. The high cost of developing low land, where extensive piling is required, was mentioned. But what really sent the Duwamish proposal d o w n the drain was the legal opinion that the Port of Seattle did not have the right to condemn the land. If the development site had to be acquired from the individual owners through negotiations unbacked by the threat of condemnation proceedings, not only w o u l d the price be too high but the possibility of delay w o u l d become infinite. (Already individual Commission members were of the opinion that it w o u l d not be practical to hold a fair as early as 1959, though they agreed that it w o u l d be impolitic to announce a change in target dates.) The consensus of the commissioners was that a fair site w o u l d have to be acquired through some public agency. Meanwhile Dr. Engle and Professor Miller had completed their personal interviews of twenty prominent Seattle citizens and their mail canvass of approximately four hundred leading citizens around the state engaged in business, agriculture, education, labor and government. Appearing before the Commission at the regular meeting in February, Dr. Miller reported that on the simple question of whether a fair was desirable, ninety-eight per cent of those polled thought it was. The interviews showed "almost unanimous interest and enthusiasm." Many of the people consulted thought the potentials of tourist trade in Washington had barely been touched, and expressed willingness to participate actively in putting on a fair. The project, some said, w o u l d show various local interests the benefits of w o r k i n g together and w o u l d serve to unite the community. There was considerable sentiment for having a strong Far East flavor in the show, to emphasize the importance of Pacific trade. Dr. Engle added that the consensus of those interviewed as to location was that a fair should be held " w h e r e accomodations and population are greatest." This could only be translated as "somewhere in Seattle." Hanging their hats on the Miller-Engle report, the Commission members agreed that state-wide o p i n i o n for a world's fair was favorable. The next step, Chairman Carlson

suggested, w o u l d be to decide on economic feasibilityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that presumably w o u l d involve the question of site, since site costs w o u l d help determine feasibility. Commissioner Williams raised the question of whether or not the Commission was charged w i t h the responsibility of picking a site. The chairman said that it was not specifically charged, that in his opinion they could simply submit the survey by Engle and Miller to the Legislature and let it go at that, but personally he felt the Commission should go further. Carlson thought the report might recommend t w o or three sites for consideration by the Legislature. Representative M c D e r m o t t , w h o had been riffling through his brief case during the discussion, brought out the act creating the Commission, and read: "The Commission shall file a report of its conclusions and its recommendations as to the recommended participation of the State of Washington in assisting such a fair and as to the legislation necessary thereof. Copies of said report shall be submitted to the governor, the president of the Senate, and the speaker of the House of Representatives by November 1, 1956." Representative Olsen said, " W h e n this gets to the Legislature, they're going to ask, 'Where is the site and how much w i l l it cost?' " Senator W i n b e r g agreed, "They w i l l want definite recommendations." The Commission agreed to have a subcommittee on sites. Carlson appointed Senator Goodloe chairman. W h i l e the World's Fair Commission had been refining its objectives, other civic groups and private citizens had been trying to devise ways of creating new sports and cultural facilities for Seattle. Mayor Allan Pomeroy, at the request of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, had appointed an ad hoc committee, headed by businessman Robert Block, to look into the possibility of putting across a bond issue. The Block committee was backing a proposal for an $8,500,000 bond issue which w o u l d finance acquisition of seventeen or eighteen acres on First Hill for a theater and music center, and the expansion of city holdings around the Civic A u d i t o r i u m by twenty-six acres. The City Council, which was cool to the Block committee plan, kept the question off the ballot on a technicality, but supporters of the bond issue were seeking to force a special election. Another organization, Allied Arts of Seattle, at its second annual congress of organizations and individuals concerned w i t h the arts, unanimously passed on November 20, 1955, a resolution that read: "Be It Resolved: That the World's Fair Commission of the State of Washington be commended for its thorough-going exploration of the feasibility of a world's fair to be held about the year of 1959; Be It Further Resolved: That should the World's Fair Commission recommend to the State of Washington that such a fair is feasible that it also recommend that the Seattle Art Commission and the Seattle Planning Commission and Allied Arts of Seattle be represented on any commission or group charged with the guiding, planning or execution of such a world's fair." At their meeting on December 21 in Parlor A of the Olympic, the commissioners had decided to acknowledge the resolutions w i t h thanks but not to get involved in the civic center discussions, at least until they had determined whether there w o u l d be

Proposed World's Fair Sites

Alki Point

Civic ^Auditorium ,S/te First Hill \Central ] Business 1 f^| | District Duwamish \l

4ll444Si441|'i/P- •••';;;

J1I4.44. : 444 : .

^illSllff •PSiiiiifiissi Slllllllilll l l l l l l l lffill ?1 :liiiii :

f*#

^^S«|P^^'

•? \ V

A. *•- /

44: : 44 i f l i l j

support for a fair. The minutes reflect the attitude of the Commission as being that " i t has not developed the long-range objectives of the proposed fair to a point where an analysis can be made of the utilization of this area (First Hill, which the Block c o m mittee was then proposing) in connection with a world's fair site." By late February, having decided on the basis of the Miller-Engle study that the climate of opinion was favorable to a fair, the Commission was ready to see how its activities might be related to other groups. W i t h the approval of his colleagues, Goodloe named to the subcommittee on sites: John S. Detlie, president of Allied Arts of Seattle and chairman of the Seattle Art C o m mission; James Chiarelli, like Detlie an architect and a member of Allied Arts; Lloyd J. Lovegren, president of the Washington State Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and a member of Allied Arts; and Robert F. Hintz, the principal planner of the Seattle City Planning Commission. After a series of informal study sessions, the subcommittee outlined the merits and demerits of possible locations: FORT LAWTON PROPER: Approximately five hundred acres, of which t w o hundred twenty were usable. The view from the site and the view of the site from the city were excellent. It could have been reached by water—a consideration important if the theme of the fair were seaborne trade. Highway access needed improvement, and it was suggested as possible the extension of Alaskan Way along the margin of Elliott Bay, over Pier 9 1 , and along the water's edge to Fort Lawton as a scenic outer drive. Some of the existing buildings might have been remodeled and retained. The varying levels on the site offered interesting possibilities of landscaping. The w i n d might have been a problem some months. After the fair, the grounds could have made a fine municipal park but w o u l d have been rather remote for civic structures. FORT LAWTON WATER FRO N T - T h e r e were three hundred acres south of West Point and t w o hundred more could have been made available north of the point by filling land. The view from the site was good but the view of it from the city was restricted. It could have been reached by water. The highway problem was the same as for Fort Lawton proper. The lighthouse might have been redesigned as part of a gateway to the Orient theme. Buildings w o u l d have required pilings. After the fair the Fort Lawton waterfront could have served as a park and yacht basin. D U W A M I S H HEAD—About one hundred fifty acres w o u l d have been available, but only if the land were filled and a floating island created. The site offered a good view, particularly of the city, and it could be seen from the city. Water accessibility was excellent, but it was hard to reach by road. " M o r e generous and more graceful means than now exist w o u l d be desirable." Buildings w o u l d have required pilings, and any major building on the proposed floating island w o u l d have been costly. It w o u l d have made a good post-fair park, but otherwise was remote for civic use. FIRST HILL ENLARGED—This was an extension of the site proposed for a performing arts center by the Block committee. It w o u l d have covered about eighty-five acres, including portions north of the railroad stations, and a corridor reaching d o w n to the waterfront. Water accessibility was " g o o d though constricted," and highway accessibility " g o o d but complicated." The upper portion of the site offered dramatic possibilities; the lower portions w o u l d have been constricted by the Alaskan Way Viaduct and

surrounding buildings. After the fair it w o u l d have provided a permanent location for the majority of civic buildings, and a civic plaza w i t h a consolidated railroad station. SAND POINTâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;The Navy station area offered three hundred fifty acres w i t h an excellent view, though it could not be seen from the city center. Water accessibility was excellent, but it w o u l d have been hard to reach by road. The level site offered interesting possibilities for seascape development. The permanent existing buildings might have been remodeled. A good post-fair park, but remote. UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON U N I O N B A Y - A b o u t t w o hundred fifty acres of filled land w o u l d have been available, offering a good but somewhat confined view. The site could not have been seen from the city center. Water accessibility was good, which was more than could be said for the roads. The flat site on deep peat, necessitating a constraining bulkhead, "was not too inspirational." All buildings w o u l d have to have been on piles. The post-fair use w o u l d have depended on University policy. CIVIC A U D I T O R I U M SITE ENLARGED-About t w o hundred eighteen acres, some already occupied w i t h civic structures. The view from the site was excellent, and it could be seen from the city center. There w o u l d be water accessibility if a corridor were run d o w n to a plaza on Elliott Bay. Highway accessibility was good. The present civic buildings could be left, or remodeled. Foundation conditions were good. The site could serve as the permanent location for many civic buildings. Other sites considered but not given a detailed study included Newport Bay and twenty acres of high land behind it; W o o d l a n d Park and Green Lake, where the area was held to be "generally insufficient w i t h o u t taking virtually all the park;" and Lake Union, where the idea of a man-made island was considered intriguing but awash w i t h problems. At 9 o'clock on the morning of March 22, all members of the Commission and of the subcommittee on sites, w i t h the exception of Bill Goodloe w h o was d o w n w i t h the flu, boarded a M o u n t Rainier Park Company sightseeing bus provided by Commissioner Sceva, and, accompanied by Stub Nelson of The Post-Intelligencer, Ross Cun. ningham of The Times and Armand Marion of the Washington State Hotel Association, toured the proposed sites. It was raining, and the pads of statistics the members had been given blotched blue as they jotted notes. The group went first to First Hill, where the old buildings lay gray and dismal under the low sky. Somebody mentioned the possibility that federal urban renewal funds might be available for redevelopment of part of the area. Duwamish Head came next, w i t h the visitors deploring the view from the approaches but admiring the vista from the site itself. They agreed it might be a good idea to erect a momumental symbol on the Alki bluff even if the fair were elsewhere. Back they came into t o w n for a visit to the Civic A u d i t o r i u m site. At the time the area under consideration reached d o w n to the waterfront. The rain was lighter, the comments more optimistic as the party roamed the tract. Everyone was struck by the nearness of the d o w n t o w n buildings. O u t at Union Bay on the University campus, they shook their heads over the trembling acres of peat bog and thought of the cost of diking. Looking at Lake Union they discussed whether it w o u l d be possible to have a fair reached only by boat, and h o w much it w o u l d cost to throw bridges across the water to the man-made island.

W i t h Lake Union, the group decided it had had enough site-seeing for the day. They retreated to the Manor Room at the Benjamin Franklin to discuss what they had seen. Two remarks by visitors stand out in the memories of the commissioners. Robert Hintz, Seattle's principal planning officer, said, " A n y world's fair site w o u l d have to have something in connection w i t h a civic center so that the buildings erected for the fair w o u l d have some permanent value." A n d Lloyd Lovegren, president of the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said, " O u r advice is that the Commission view the sites from the standpoint of dramatic impact. To succeed on a broad scale, the fair must have dramatic impact to sell throughout the w o r l d . Seattle is one of the few places that has terrific atmosphere. W e w h o live here should capitalize on the view of Puget Sound and the view of the Olympics, portals of the Pacific." For more than an hour discussion ranged over the sites, narrowing gradually to First Hill versus Civic A u d i t o r i u m . Finally Chairman Carlson summarized the situation. "There are t w o facets to this project," said Carlson. " O n e is long range development for the city, and the other is to do a j o b as far as the world's fair is concerned. There is real justification if, out of the fair, the city and the state can get some permanent buildings. Time moves rapidly. If I were to have to make a decision as to the most important aspect of our work, I w o u l d sacrifice other things in order to get some long range benefits." The chairman went on to say that after a site was picked the Commission w o u l d have to decide what facilities w o u l d be needed for a fair and which of them could become permanent buildings. A n d he suggested that perhaps a plan might be drawn showing the buildings originally planned for the Block committee's First Hill site as they might look on the Civic A u d i t o r i u m site. Though nothing was decided at that session, it marked a watershed in the World's Fair Commission's activities. From that point, thinking was directed not so much toward deciding which site was best as to ways of using the Civic A u d i t o r i u m site. A few days after the World's Fair Commission toured the sites and developed a decisive bent toward the Civic A u d i t o r i u m , the Seattle City Council passed a resolution creating a Civic Center Advisory Committee. The new body, which in effect enveloped and absorbed the Block committee, was asked " t o assist in the selection of a suitable civic center site, to study the city's needs and requirements, and to report its findings not later than July 1,1956"—a date that w o u l d leave time for the Council to put a civic center bond issue on the November ballot. The Commission sent three of its seven members—Chairman Carlson, Senator G o o d loe and Representative Olsen—as its delegates to the thirty-nine-member

Advisory

Committee. Chairman of the new group was Harold S. Shefelman, a stocky little attorney of much ingenuity and experience. W h e n it proved difficult for many of the men of affairs on the bulky committee to dovetail their schedules, Shefelman suggested that they foregather at the ferociously early hour of 7 o'clock and get in some decisions along w i t h hotcakes and coffee. Thus started the epidemic of breakfast m e e t i n g s Sleeping Time w i t h Shefelman—which raged like a beneficent plague throughout the era of the fair. Meeting t w o , three and occasionally four times a week, the early birds of the Shefelman committee came to roost at the Civic A u d i t o r i u m . The Civic Center Advisory

Committee recommended to the Council that the city sponsor a $7,500,000 bond issue on the November ballot, w i t h $2,500,000 to be used for acquisition of additional land; $3,800,000 for construction of a convention hall, $750,000 for a youth center, $250,000 for renovation of the archaic Civic A u d i t o r i u m , and $200,000 to provide parking. O n July 6, Eddie Carlson reported back to the World's Fair Commission. He told them that one of the considerations in the minds of the Shefelman committee in reaching a decision in favor of the Civic A u d i t o r i u m site was the possibility that the area could be used for the fair. John Detlie, the president of Allied Arts and chairman of the City Art Commission, expanded on the theme. Using a pointer and a map scotch-taped to the wall of the Del Mar Room of the Benjamin Franklin, he outlined a site of some seventy acres, of which the city already o w n e d twenty-eight. Doubts were immediately expressed about the adequacy of a seventy-acre site. The commissioners had been thinking in terms of larger areas. The first suggestion for a Civic Auditorium-fair site had been for t w o hundred eighteen acres. (An appraiser has estimated the cost of acquisition at $25,000,000â&#x20AC;&#x201D;much more than $100,000â&#x20AC;&#x201D;but it was felt much of the land could be sold after a fair.) The basic question was whether a successful show could be staged on seventy acres. Ray Olsen had provided an answer on that. Assigned to check on the area occupied by other expositions, he had asked the British Information Service for material on the 1951 Festival of Britain. To the surprise of everyone, he reported it had been based on a site of only twenty-eight acres. So was born the concept of a jewel-box fair for Seattle. In summary Carlson told the commissioners he felt that Olsen, Goodloe and he had gone along w i t h the other organizations on the Shefelman committee in selecting the Civic A u d i t o r i u m site in the belief that if a quality fair could be put on in a smaller area, financing w o u l d be simplified. "If the people of Seattle by their actions at the polls in November approve this program," said Carlson, "then in good conscience w e can ask the State Legislature for its support. W e can state w i t h o u t equivocation that the people think well enough of improving their o w n city to support a bond issue of $7,500,000 for buildings, acquisition of land, and so forth, and w i l l let the state use the facilities. O n the other hand, if Seattle does not support the bond issue, there is little chance that the Legislature w i l l look w i t h favor upon a world's fair." Paul Sceva moved that the activities and recommendations of the Commission's subcommittee on the Civic Center Advisory Committee be endorsed. The motion was seconded by Senator Winberg. It carried unanimously. The Civic A u d i t o r i u m site it was to beâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;if the City Council submitted the bond proposition and the voters approved. The Council put the $7,500,000 bond issue on the ballot. The people endorsed it by a vote of 187,053 to 63,752. The Commission, nearing the end of its assignment, was also at the frayed end of its financial rope. Twice they sent hopeful S-O-S's to Olympia for aid from the governor's emergency fund. Twice they received neither money, nor reply. W i t h o u t wherewithal to hire a professional report-preparer, Chairman Carlson decided on a do-it-

yourself program. To the dismay of his family he cancelled all social engagements one post-Thanksgiving weekend and penned a working-draft at home. Notwithstanding its formidable titleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;The World's Honorable

Arthur B. Langlie, Governor,

Fair Commission

and the 1957 Session of the

Report

the

Legislatureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Eddie's

effort turned out to be short, lucid and interesting. After tracing the legislative history of the creation of the Commission, its assignment, and the appointment of its members, Carlson touched briefly on the history of recent fairsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Chicago's Century of Progress, the New York World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition and the Festival of Britain. He used the Engle-Miller report to indicate the climate of public opinion and outlined the reasons why the C o m mission and Shefelman's committee recommended the Civic A u d i t o r i u m site. As Chairman Carlson approached the climax of his twelve-page report, his enthusiasm began to shine through his prose. " W e cannot over-emphasize the great opportunity that is available to us to create an area that could be as dramatic as the age we live i n . " The conclusions and recommendations were succinct. The Commission

recom-

mended that a "Festival of the W e s t " be held from July to October of 1960 and 1961. (Carlson explained that the Commission felt there w o u l d not be time to develop and publicize properly a golden anniversary of the A-Y-P. He did not spell out the uneasy feeling of the commissioners that a world's fair might be too great an undertaking. He simply used the term Festival of the West, which tied in w i t h the Commission's enthusiasm for the compact and successful Festival of Britain.) The report contended that the state w o u l d "benefit immeasurably from the stimulus of business generated by such a festival and the attention of the nation and the w o r l d on this area." It argued that the civic center area provided sufficient land " t o create a dramatic festival, not the largest exposition of its kind, but certainly one featuring quality of design and reflecting the influence of the Orient on our business and cultural life, and the great challenge of life in this atomic and electronic age." It suggested that the state "make an appropriation comparable to the bond issue approved by the citizens of Seattle" and that any profits be returned to the state treasury's general fund. Lasting buildings should accrue to the city, state and federal agencies " i n the same way our forefathers had the vision and courage to plan the Alaska-YukonPacific Exposition, and from that laid the groundwork for our great University of Washington." Finally, the report recommended that a commission be given the responsibility of appointing a "design and planning co-ordinator" to w o r k in co-operation w i t h the agencies that w o u l d be developing the civic center. " I t is unique," the report concluded, "that the City of Seattle should embark upon a program at the same time the State of Washington contemplates a major exposition. The opportunity to carry this forward in concert may never happen again during several coming generations. Therefore, the World's Fair Commission unanimously and earnestly recommends approval of the program as o u t l i n e d . " The report was adopted unanimously. They all signed it w i t h hope and relief: Edward E. Carlson, chairman; Paul H. Sceva, Alfred C. Williams, W i l l i a m C. Goodloe, A n d r e w W i n b e r g , Ray L. Olsen and Donald F. M c D e r m o t t .

ii • •

fii : fi\

m i

=£ *, M

The skyline changed. A little at first. Inconspicuously. A few old gingerbread houses crumbled under heavy-handed power shovels. And some dirt was rearranged in the corners of the stage-to-be. The planners could see it then. They called it a "jewelbox." It was to be a compact fair, closely contained on small grounds near the city. There were scorners in Seattle, and they were outspoken, challenging the aptitude of the amateur impresarios. But the structures rose boldly . . . the Space Needle, the Coliseum with the cable latticework, the Science Pavilion, the Opera House, all of them. And with each day, as the visual appearance of the fair mounted, the mocking diminished.

• " • • :

' r

W •

•

'••'.:;.

••

• • . ' . - - . •

•

• '••>••:-:

•Hpv

) | |

,yi 4***—1'"—

+ ...j ! !

"\ »v 'M%,m \

•m^m^.

-..„.

Chapter Four

Partners Should Be Fifty-Fifty

At the same November election in which the voters approved the $7,500,000 bond issue to remake the map of Seattle's lower Mercer Street area, they redrew the political picture of the state. Republican Governor Langlie had not sought re-election, instead trying unsuccessfully to unseat Democratic Senator Warren G. Magnuson. In Langlie's place the electorate chose Albert D. Rosellini, a Democratic state senator from King County's Thirty-Third District. While Rosellini was being elevated, one of the four members of the Legislature w h o had served on the World's Fair Commission, Republican Representative M c D e r m o t t , was defeated. (Support or disapproval of a fair appears not to have been a campaign issue.) Senators Goodloe (Republican) and Winberg (Democrat) did not have to run for another two years. The representative w h o survived the election was Ray Olsen. Olsen is a medium-size, medium-age man w i t h gray hair, blue eyes and a pink complexion. He dresses w i t h the quiet conservatism befitting the operator of a good

men's clothing store in a small t o w n , which for many years he was. A devotee of political as well as sartorial nonflamboyance, Olsen w o u l d be inconspicuous in a phone booth. In the Legislature he seldom orates on the floor but instead is perpetually at work in corridor and committee room. State house reporters describe the former haberdasher as being particularly adept at buttonholing. He is a man w h o gets things done. Born in Baker, Oregon, Olsen first came to Seattle at the age of eleven, but his parents soon moved on across Puget Sound to Bremerton. After being graduated from high school, he went to w o r k in a clothing store, which he later bought from the owner's w i d o w . He ran the store until 1939. An active Democrat, Olsen was nominated by Warren Magnuson, w h o then was First District congressman, to be assistant supervisor of the 1940 census in the Seattle area, w o r k i n g under Joe Adams. (The government was able to rent the entire third floor of the Fourth and Pike Building, furnished, for $150 a month.) The census finished, Adams and Olsen moved into politics as the First Congressional District managers of C. C. Dill's gubernatorial race against Seattle's Mayor Langlie. Dill carried the district but lost the state. "Langlie has haunted m e , " Olsen remarked once in summarizing his political career. " W h e n Walgren beat him in 1944, I went to Olympia as assistant director of public service, but four years later Langlie w o n the governorship back, and it was back to Seattle for me. That's when I decided to run for office on my o w n . In 1950 I filed for a House seat from the Thirty-Fifth Legislative District, which includes d o w n t o w n Seattle (and in 1957 was expanded to take in the precincts on which the Seattle World's Fair was eventually located) and I've held it ever since." Through most of the 1950s, Olsen also served as a public relations man and magazine editor for the Washington State Restaurant Association. More recently he has been budget director (as administrative assistants are yclept in King County) to Commissioner Ed M u n r o . As the surviving member of the World's Fair Commission in the Legislature, Olsen was the logical man to handle the legislative campaign for state financial participation at the '57 session. The Commission's report to the Legislature had pointed to the Seattle bond issue and suggested that the state make a comparable appropriation. A number of people seem to have been struck, more or less simultaneously, w i t h the idea of interpreting " c o m p a r a b l e " to mean "exactly the same." Olsen recalls a breakfast meeting after the election at which Eddie Carlson spoke hopefully of getting t w o or three millions from the state, to which Olsen responded that he thought he could w i n from the Legislature another seven-and-a-half million. Ross Cunningham of The Times remembers advising Virginia Burnside, the governorelect's girl Friday, that Rosellini should make state sponsorship of a fair a dominant theme in his inaugural address. Governor Rosellini recalls that Olsen, Carlson and House Speaker O'Brien visited his office in the Smith Tower w h i l e the inaugural speech was being drafted, and urged that a request for "comparable f u n d s " be included. At the time the budget looked to be in shaky balance at best and Rosellini said he was determined to hold the line

against any general tax increase. W i t h no assurance of where state money for a fair could be f o u n d , the governor avoided mentioning a specific amount. W h e n he stood before the legislators on January 16 to read his address, he said, " A report w i l l be submitted to the Legislature urging that a world's fair be held in Seattle at some time during the next four years. I recommend it to you for your consideration and action." Not long after the inauguration Victor A. Meyers, the former

lieutenant-governor

w h o had made a political comeback in 1956 by w i n n i n g election as secretary of state, came d o w n the aisle to the governor's big office, and said, " A l , I know how we can finance that fair." "How?" "There haven't been any raises in corporation fees since Washington became a state, and the fees are ridiculous. They're way below those in Oregon, California and Idaho. You could double them and use the new income to underwrite a seven-and-a-half million bond issue and still have money left over. A n d I'll bet the corporations w o u l d be so glad you weren't hitting them harder that you w o u l d n ' t hear a squeak." A b o u t that time the governor checked by phone w i t h Carlson at the Olympic. "Eddie, how much do you feel the state's contribution should be toward a fair?" " A l , you fellows have to decide what you can afford. But if you're going to be a partner in something, it's nice to be a fifty-fifty partner." " O K , " said the governor. " I think we can get it for y o u . " Governor Rosellini passed Vic Meyers suggestion on financing on to Ray Olsen, w h o studied it and found it good. Olsen had had two House bill numbers reserved for world's fair legislation. Now he had the drafting department incorporate the idea of a bond issue backed by the increase in corporation fees into the bill. As summarized in its heading, Olsen's bill was: "AN

ACT to promote

authorizing equipment

the commercial

the acquisition

and appurtenances,

suitable

of Seattle and for other state purposes; state agencies; granting and sale of limited the retirement

the power

obligation

and economic

and development

for a world's prescribing

of eminent

development

of a site together

funds;

state;

buildings,

fair to be held in the City powers

domain;

and duties of

authorizing

bonds of the state and pledging

of said bonds, creating

of the with

and making

the

certain issuance

certain revenues

appropriation."

The text of the bill spelled it out that the site was to be " i n the City of Seattle in the vicinity of the civic center." It named the Department of Commerce and Economic Development as the agency to represent the state in its dealings w i t h the World's Fair Commission, the City of Seattle, and other departments, agencies, political subdivisions and municipal corporations. The bond issue was to be for $7,500,000, w i t h the moneys thus raised "available only for the purpose of plans and surveys for site and buildings, the aquisition of a site in the City of Seattle in the vicinity of the civic center and the purchase, construction, or acquisition by any lawful means of permanent type buildings, equipment

and

appurtenances." Meanwhile Representative Ray L. Olsen was jockeying through the Legislature another bill to enlarge the World's Fair Commission and extend its powers. The proviso

The State of Washington World's Fair Commission

that the Commission be expanded to fifteen members was changed to provide that the Seattle City Council appoint one of its members to the Commission. The amended bill passed the Senate on January 29, and the House on February 14. Under it, the members of the World's Fair Commission were empowered to form a nonprofit corporation to act as the Commission's agent in staging a fair " w i t h i n the State of Washington during the year 1960 or as soon thereafter as deemed practical by the Commission." (It was shortly after the close of the legislative session that the fair was named the Century 21 Exposition. This name had been agreed upon at an informal soiree held by Victor Rosellini for a group of reporters, ad-men and public relations counselors. The purpose of the gathering was to sift ideas for a name that w o u l d conjure images of progress w i t h o u t implying a world's fair—a claim many felt Seattle w o u l d be unable to sustain. Not long before the meeting, Gerald Hoeck and Marlowe Hartung, of Miller, MacKay, Hoeck and Hartung advertising agency, had been talking about names for the big show. Hoeck suggested it be called the Twenty-First Century Exposition and Hartung said, "Turn it around and it sounds better." So early in the party above Rosellini's 610, Hoeck asked the assemblage, " W h y not call it the Century 21 Exposition?" Everyone liked the name but formal approval was held up for another t w o hours when it was pointed out that an immediate vote might dry the f l o w of refreshment.) O n the key appropriation bill, however, it was felt advisable to retain the description " w o r l d ' s fair." Ray Olsen didn't want any of the legislators thinking little about the project when he was asking them for seven-and-a-half m i l l i o n , even though he was able to assure them in individual conferences that the fair could be staged w i t h o u t draining existing sources of revenue. Only a few failed to think big. Olsen's bill cleared the House March 9—eighty-two to two—with only Representatives Beierlein and Gallagher voting no. The Senate appeared equally favorable but the session was coming to an end and the problem in the upper house was forcing the vote. Olsen lobbied and sweat ice. Goodloe and W i n b e r g exerted all the leverage they had. Not until the last day of the session did the bill come out of committee and onto the floor. It passed, thirty to three (Barlow, Ivy and Nordquist), w i t h only hours to spare. Governor Rosellini chose Richard E. Jones of Spokane to succeed Alfred C. Williams, and Victor Rosellini of Seattle to succeed Paul Sceva of Tacoma. Speaker O'Brien filled the vacancy the voters had created; he named Representative Charles M. Stokes of Seattle to take Representative McDermott's place. The Seattle City Council sent as its representative Councilman J. D. Braman. At this stage, w i t h $15,000,000 committed to a fair, and the city and state—the contributing bodies—in general agreement as to the site, the road ahead seemed uphill but clear. It was to become mountainous and all but invisible.

Edward E. Carlson Chairman, 1955-1963

Victor Rosellini Vice-chairman, 1957-1963

Lt. Gov. J. A. Cherberg 1959-1963

Alfred R. Rochester Director, 1960-1963

Sen. Howard Bargreen 1959-1963

Councilman J. D. Braman 1957-1963

Sen. Herbert H. Freise 1959-1963

Paul S. Friedlander 1961-1963

Sen. M. J. Gallagher 1959-1963

Sen. R. A. Knoblauch 1959-1963

H. Dewayne Kreager 1960-1963

Rep. Ray Olsen 1955-1963

Rep. Leonard A. Sawyer 1959-1963

Rep. Jeannette Testu 1961-1963

Sen. William C. Goodloe 1955-1959

Rep. D. F. McDermott 1955-1957

^^M f*Â»s. \

Clarence C Dill 1959-1963

Rep. A. F. Mahaffey 1959-1963

...

mm*

Paul H. Sceva 1955-1957

Garland Sponburgh 1961

Rep. Paul M. Stocker 1959-1960

Rep. Charles M. Stokes 1957-1959

Alfred C. Williams 1955-1957

Sen. Andrew Winberg 1955-1959

Sen. Victor Zednick 1959

Sam Boddy Jr. Ex officio, 1960-1961

Sen. Edward F. Riley Ex officio, 1961-1963

Robert E. Rose Ex officio, 1961-1963

Roger C. Walsh Ex officio, 1957-1963

Judson Wonderly Ex officio, 1957-1963

The Board of Directors and Officers Century 21 Exposition, Incorporated The key persons in the Century 21 Exposition gathered in front of the United States Science Pavilion for this official portrait. Members not pictured are Board Chairman William S. Street and Vice-president A. W. Morton. Two other members, D. Roy Johnson and Lee Moran, passed away before the completion of the fair. The members in the photograph are listed from the left to the right—top row; middle row, and first row.

'••;;,;.;:• ' • • - %

J. Elroy McCaw Vice-president

L. E. Karrer Vice-president

E. P. Tremper Vice-president

R. B. Colwell Vice-president

Harry L. Carr Vice-president

Arthur Cooperstein Controller

G. E. Gorans Vice-president

Willis Camp Vice-president

O t t o Brandt Vice-president

J. B. Douglas Vice-president

Fred Paulsell Treasurer

Joseph E. Gandy President

Harry Henke III Vice-president

Ewen C. Dingwall Vice-president

Lowell Hunt Vice-president

Norman Davis Vice-president

E. E. Carlson Past President

Michael Dederer Vice-president

D. E. Skinner Vice-president

I. H. Cederwall Vice-president

Chapter Five

Fifteen Million And None To Spend

Ewen Dingwall, the lank, big-framed, big-domed executive director of the Washington State Research Council, was sitting in his office in the Arcade Building one day late in March of 1957 when the phone rang. His old friend Harold Shefelman was inviting Ding to come up to his law office in the Northern Life Tower for a conference on a problem of mutual interest. Arriving at the office a few minutes later, Dingwall found another friend, Eddie Carlson, there as w e l l . Had he heard about the Century 21 Exposition that was being planned for 1960 or 1961, they wanted to know. Dingwall admitted knowing that there was to be a fair and that money had been appropriated for site acquisition and development, but he said he'd hate to have to take a test on details. Eddie and Harold filled him in on the detailsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a j o i n t venture by the city and state, each party contributing $7,500,000 to develop a site on which the exposition could be

held, w i t h the immediate objective putting on a show that w o u l d stimulate business and call attention to the area, and the long-range objective a legacy of buildings that w o u l d serve as community center. Dingwall wished them w e l l . " W h a t w e need," said Shefelman, "is somebody to direct the project, someone w h o can represent the interests of both the city and the state. The thing has grown past the point where Eddie and I and the Civic Center Advisory Committee and the World's Fair Commission can handle it on a volunteer basis. There has to be somebody tending the store full t i m e . " Dingwall furrowed his bulging brow in an effort to think of a likely candidate. Then Eddie and Harold yanked the rug out from under an orderly life: W o u l d Ding take the j o b himself? He felt the sting of challenge, but saw quickly all the reasons w h y he should not accept. The closest he had ever come to entertainment was pulling an oar in the University of Washington varsity crews. He was happy and secure and well paid in his present position. Managing a fledgling world's fair w o u l d make coaching football seem like the peak of j o b permanence. His previous experience as executive assistant to Mayor W i l l i a m F. Devin and as executive secretary of the Seattle Municipal League hardly seemed an appropriate background for the promoter of a fair; he was oriented toward not spending the taxpayers' money, or at least toward not spending it on frills. What they really needed was somebody w i t h experience in running world's fairs. Carlson and Shefelman were ready w i t h the answers. World's fair experts were in short supply, the last world's fair having closed in 1939. The project needed an executive, not an entertainer. The fact that Dingwall was not an advocate of unlimited government spending w o u l d help rather than hurt. His background gave him an exceptional knowledge of the workings of state and local governments, and of the Seattle business community. Money was available from the appropriations for a salary c o m parable to what he had been receiving. Creating Century 21 was not a life's w o r k , and their concern was not that he w o u l d n ' t fill the bill but that he w o u l d not be w i l l i n g to stay for at least t w o years. Here, they argued, was a chance to try something new, to perform a function which they, after due reflection, had decided he was uniquely qualified to perform, and one which if handled competently w o u l d leave Seattle and the state w i t h a heritage of beautiful and useful buildings. Dingwall said he'd think about it. He thought about it. Betty Lou Dingwall thought about it. They said yes. Looking back on the interview long afterward, Dingwall recalled ruefully, " I n the whole conversation they never once mentioned that what they needed most was somebody w i t h the constitution of an ox." Nor, at the time, did the three of them realize that during the formative years Dingwall's most valuable contribution w o u l d be a capacity for w i t h h o l d i n g decision, for not closing any door unnecessarily. It was a politician's knack that Dingwall, while never a candidate for elective office, had picked up w h i l e serving as administrative assistant to the mayor. "There were so many people and organizations involved, each mindful of separate interests and rightsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and w i t h time pressing and everybody anxious for quick decisions,

one of the toughest things was to allow each person and agency time to reach the decisions that each had a right to make. There was plenty of call for executive decisionmaking, of course, and I did my share of firing from the hip, but deciding when not to come to a decision was for a long time one of my most useful functions." Here Dingwall glanced at the ceiling, smiling faintly. " W e couldn't decide for others, but w e could offer encouragement and guidance and on appropriate occasions roll a firecracker under a chair." Dingwall's first title was project director of the Seattle Civic Center Advisory C o m mittee and the Washington State World's Fair Commission. To this was added, when the nonprofit corporation was formed to run the show, the additional appellation vicepresident/general manager of the Century 21 Exposition, Incorporated. The City of Seattle made an office available to the project director and his secretary in the recesses of the Civic A u d i t o r i u m , a flagrantly barn-like edifice whose enigmatic vistas and erratic acoustics had long been the curse of the local lovers of ballet and music. One of the first visitors to reach Dingwall in his refurbished office in an old cloakroom arrived w i t h the complaint, "You don't need a receptionist in this dungeon. W h a t you want is a turnkey." W h a t Dingwall needed most in those virgin months was money. Fifteen millions in city and state appropriations glimmered on the horizon but the bond issues had yet to be sold. The corporation counsel and the attorney general had rendered informal opinions that it was permissible to pay salaries for Dingwall and a secretary out of site development and acquisition funds, and the Department of Commerce

and

Economic Development was advancing some money for the purpose. But there was no money available for p r o m o t i o n of the fair, as distinguished from the site. There wasn't even a letterhead. Ding's secretary, Helen Gilligan, a highly efficient import from the University of Washington campus w h o , before long, retreated back to the academe groves, typed the return addresses at the tops of the letters and in the corners of envelopes. It was a very low pressure operation. Already potential exhibitors were sending inquiries. No prospectus had been printed nor could one be ordered until there was money in sight to pay for it. Dingwall solved the problem temporarily by sending out the d u m m y covers that had been submitted by printing companies as examples of what they could produce if they got the printing contracts. The money problem was solved partially when the Century 21 Exposition, Incorporated, the nonprofit corporation which had been conceived by the Legislature to serve as the World's Fair Commission's agent, was born after prolonged legal travail in October of 1957. The Corporation, as it came to be called by insiders, was supplied w i t h an imposing board. Governor Rosellini was honorary chairman, and the state's distinguished p o l i t i ciansâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Senators Magnuson and Jackson, Congressmen Pelly, Westland, Mack, Horan, Tollefson and Don Magnuson, and Congresswoman May, and Mayor Clintonâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;were honorary vice-chairmen. The functioning officers of the board were Edward E. Carlson, president (it having been decided that having Carlson as president of both the Corporation and the Commission w o u l d facilitate communication and promote co-operation between the bodies); Ben Bowling of Pacific Telephone and Telegraph, Harry L. Carr of the King County Labor Council, and D. Roy Johnson of J. C. Penney, vice-

presidents, and Frank Dupar Sr. of Palmer Supply Company, treasurer. Ninety-six other prominent personages in the state were named to the board. The articles of incorporation stated: "This corporation is formed for the purpose of staging the Century 21 Exposition at a time to be fixed by the Washington State World's Fair Commission. Century 21 Exposition shall be educational in purpose and shall: (1) Dramatize the history, development, accomplishment, and resources of Washington State, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska; (2) Highlight the cultural, artistic, scientific and industrial achievements of this area and of the United States as a whole; (3) Depict the cultures, the growth and development of the nations of the Pacific Rim and elsewhere in the world, in cooperation with all such nations; (4) Set forth the high purposes and the peaceful intent of the United States government and the American people in their dealings with all peoples of the world; and (5) Create such other features of the Exposition as shall attract widespread interest, attendance and participation in the Exposition program." As the instrument through which a fair was to be created and controlled, the Corporation was given the power to acquire and dispose of real and personal property, franchises, licenses, trade marks, patents, inventions, improvements and processes; to receive gifts and bequests; to enter into contracts; to operate facilities for the safety, comfort, convenience and entertainment of the public; to borrow and lend money to or from individuals or corporations in any amount necessary to further the corporate purposes. Article IV spelled out the nonprofit status of the arrangement. Century 21 Exposition, Incorporated, was "organized for educational purposes as a corporation, not for pecuniary profit and no part of the net earnings thereof shall inure to the benefit of any member or individual. The balance, if any, of all properties, effects and moneys received by the Corporation from its operation after the payment in full of all debts . . . shall be used and distributed for public purposes in accordance w i t h the direction of the Washington State Legislature." The usual method of raising funds to finance the operation of a fair is through the issuance of notes of debenture, which are glorified lOU's. These are purchased largely by corporations and individuals likely to benefit directly or indirectly through the staging of a fair. The debentures are backed by income from gate receipts, exhibitors fees, rentals, concession percentages, and so forth. The histories of fair operations in the United States usually trail off into epilogues of arguments about how many cents on the dollar the holders of debentures w i l l get back. Closing ceremonies for most fairsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the A-Y-P Exposition was a happy exceptionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;coincide w i t h the flutter of mimeographed statements explaining that while the sponsors lost money the community benefited. It was well known to businessmen around Seattle that the last big fairs in the United States proved to be better as entertainment than as investment. The clamor to get in on the ground floor of Century 21 financing was inaudible. The officers of the Corporation decided not to seek substantial underwriting until they were more certain about what they had to offer. Still, bills continued to arrive at the Civic A u d i t o r i u m office, often before the first of the m o n t h , and they had to be paid. Late in November a few of the key members of

the board met in the private office of Lawrence M. A r n o l d , chairman of the board of directors of the Seattle-First National Bank. The topic of the meeting was the awful absence of cash on the Corporation's barrelhead. As a result, they agreed to send out a letter, over their names, asking preliminary pledges of $1,000 apiece from thirty financially-weighty board members. As appeals for funds go these days, the solicitation was simple. There was no attempt to impress anybody; everyone w h o was sent the letter knew the score. After an introductory paragraph recalling the success and significance of the A-Y-P, the letter said: " . . . One important task, during the next several months, w i l l be to put together an operating budget which likely w i l l be in the nature of an underwriting backed by a substantial percentage of the income of the Exposition; the underwriting w i l l come later at an appropriate time. "You w i l l recognize of course that in the meantime some operating funds are necessary so the Corporation can move ahead w i t h its w o r k , add key professional staff members and meet certain other necessary costs. " W e hope you w i l l j o i n w i t h us and a few others in setting up this interim fund. W e are suggesting the sum of $1,000 each, to be applied against the total amount you or your firm may eventually decide to subscribe, and to be secured by the income of the fair. Checks should be made out to the Washington State World's Fair Commission and forwarded to Frank Dupar in the enclosed envelope . . . Your assistance and ours is vital at this juncture; it is another instance where a few leaders must demonstrate their faith and confidence in an important community program in order to ensure its proper development. Signed: Lawrence A r n o l d ; Henry Broderick; Maxwell Carlson; Frank Dupar; Ben Ehrlichman; D. K. M a c D o n a l d ; Emil Sick; W i l l i a m Street." The letter went out on December 3. The next day's mail brought checks from Emil Sick and Henry Broderick. Then the Clearing House Association sent in $5,000. Before Christmas the fund had been raised to $25,000 by contributions from W i l l i a m Blethen, Ben Bowling, Ben Ehrlichman, D. Roy Johnson, O. D. Fisher, Norton Clapp, Horace McCurdy, Nat Rogers, D. K. MacDonald, W i l l i a m S. Street, W i l l i a m Reed, S. W. Thurston, Charles B. Lindeman, the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Frank Dupar, and Frank McLaughlin. The w o l f was driven back a few steps from the Civic A u d i t o r i u m door. Almost daily through the summer, fall and winter of 1957, Dingwall, Carlson and Shefelman met at 7 o'clock in the morning at the Olympic Grill and, w h i l e a waitress named Pearl plied them w i t h eggs, toast and coffee, they pored over recent developments and co-ordinated strategy. The immediate problem was site acquisition. The city under its civic center bond program was committed to the purchase or condemnation of an additional twentyeight acres in the vicinity of the Civic A u d i t o r i u m . But the consensus of the planners was that the fair w o u l d need about ninety acres, w i t h perhaps an additional beachhead on the waterfront to emphasize the importance of seafaring to Seattle. O n a Saturday morning late in June of 1957, the World's Fair Commission, augmented by Shefelman and Dingwall, foregathered in the cool alcoves of the Civic A u d i t o r i u m , then ventured out into the sun to inspect first the civic center area that was being acquired by the city, then the land adjoining it. They paid especial attention to the

area to the southwest. It was a transition zone, lying at the perimeter of d o w n t o w n expansion. O l d residences, some still handsome, most decaying, recalled the day of gray clapboard and pillared porches that went out about the time the automobile came in. There was a Catholic church, and a city school. Here and there houses had been turned into mom-and-pop groceries, upholstery shops, cardboard-sign-in-thew i n d o w beauty parlors. It was an area that could stand change. A journalist by training and a researcher by profession, Ewen Dingwall felt inadequate to make decisions involving the fundamental concepts of architecture. Soon after taking the j o b , while reviewing the w o r k of the Civic Center Advisory Committee, he had met and been favorably impressed by a shock-haired blond young architect named Clayton Young. W h e n he decided the time had come to hire an assistant, Dingwall phoned Young to ask his advice. As the first member of his staff he needed an imaginative, talented architect w i t h a long range view, firm but not inflexible opinions, and interest enough in the future of the city to take on a large chore at moderate pay. Could Young recommend someone? The architect said he'd call if he could think of a candidate. The next morning he was on the line. He had just the man: Clayton Young. Two points on which the leaders agreed from the start were that their show should be at least national in scope and that it should make as few compromises as possible w i t h the shoddy and the second-rate. " N o fair can entirely escape the meretricious," Eddie Carlson remarked at an early meeting, " b u t every fair should try." A n d Al Rochester put it another way when he told the commissioners at their very first meeting, "Seattle should make this one something special, not just another showcase for the state seal done in corn tassels, milk cans and steers' rears." N o w Young helped Dingwall select a volunteer Design Standards Advisory Board to help chart a path through the wilderness of modern art, industrial design and city planning. To the board were named architects Perry B. Johanson, Paul Thiry, Robert H. Dietz, John Stewart Detlie and John Spaeth, all of Seattle, and to broaden the view Lawrence Halprin of San Francisco, and M i n o r u Yamasaki of Detroit. The board met as a w h o l e for the first time on a shirtsleeve day in mid-August. Young reviewed the situation. Century 21 was starting w i t h an inheritance of buildings â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the Civic A u d i t o r i u m , the Ice Arena, the Memorial Stadium and the National Guard Armoryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;none of which smacked audibly of even mid-Twentieth Century architecture. One big problem facing them was that of integrating these ugly but useful left-overs into the proposed ninety-acre campus so their presence w o u l d not be a jarring distraction. The Civic A u d i t o r i u m , he was sure, had remarkably little to recommend it. It w o u l d n ' t even be easy to tear d o w n . Together, the advising architects inspected the Civic A u d i t o r i u m , a stubborn rectangle w i t h impenetrable acoustics and clangorous, penitentiary-like

ramps. They

looked into the adjacent Ice Arena, the Memorial Stadium, and the Armory, ugly as armories are. Then they reassembled in Dingwall's bleak office to think and to sigh. A t last M i n o r u Yamasaki said, " I ' d like all of us to go back to the center of the A u d i torium." Even under the outdoor blaze of midsummer the hall was d i m . The walls echoed to the rap of their heels on the hardwood floor. Never had the place seemed more barn-

like. Yamasaki stared at the empty space w i t h eyes that saw other things. " I think this building has enough space so that w e could put the proposed Opera House inside it," he said. "Take all of this nothing away. Sweep it clean d o w n to the walls and there is left space that could be used for a superb Opera House. You'd start w i t h the walls; you'd have the utilities already i n ; you'd save money. For the $3,500,000 you intend to spend on an Opera House you'd achieve a building that otherwise w o u l d cost five or six million. A n d when you were through you'd have an Opera House, and you w o u l d n ' t be plagued w i t h this useless hulk." There were arguments, of course. But the idea took hold. The f o l l o w i n g week Dingwall relayed Yamasaki's suggestion to the Commission. As he talked he could see Harold Shefelman bridle. W h e n Dingwall paused in his w o r d picture of the A u d i t o r i u m as an Opera House, Shefelman said, " D i n g , you're going to plunge us right straight into the courts. The money was voted for a new Opera House, not a rebuilt one. This plan w o u l d raise a lot of legal questions." "Let's not knock it on the head," Dingwall urged. "Let's keep thinking about it. Yamasaki is a great architect, a truly great one. He just seemed to feel instinctively that this was the solution. This is his field and w e should listen." Long after, thinking back on the meeting, Dingwall said, "You've got to hand it to Shefelman. He'd raised the point that as a lawyer he had to warn us about. Then he gritted his teeth and let us f o l l o w Yamasaki's instincts." But Shefelman's instinct of legal trouble ahead was as sure as Yamasaki's insight that the A u d i t o r i u m could be made into an Opera House the city w o u l d cherish. The Design Standards Advisory Board also recommended that the property of the Nile Temple at Third Avenue and Thomas Street was "essential for the adequate development of a world's fair site." The city had considered condemning the property for the civic center but had shied away from a conflict w i t h the Masons. N o w the state felt compelled to f o l l o w the recommendation of the architects and include the Nile Temple in the fairgrounds. O n September 23, on the motion of Senator Goodloe, seconded by Representative Olsen, the Commission gave unanimous approval to condemnation. To the Masons this seemed a double cross. Thomas H. Fowler, potentate of the Nile Temple, sent the Commission an indignant letter which pointed out that prior to the November, 1956, city bond issue election, the Civic Center Advisory Committee had advised the Temple that its properties w i t h i n the civic center site w o u l d not be taken. Further, the World's Fair Commission on its preliminary examination had decided that the lines could be drawn so that there w o u l d be enough contiguous land for an international exposition w i t h o u t use of the Nile Temple property. Since the Advisory C o m mittee and the Commission had each reached the same conclusion that the property was not necessary for a successful fair, how could condemnation now be justified? The Commission reviewed the matter, yet again, in December. After much discussion they decided that having asked the advice of a group of distinguished architects, they should abide by that advice. After a second second-thought, the Commission replied to Mr. Fowler that " t h e proper development of the long range program makes it essential that the Nile Temple properties be acquired." So ended 1957â&#x20AC;&#x201D;on a note of progress, but w i t h undertones of impending conflict.

' • • '

Ik.

lililSili mm

'â&#x20AC;˘'t%m^.:mm$MMMt

wit' ."..s-'':

-:Mm

mm.

For many, the way to the fair was the Monorail. It was a brief ride, and not as fast as advertised. But it was fun .. . and that showed in the faces of the eagerly expectant, the pleasantly surprised and the studiously judging.

mfV

-V

2 :

M rH

;

""'?; V Wm

And as the Monorail

eased to a stop the excitement

of anticipation

flashed among the

newcomers.

And then they were off, saying: "First, let's just go around

and

look

1 .

f. / ^^^li^^I:^-& :

4 r '1

•-'- 444;.;

4 i 4'

\ IS i *

JT'

> M ^ | A

. 1r

• f

fts

\ Bill

w ^ iflHi

Chapter Six

Saved By The Beep-Beep-Beep

O n October 4, 1957, there occurred far from Seattle an event destined to change the nature and, it can be argued, to make possible the success of the Seattle World's Fair. Russian scientists launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik I, a one hundred eighty-pound sphere w h i c h , circling the earth about every ninety minutes in an elliptical orbit, went "beep . . . beep . . . beep." A month later the Soviets sent up Sputnik II, weighing 1,120 pounds and carrying a live dog. The space race was on and the United States was off to a faltering start. Americans, many of w h o m had smugly considered science and technology their exclusive provinces, were plunged from complacency into doubt. There began a period of critical, and often uninformed, re-examination of the status of science in America. W h e n the Brussels World's Fair opened the f o l l o w i n g A p r i l , the U.S.S.R. Pavilionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a massive rectangle built chiefly of steel and frosted glassâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;featured models of Sputniks I and II, and a Russian w o m a n w h o specialized in training dogs for space travel. The more graceful United States Pavilion next door featured a fashion show, a wide-screen

movie, an IBM machine that answered questions in ten languages, and a restaurant where visitors could buy hot dogs, hamburgers and milk shakes. Many felt the American display more relaxed and winsome than the Russian. Herbert Hoover, w h o visited the fair as President Eisenhower's representative, declared, "Never before has so impressive an exhibit been made in behalf of the American people." But there were dissenters. American scientists were among those w h o felt that the United States Pavilion was deplorably one-sided in its portrayal of American life. A m o n g scientists there began to be talk of holding a fair that w o u l d show not only what science had achieved in the United States but w o u l d explain what science is as a discipline and as an aesthetic. The $25,000 that had been advanced by the more hopeful businessmen on the Century 21 board of trustees made it possible for Dingwall to hire staff members not directly concerned w i t h site development. An obvious need was for a public relations man. Even before the money was raised to pay his salary, James N. Faber, of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was chosen for the public relations assignment. Faber, a saturnine, dyspeptic reporter in his forties, w i t h an impressive list of awards for investigative reporting and feature w r i t i n g , is known to his friends as a man w h o was born disenchanted. Wry and humorously suspicious, he tends to regard most human activities as the inventions of confidence men. But long before he swelled the Century 21 payroll, Faber displayed a belief and hope in Century 2 1 . To explain their colleague's aberrant enthusiasm, reporters alluded to the fact that a fair was expected to emphasize Seattle's role as a w o r l d port, and Faberâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a former merchant seamanâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;was notably romantic about the sea. Also a fair involved showmanship and Faber boasted as cousins June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee. But the plain fact seems to be that the Fabers, husband and w i f e , fiercely love any and all fairs. (While Jim was p r o m o t i n g Seattle's show, Ann was publicist for the Western Washington Fair at Puyallup, and reminded her husband, "Yours is w o r l d - w i d e but mine is real.") Before assuming his public relations duties w i t h Century 2 1 , Faber vacationed in Europe and looked in on preparations for the Brussels World's Fair. O n his way home he stopped in Washington, D. C , to see Washington State's congressional delegation. O n getting back to Seattle, Faber reported to the Commission that the exhibits at the Brussels fair w o u l d cover about t w o hundred fifty of the five hundred acres, the rest of the area being landscaped as a park. He emphasized that the Pacific Rim nations were not much in evidence, which might make them receptive to Seattle invitations. Belgium was providing only the ground for the exhibitors. It was up to each country to raise its o w n building and to raze it promptly at the close of the fair. Such removal was a condition of recognition as a world's fair of the first category by the Bureau of International Expositions, an international agency which has arrogated unto itself the right to officially rate fairs as " w o r l d ' s . " As for his visit in Washington, Faber reported that Senators Magnuson and Jackson had suggested that scientific development w o u l d be a good theme for a fair, especially since the public was displaying interest in the Geophysical Year studies. Faber said that Senator Magnuson had been dubious about getting a federal appropriation for Century 2 1 . Magnuson

had been

under the impression that

the

United States did not customarily contribute to expositions w i t h i n the country: only

to those held aboard. However, Faber went o n , he had asked the Library of Congress to check to see what Uncle Sam had done for other fairs in this country. The report, Faber said, was one which he was sure w o u l d arouse the competitive spirit of any senator w i t h a reputation for getting things for his state. He produced a thirteen-page, single-spaced document tracing the histories of fairs and expositions throughout the w o r l d . The appendices were what enthralled the commissioners. They showed that Congress had voted money for every major fair in the country from the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876 ($578,000) to the San Francisco and New York events of 1939-40 ($1,500,000 and $3,275,000 respectively). Furthermore federal funds had blessed such unremembered enterprises as the Cotton States and Industrial Exhibition of 1895 in Atlanta ($200,000), the South Carolina InterState and West-Indian Exposition in Charleston in 1902 ($90,000), the Yorktown Sesquicentennial of 1931 ($257,000), the Greater Texas and Pan American Exposition in Dallas in 1936-37 ($3,000,000), and even the unknown competitor of the New York and San Francisco fairs, the Pan American Exposition in Tampa in 1939 ($100,000). " S o m e h o w , " Faber concluded, " I d o u b t that the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee w i l l not feel motivated by the fact that the federal government has also given the taxpayers' money to such events as the Delaware Valley Tercentenary, the Celebration of the Bicentennial of the Birth of Patrick Henry, the California M i d Winter Exhibition of 1894, and the Charles Carroll of Carrollton Bicentenary." The federal government traditionally did more than just pungle up cash. The research showed that governmental help included Congressional authorization for the President to invite foreign nations to participate in American expositions and to appoint United States commissions to direct the government's development of exhibits. Delighted w i t h these prospects, the Commission asked Seattle Mayor Gordon Clint o n , w h o was about to visit the Capitol, to present a letter to President Eisenhower offically requesting United States recognition of the Century 21 Exposition. The presentation was arranged through the co-operation of Walter Williams, under-secretary of commerce from Seattle, w h o was then on special duty in the W h i t e House. (Williams' son had drafted the state legislative bill for the World's Fair Commission.) The commissioners also decided to ask the Bureau of International Exhibitions for provisional recognition as a world's fair. (Their letter went unanswered.) A n d they instructed Eddie Carlson, Ewen Dingwall and Jim Faber to fly back to Washington to lobby for federal recognition and federal funds. The three-man raiding party from Seattle reached Washington in February. Dingwall and Carlson went first to the W h i t e House, where they had an introduction to a man w h o , it was said, could open doors. He didâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but they all opened out. The President, they were t o l d , could not on his o w n recognize a fair. That was up to Congress. W h i t e House staff members asked, " W h y don't you go up on the hill and see Maggie." O n the hill, the congressional delegation was already at w o r k on strategy. Irv Hoff, Senator Magnuson's administrative aide,,had dug out the legislative records for the New York World's Fair and was using them as a blueprint. The records showed that a House j o i n t resolution of the Seventy-Fifth Congress had established a New York World's Fair Commission and authorized appropriation of three million dollars. This resolution' declared that the body should be made up of cabinet

members and congressmen, that there should be a United States commissioner w i t h an annual salary of $10,000, and that the federal government should participate in the New York fair through exhibitions of "such materials, documents and papers as may relate to the first one hundred fifty years of our history . . . illustrating the function and administrative faculty of government." The government also undertook to provide for landscaping of grounds, maintenance of necessary exhibition halls and the hiring of personnel for its exhibits. The actual appropriation of the three million dollars was contained in a later bill, the Third Deficiency Appropriations Act of 1937. " I think I can get as much as New York got, maybe m o r e , " Magnuson told the Seattle party. He explained that he was having a bill drawn which w o u l d authorize federal participation, establish a commission and an office of United States commissioner w i t h a good salary, and provide preliminary funds for a study of the nature and extent of United States participation. The real drive for funds w o u l d come after the study group reported back. " B u t , " Senator Magnuson warned, " w e need a t h e m e . " The Seattleites said that 1961 w o u l d be the centennial of the fixing of the physical boundary between the United States and Canada, and that the Century 21 Exposition could celebrate a hundred years of togetherness. A n d there was the Pacific Rim theme. Magnuson registered acceptance rather than enthusiasm. " I think it should be tied up some way w i t h science and the Geophysical Year," he said. That night Jim Faber happened to go to a cocktail party at the home of Howard J. Lewis, the public relations director for the National Academy of Sciences. During the course of the evening, Lewis suggested that somebody from the Seattle safari should track d o w n Dr. Alan Waterman, director of the National Science Foundation, whose members kept talking about the need for a world's fair of science. " I t shouldn't be hard to get a solid i n t r o d u c t i o n , " Lewis told Faber. "Your man Magnuson is the political godfather and fiscal patron saint of the National Science Foundation. He really bats for them on the Senate Appropriations C o m m i t t e e . " Magnuson quickly arranged for Faber and Carlson to meet Dr. Waterman.

was a friendly but inconclusive session, shortened by the fact that the scientist was fighting the flu. But as Faber and Carlson were leaving, James M i t c h e l l , associate director of the National Science Foundation, asked them to stop by his office. Jim M i t chell, it developed, was the activist in promotion of a science fair. "Scientists are convinced." Mitchell told Faber and Carlson, "that they should help put on a world's fair of science somewhere in this country in the near future. W e were thinking of 1961—your year—but we didn't have a place in m i n d . You fellows have fifteen million dollars, a site and a schedule. If you could turn your show into a world's fair of science, it might benefit both of us." Carlson and Faber had the feeling of Balboa at the crest, w i t h federal aid their Pacific. " W h o makes the decisions? W h o should we see?" "The men you should talk to first," said Mitchell, "are Dr. Frank Fremont-Smith, medical director of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation—he has offices in New York—and Dael W o l f l e , executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has offices here." Carlson had to return to Seattle, and Dingwall had another appointment. So the next day, Jim Faber—who describes himself as a man whose scientific

background

ir^ZV^Mn^V^mwrmvimr,

comes from the "Ask A n d y " columns—went to see Dr. W o l f l e . The AAAS officer proved to be a tall, lean, pale-eyed, bespectacled, disconcertingly calm man w h o listened to the sales talk on behalf of Century 21 and its possibilities as a showcase for science w i t h such phlegm that the usually irrepressible Faber ran slowly d o w n and ended—he recalls—on an uncharacteristic note of apology. " W e l l , Dr. W o l f l e , I can see that you just don't believe in fairs and haven't any interest in our fair or our part of the country." " O n the contrary, Mr. Faber," said the scientist, still unsmiling behind his hornrimmed glasses. " I was born in Bremerton, where my father became principal of the high school after he w o r k e d at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. I went to school w i t h Ray Olsen and I used to play baseball w i t h Art Langlie. I've been advocating a world's fair of science for some time, and I'll be happy to co-operate w i t h y o u . " The next day, Faber flew to New York for conferences w i t h Dr. Fremont-Smith of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, and Dr. Gerald Piel, the president and publisher of the Scientific American. He phoned back the report that Piel was "eager and co-operative," and the venerable Dr. Fremont-Smith "positively bubbling and lyrical." Then on the way back to Washington, D. C , he stopped off to visit Dr. Froelich Rainey, director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, w h o was destined to do much to make the United States Science Pavilion dramatic and exciting as well as educational. Back in Washington, Dr. W o l f l e undertook to invite a select group of influential scientists, most of w h o m w o u l d be in Washington anyway for the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences convention, to attend a dinner on the evening of Saturday, March 15, 1958, at which time the Seattle group could try to convince them that Seattle should be the location of a world's fair of science. Carlson and Dingwall decided that on this occasion there was no question but that Century 21 should go first cabin. Though money for promotion was short and the home office was operating on a peel-the-stamp and save-the-paperclip basis, they ordered a damn-the-bills, put-it-on-thick dinner for the scientists. They reserved one of the smaller dining rooms on the mezzanine of the Sheraton-Park. There was a bar, subdued, well-stocked and unobtrusively attended. The f o o d was the best that one of the country's great hotels could offer. The fifteen guests comprised, as Eddie Carlson mentioned in welcoming them, "an informal parliament of science." They were Dr. Wallace Brode, science adviser to the Department of State; Dr. Douglass Cornell, executive officer of the National Academy of Sciences; Dean Henry Eyring of the University of Utah; Dr. Fremont-Smith, director of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation; Tom Jones, w h o had represented the National Science Foundation in planning the Brussels exhibits; Dr. Joseph Kaplan, chairman of the United States Committee for the International Geophysical Year; Dr. Paul E. Klopstag, associate director of the National Science Foundation; Dr. Margaret Mead, curator, American Museum

Natural History; James M i t c h e l l , associate director, National Science Foundation; Dr. Orr Reynolds, chief scientist for the Department of Defense; Dr. Frederick Seitz, University of Illinois; Dean Laurence Snyder of the graduate school of the University of Oklahoma, and chairman of the board of directors of the AAAS; Dr. Alan Waterman, director of the NSF; Dr. Paul Weis, of the Rockefeller Foundation, w h o was general chairman of the scientific exhibits planning committee for United States participation at Brussels; and Dr. W o l f l e , executive officer of the AAAS.

^i«iWWflKrr(«Kff.^-.f«»»i^."t*^.'fc..

Over the brandy and cigars, Senator Magnuson spoke of the need to explain science to the layman and to interest the children of the country in the processes and methods of science. He touched on the problems a politician had in explaining to the public the need for basic research into fundamental questions, and he told the scientists he felt they had an immense stake in educating the public so that never again w o u l d a cabinet official joke about scientists " w h o want money to learn why grass is green." Carlson and Dingwall f o l l o w e d w i t h low-key sales talks in which they pointed to the mutual benefits that might come to the scientific community and the Century 21 Exposition were Seattle to be made the display case for science. Their theme, muted but insistently repeated, was that the scientists needed a showcase and that Seattle and the State of Washington had already appropriated fifteen millions for a fair site. The scientists said they could promise nothing. The " p a r l i a m e n t " had no power to act. But the clear consensus was that it w o u l d be useful if they aided and abetted Seattle in staging a world's fair featuring science. It was informally agreed that Dael W o l f l e of the AAAS, Leonard Carmichael, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute; and Jim Mitchell of the National Science Foundation w o u l d serve as an ad hoc c o m mittee to bring about the creation of a national science planning board to develop and promote science exhibits at the Seattle fair. " L o o k i n g back," said Dingwall after the Seattle World's Fair had closed its successful run, " I ' d have to say that that was the turning point of all turning points. W e had many a crisis before and after. But if those fellows had gone out of that meeting cold and unconvinced, in all likelihood w e ' d have w o u n d up as nothing more than a good regional fair. They didn't and we d i d n ' t . " Now the Washington State congressional delegation had a target in its sights. Representatives Tom Pelly and Don Magnuson introduced bills in the House calling for federal recognition of the fair, and on April 23, Senator Magnuson introduced a more detailed measure under his name and that of Senator Jackson to provide participation of the United States government in what was now called the W o r l d Science-Pan Pacific Exposition and w h i c h , in the words of Senate Bill 3860, was t o : "(1)

Commemorate

the centennial

of the physical fixing of the boundary

line be-

tween the United States of America and Canada, "(2)

Depict the role of science in modern

"(3)

Exhibit the varied cultures of the nations of the Pacific

civilization,

and Rim."

Magnuson's bill authorized the President, by proclamation or other proper manner, " t o invite the several states of the Union and foreign countries to take part in the exposition, provided that no communist de facto government holding any people of the Pacific Rim in subjugation be invited to participate." The bill called for the appointment of a United States commissioner (salary, $17,500 a year), the creation of a special federal commission composed of sixteen persons, including the heads of ten executive departments and agencies, to determine the nature and extent of United States participation and make recommendations to Congress, and it authorized an appropriation of $125,000 to finance the study of government participation. The bill moved quickly through the Senate, passing on June 20, 1958, and being referred, three days later, to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which gave it rigorous study. The House committee felt that the special commission proposed by

Magnuson w o u l d be cumbersome. They drew up an amendment, eventually accepted, which provided that the President, through an executive department or federal agency, should determine the nature and extent of United States participation. Congressman Morgan from the Committee on Foreign Affairs also pointed out: "There are t w o major categories of international expositions recognized by the Bureau des Expositions Internationale, an organization established by an international convention in 1928 which serves as a clearinghouse for expositions. The Brussels World's Fair in which the United States is currently participating and the New York World's Fair held in 1939 are designated as class one expositions. The W o r l d Science-Pan Pacific Exposition to be held at Seattle w o u l d fall in the category of class t w o expositions. In this class there are no national pavilions, and exhibit facilities are provided by the hosts or sponsors of the fair. For this reason it is anticipated that the United States participation w i l l be more limited than was the case in the Brussels World's Fair or the New York World's Fair. " I n f o r m a t i o n available . . . indicates that the United States has never acted as one of the hosts of an exposition of this character, nor has it provided financial assistance or guarantees to meet the general expenses of constructing facilities for conducting such events. In the j u d g m e n t of the Committee on Foreign Affairs the role of the federal government should be that of a participant or exhibitor like any other government and its participation should be limited so as to avoid the undesirable competition among governments which has occurred in other international fairs." W i t h the understanding but not guarantee that the federal appropriation w o u l d not be greater than those for the Brussels and New York fairs, the committee recommended the bill, as amended, to the House. "The Seattle exposition," said the report, "should contribute to a better understanding among nations and therefore serve to carry out a basic objective of United States foreign policy." The House approved the bill by a voice vote on August 22, 1958; the Senate concurred in the amendment, and on August 28, President Eisenhower signed Public Law 85-880 and designated the Department of Commerce as the agency to make the study of the extent of federal participation. Congress did not get around to making the authorized $125,000 appropriation for the study. But Senator Magnuson's alert administrative assistant, skinny, scholarly Irv Hoff, had anticipated this and was prepared for it. In a memo to Magnuson months earlier Hoff w r o t e : "Boss: Re your discussion w i t h Jim Faber. Yes. The President has what is called a special international fund. The amount appropriated for fiscal 1958 was a little over $15 million. These funds generally, however, were earmarked in the justification for specific purposes like the international trade fairs. However, there is no firm restriction on the President's use of these monies. They are usually apportioned by him to Department of Commerce or ICA or some agency for a specific purpose." President Eisenhower made available $60,000 for development of the federal plan. Secretary of Commerce Strauss appointed Francis D. Miller deputy commissioner to head up federal planning for its exhibition. A n d in January of 1959, the Century 21 Exposition sent Jim Faber back to Washington to assist in drafting the federal program. Meanwhile, the National Science Planning Board had been formed. Senators Magnuson and Jackson sent letters to twenty-three prominent scientists asking them to

ILgTWnm^rv^n,.{Wt^,,-:OT^^,,TOy^^^

,.,, ,â&#x20AC;&#x17E;

Scientists wanted a showplace and the public, suddenly, wanted science. Six-and-onehalf million persons lined up under the white space gothic arches and waited patiently to see the show in the Science Pavilion. Although they were amazed as the seven-screen theater created a house of science, or amused at early scientific observations and developments, or agape in the realistic Spacearium, the crowds were most engrossed in the vast hall where twenty-five examples of diverse modern research were displayed. They pushed close to watch as young monkeys caressed surrogate mothers, and pigeons pecked at electronic buttons, and pretty science demonstrators dissected horseshoe crabs to find the optic nerves. The young ladies, science majors from leading colleges, placed the optic tissue in projection microscopes scanned by television cameras to show the crowds what science has learned about the workings of the visual systems of humans.

assist in planning a science exhibit for Century 2 1 . Eighteen accepted, many w i t h expressions of enthusiasm: " I am most favorably impressed by the objectives of this plan, since I feel, as you do, that international scientific co-operation is one of the most effective ways to promote understanding among nations, particularly in the present era which witnesses such enormous strides of advancement in both the physical and biological sciences." Dr. Hans Neurath, professor of biochemistry, University of Washington. " I look forward to the opportunity to serve in an enterprise of obviously great importance both to science and international cooperation." Dr. Harry F. Harlow, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin. "Plans for a world's fair of science to dramatize the role of international science in human affairs certainly proposes a means for the presentation of the importance of science to the w o r l d . " Dr. Donald Loughridge, General Motors Technical Center. Others w h o undertook to serve on the planning board included Dr. Detlev W . Bronk, president of the Rockefeller Institute; Dr. Leonard Carmichael, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute; Harold J. Coolidge of the National Academy of Sciences; Dr. Frank Fremont-Smith of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation; Dr. H. McLaughlin of the Homestake M i n i n g Company; Dr. Donald H. Menzel, director, Harvard Observatory; James M i t c h e l l , associate director, National Science Foundation; Dr. J. C. Morris, vicepresident, Tulane University; Dr. Gerald Piel, president and publisher, Scientific A m e r i can; Dr. Froelich Rainey, director, University of Pennsylvania M u s e u m ; Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, chancellor, University of California; Dr. Frederick Seitz, Department of Physics, University of Illinois; Dr. Henry Bradford Washburn, Jr., director, Boston Museum of Science; Dr. Paul Weiss, member and professor, Rockefeller Institute; and Dr. Dael W o l f l e , executive officer, American Association for the Advancement of Science. The board flew into Seattle for their first meeting on August 6th, 1958. Dr. Rainey was elected chairman. In a series of morning and afternoon sessions the scientists w o r k e d out guidelines for the science show: "(1) Selection of a few basic and dynamic topics which could be expanded to all fields of science would be a better approach than trying to cover each element of the scientific field as a unit. "(2) The major theme of the exposition should be science with the Pacific Rim as the primary sub-theme. "3) Visual translation of scientific material, plus the thread of continuity in the exhibits, critical to a successful exposition. "(4) Each exhibit must be so designed as to educate the viewer as to the purpose of that exhibit and yet not subject that visitor to the traditional school room educational approach. "(5) The architecture should be integrated with the scientific theme, and consideration should be given to the retention of at least part of the exhibit as a permanent part of the Seattle center." The guidelines were to prove most helpful in the development of the exhibition in the United States Science Pavilion. But perhaps most useful of all was the appearance of the distinguished scientists in Seattle and their talk of what w o u l d be done and how, rather than if and whether. For Seattle in the summer of 1958 was lurking w i t h suspicion that there never w o u l d come a Century 2 1 . Seldom have so many doubts been so widely held by so many about an enterprise that eventually succeeded.

** ^ 4

1" /

Chapter Seven

A Long Winter Of Discontent

In its first stages, the Seattle World's Fair was the goal of a few visionaries w h o undertook to paddle their canoe across a vast sea of apathy, Seattle in tow. But during ^

1959 and 1960, the little band of dreamers encountered unexpected and strong headwinds that raised great waves of discontent, threatening disaster. The shift of popular attitude from unconcern to alarm, from apathy to antipathy, seems to have started at the time of a meeting staged by the Civic Center Advisory Committee and the Seattle World's Fair Commission in the Olympic Hotel Bowl on December 18, 1957. A large but select group of civic leaders, including all the m e m bers of the Century 21 Corporation, were invited for a glimpse of the futureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a preview of the Century 21 fairgrounds as the seven-member Design Standards Board felt it might be developed. It was a chill, w i n d y day w i t h occasional bursts of bitter rain. The community leaders arrived for the show wrapped deep in their coats and thoughts. What they saw and heard did nothing to thaw them out.

The fairgrounds as sketched by the architects were more extensive than those originally proposed or ultimately obtained. A mall reached d o w n across First Avenue to the waterfront, where an amusement area on piers was projected. The Seattle High School Memorial Stadium was replaced by a great, d o m e d exposition hall. A n d instead of the promised new Opera House there was the Yamasaki-inspired dream of a metamorphosed Civic A u d i t o r i u m , flanked by a small new Playhouse. The price tag on this layout was forty-seven million dollars, thirty-two million more than Century 21 had been promised from the city and state. Corporation officials were quick to say that no more contributions were contemplated from Seattle or Olympia. Representatives of the Stanford Research Institute, w h o had made a preliminary study of possible attendance, conceded that there was no hope of amortizing the cost of this not inconsiderable campus through admission charges during a one or t w o year fair. They spoke vaguely of the possibility of a continuing ten year exposition. The speakers were enthusiastic in their talk of benefits to the community, the sketches on display were handsome and colorful. But the audience was not buying. That thirty-two million dollar gap between money at hand and money needed for lands and buildings stuck in many a craw. "You could feel the chill settling on everyone," Dingwall recalled long after. "People just seemed to shrink in on themselves. Some of them literally reached back and touched their wallets as they stood to leave, making sure their pockets hadn't been picked. The chill struck right to your bones. When I got outside in the rain, it seemed warmer than in the h o t e l . " One community leader caught Eddie Carlson by the arm as the meeting broke up. " I fear," he quavered, "that you are leading the community by the hand d o w n the road to bankruptcy." The papers carried f o l l o w - u p stories quoting school officials as expressing dismay at the proposal to build a mushroom-shaped hall costing $7,500,000 on the Memorial Stadium site. "This is tough to digest," said Bernard Reiter of the Seattle School Board. "The w h o l e idea of the Memorial Stadium w e treasure going d o w n the drain is a shocker." School Superintendent Ernest Campbell said the proposition needed " a long, hard look," but admitted glumly that the city probably could condemn the Memorial Stadium if it really wanted to. The Seattle Times ran a cautiously favorable editorial, but the general reaction to the unveiling was unquestionably adverse. The Century 21 Exposition was in trouble. W h e n the one hundred directors of the Corporation were solicited by mail and telephone to write a short " W h y I am behind Century 2 1 " statement for use in a promotional brochure, only eight responded. Many of the directors and some of the commissioners were up to their sacroiliacs in skepticism. The dashes of cold water they kept t h r o w i n g on the enthusiasm of the few optimists threatened to n u m b the project into a stupor. D. Roy Johnson used to tell of how the pessimism affected h i m : " I got up one day in meeting and said, 'We've had all too much negative thinking about this project. We've all got to get enthusiastically behind the fair!' Then I found myself adding, 'That is, if we ever have a fair'." In every American city there is somebody deeply suspicious of City Hall and its works, convinced that elected officials must be kept under close surveillance lest they

circumvent the Constitution and the prescribed processes of law and order. They are given to emitting halloos of outrage and distress in public meetings and the public press. In most communities the practitioners of sustained dissent are ineffectual persons whose opinions may be taken at discount. It is Seattle's particular fate that one of its citizens most subject to feelings of question about proposed public action is a distinguished and able corporation lawyer; a past president of the Washington State Bar Association; a former dean of the University of Washington Law School; a man of proclaimed rectitude ("Some people around this t o w n can salve their consciences too easily as to what they do w i t h other people's money: I can't."); a man of impacable persistence, and personal meansâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in short, a formidable foe. Alfred J. Schweppe also is a lover of opera. For several years he was one of the angels of a regional professional opera company whose misfortunes stemmed partly from the inadequacies of Seattle stages. Consequently Schweppe shared all music lovers' hatred of the old Civic A u d i t o r i u m , and he had marched in the front ranks of the supporters of the bond issue for a new civic center, which was to include a new Opera House. Great was his outrage w h e n , picking up The Times in mid-December of 1957, he read that the civic center plans now called not for a new Opera House but for the conversion of the old A u d i t o r i u m . "By G o d , " he muttered, "they think at City Hall they can get away w i t h anything." W h e r e u p o n , he recalls, " I just gently called their attention to the fact that they couldn't do what they were talking about doing because it w o u l d n ' t be legal." The city officials, many of w h o m had doubts of their o w n , held a public hearing on the proposed change early in January, 1958. Proponents stressed the advantages of conversion of the Civic A u d i t o r i u m hulk into a new and useful structure; if a new Opera House were built what possible use could be f o u n d for the old Auditorium? To go ahead w i t h the conversion was to get more building for a buck, better decibels per dollar. Besides, the need to save money anywhere possible on the civic center project was great since the costs of land acquisition were proving higher than anticipated. These arguments convinced the City Council that it should proceed w i t h the conversion and drop the plan for a new Opera House. But they failed to impress Schweppe. In his opinion the sole issue was whether the bond issue was being used for the purposes stated on the ballot. " I w r o t e Mayor Clinton a letter," he recalls. " O h , it was a pretty tough letter I wrote. I said, 'You're a lawyer, and as a lawyer, if I were in your position, it w o u l d scare me to death.' But Clinton and the rest of them had their necks bowed and they just w e n t ahead w i t h it. So, reluctantly, I had to take them to court. "Yes, reluctantly. I never was against the civic center or an Opera House. But I damn well am against the w r o n g way of doing things." For the next year the battles were fought primarily in the newspapers, the agitation adding to the general unrest about Century 2 1 . Dingwall recalls the start of the barrage. After a difficult morning at the office he had ducked out w i t h o u t telling anyone where he was going for lunch. But no sooner was he seated at a table in the Grove than a waiter told him he was wanted on the phone. Puzzled about how anyone could have known where he was, Ding went warily to the phone. The call was from Nard Jones, whose office at The Post-Intelligencer overlooks the entrance to the restaurant.

" D r o p over when you've eaten," said The P-I's chief editorialist. " I have something to show y o u . " The post-prandial exhibit did not aid Dingwall's digestion: it was the first of Schweppe's letters to the editor questioning the judgment and integrity of those w h o w o u l d use the bond funds for other than the specific purposes put forward on the proposition. Supporters of the civic center responded w i t h a barrage in which Schweppe was characterized as representing "that d w i n d l i n g group of influential reactionaries w h o have, over the years, attempted to retard and stifle this city's growth and progress." Not until July of 1958 was an actual suit filed, on behalf of W i l l i a m H. Davis, taxpayer, to enjoin the use of the civic center bond funds for the A u d i t o r i u m conversion. This action was dropped in October, but a new suit was filed on December 11 after the city moved to appropriate money for the conversion. It went to trial before Superior Court Judge James W. Hodson in June, 1959. The trial lasted three days, and Attorney Schweppe still enjoys recalling its details. " O h , I made him s q u i r m , " he remarked long afterward about one official. A n d of another, " W h a t a miserable witness that man made. He w o u l d n ' t speak to me for t w o years after I examined him on the stand. He'll think twice in the future about how he uses money that is given him in trust." Judge Hodson ruled in favor of Schweppe's client, holding that funds assigned for the construction of a new Opera House could not be diverted to conversion of the Civic A u d i t o r i u m . The city immediately filed notice of an appeal to the State Supreme Court. But the appeal process is slow, and reversal of the decision was by no means certain. The Civic Center Advisory Committee, faced at best w i t h delays and the possibility of a disconcerting defeat, decided, as one of them put it, that " t h e best thing w o u l d be to get benefit of clergy for what we have done and what we propose to continue d o i n g . " So they asked the City Council to submit to the voters a proposition asking sanction of the modified civic center plan, including the use of the A u d i t o r i u m as the shell of the Opera House. Immediately there rose a question about the special election. To pass a bond issue, forty per cent of the voters w h o cast ballots in the previous general election must go to the polls and sixty per cent of those voting must be in favor of the proposition. But do these limitations apply to a proposition requesting no new funds but revising the use of funds already authorized? Corporation Counsel Van Soelen thought not. He advised the Council that the limitations applied only to the elections appropriating the money; if fifty per cent of whatever number of voters balloted yes, the bond money could be spent on conversion of the A u d i t o r i u m . The vote in September was decisive both ways. Far fewer than forty per cent of those w h o cast ballots in the previous general election went to the polls. Of those w h o showed up, three out of four were in favor of remodeling the A u d i t o r i u m if that was what seemed best. Schweppe and his client-disagreed. They filed suit in December to enjoin the City Council from spending the bond money on the basis of what they contended was an invalid election. This time the Council was sustained in court, and Schweppe appealed. The appeals were heard; September 27 the Supreme Court announced its decision.

By the narrowest of margins, five to four, it agreed w i t h Corporation Counsel Van Soelen's basic contention that the 1959 election had not been a money measure requiring the application of the sixty-forty principle and hence was valid in spite of the small vote. As for the original case, in which Judge Hodson had held that the city did not have the right to divert the funds, the Supreme Court did not rule; it was m o o t that the referendum on the use of the funds had taken care of the question of diverting them from their original purpose. In November the Supreme Court refused Al Schweppe's petition for a rehearing. The way was open to the conversion of the Civic A u d i t o r i u m into an Opera House. Schweppe professed himself satisfied w i t h the outcome. " W e made them go to the people whose money they were using and ask permission." Other problems beset the Civic Center Advisory Committee and the World's Fair Commission during the long period of uncertainty. Much of the difficulty flowed from the fact that the project was a combined operation of city and state for the creation of both a fair and a civic center. The city decided that it didn't really need as part of its civic center the property occupied by the Nile Templeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;at least not in the near future. But the architects advising the World's Fair Commission felt that inclusion of the site was imperative for an adequate fairgrounds. Condemnation action was started. The Masons were left dourly brooding. The Catholics were equally unhappy about the inclusion of the site of the Sacred Heart Parochial School and Sacred Heart Church among the parcels of land to be acquired. They disputed the state's right to condemn the land and held that the appraisals were far too low. The Seattle School Board had successfully fought off the architects' suggestions that the Memorial Stadium be destroyed and its site used for a coliseum. Now the board looked askance at the amount offered for the old Warren Avenue School. Some of these objections might have been met by offers to pay more for the property than the appraisers had recommended, but the World's Fair Commission was handling state funds. A suspicious Legislature might well cry "give away" if the C o m mission seemed to be bestowing overly generous amounts of the taxpayers' money on Seattle organizations, no matter how worthy. The Commission clung uncomfortably to the position that it w o u l d not go above the appraisers' recommendations; those w h o asked more w o u l d have to prove their point in court during a condemnation action. The officials were painfully aware that, in guarding the state appropriation, they were alienating public opinion in massive blocks. So worried did the Commission and the Corporation officers become that they began to talk of abandoning the civic center concept and picking a less controversial site for Century 2 1 . Carlson and Dingwall mentioned that while they were on a trip to Washington, Assistant Secretary of Defense Finucane had dropped the offhand remark that it was too bad Seattle hadn't fought for the use of Fort Lawton, since the post probably was going to be declared surplus. Emboldened by the rumor, a covey of directors decided they w o u l d pay a sneak visit to the site to check again on its possibilities. Not wishing to let their blossoming doubts about the civic center become public knowledge, they agreed to keep the

visit a secret and so surreptitious was their approach to be that they neglected to notify the commanding officer at Fort Lawton of their reconnaissance. There was a leak in security. Reporters heard of the mission. W h e n the inspection party arrived on the Fort Lawton grounds they f o u n d themselves looking into the muzzles and red eyes of live TV cameras. The directors were upsetâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which is a mild w o r d to describe the reaction of the commanding officer, w h o was guarding the secret that, far from being abandoned, Fort Lawton was being equipped w i t h a new and highly classified electronics installation. The leak of the news that Century 21 just might be moved to some other site than the proposed civic center incited promoters of various real estate developments. For months the Century 21 people were fighting off suggestions, invitations and demands that they throw their big party on real estate ranging from the Centralia lowlands to the top of Cougar M o u n t a i n . The community of Federal Way, abetted by Tacoma, made the loudest and least persuasive sounds. These were the days of greatest strain for Eddie Carlson, the worst phase of Century 21's long period of gestation. More than once Ross Cunningham of The Times, Carlson's favorite confidant, talked him out of stopping the project. More than once a Times editorial, or a column by critic Louis Guzzo defending some aspect of the civic center concept, gave new heart to the men carrying the greatest responsibility. Eddie's elan reached its ebb on the morning w h e n he reached Seattle after an all night flight from Washington, where things were looking hopeful. Brimming w i t h the good news of likely federal largess he came in late to an executive committee meeting and found his colleagues in glum discussion of the latest rebuff w i t h regard to acquisition of the Nile Temple, and in mournful perplexity about h o w to respond to a statement by an archbishop which predicted that Century 21 w o u l d be a tinselled monstrosity, a t w o - b i t affair detrimental to community standards. " M y dream when w e started," Carlson has said, "was to show the city what w e could do, to demonstrate that w i t h a united effort Seattle could accomplish anything. All we seemed to be achieving was the remarkable but hardly desirable feat of uniting the Catholics and the Masons in opposition to a community development." All through the afternoon and evening Carlson wrestled w i t h the complexities of the situation. There loomed again the delays of litigation in the courts. Carlson spent a restless night. Early Sunday morning he had reached his decision. Charles Robert Carey, the attorney for the archdiocese, was a long-time friend. Carlson called him and asked if he could drop over to Carey's house for a chat. Through the morning they w o r k e d out the details of a suggested compromise. The Sacred Heart Church and School w o u l d be omitted from the fairgrounds and the Catholics w o u l d w i t h d r a w as a party in the appeal to the Supreme Court; Carey w o u l d use his good offices to persuade the other parties in the suit to drop the appeal; the Century 21 Corporation w o u l d offer to lease the Nile Temple for the duration of the fair and to return it afterwards, thus avoiding the c o n d e m n a t i o n ; some of the money saved in reducing the size of the fairgrounds to seventy-three acres w o u l d be applied to the purchase of the Warren Avenue School site. By Wednesday, all parties concerned had agreed to the compromise. The worst was over. Century 21 no longer faced mutinyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;just apathy.

The nucleus of Seattle's permanent civic centerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Playhouse, Exhibition Hall, Opera House and Arena as seen here from the Danish Pavilionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;underwent a painful and strange prefair mutation. But once accomplished, the building complex left no one dissatisfied, and indeed was acclaimed one of the finest in the United States. And Seattle at last had a sumptuous public spot.

K\4.-=

•; -

mmmmm'm

% CHILDREN IN * l EVENING OF * « T U B I MUSIC

KELP" "HPT. 30

•

4lBif

Evening settled

around

the International

Fountain,

the Boulevards

of the World,

the Gayway .

. »*

^': & 44i44P§

L^fkH/ .,«. 4 .

1*U '

'114 H ,«4l

4 ' **' ' *' j

^ /

•

. . . and for some the fun really

started.

One.

Three.

:»

»*>•

Statistics showed that the visitors frequently stayed long past sundown. No one could explain it, other than to allude to the magic quality of nights and electric lights. Nor could anyone deny that the sculptures and pools suddenly shimmered, and the very air glowed, and the lighted pavilions sparkled.

^*PK^ ' jjJFlr^^ H«L i |

*fVv ^ 1 -^IEFVB'

#**.

^KV'I ^SSfr M#

P^\^7

iyf X

, „ JMP^^^HB

FASHlJ %

ilk

^§^^^

THfl

f-^

• '-^^'^^^^^^ki^wJ^R^SSS

Four t/'mes a day—at 2, 4, 6 and 8 p. m — models skimmed in cadence across concrete pads floating above a shallow, perfume scented pool. It was the fashion show, regular as clockwork. The show commenced. The photographer coached the models. The co-ordinator coached the photographer. The models walked, stretched, smiled and unobtrusively bumped. The crowd applauded, then departed. And soon the lineup formed against the back wall for the next time.

;

y vaM*

People watched people watching people â&#x20AC;&#x201D; everywhere. Up/down . . . out/in . . . sitting/standing . . . front/back . . . and sometimes sideways. They watched each other walking the boulevards, or munching in the Food Circus, or holding on to a bright helium balloon for dear life.

The French prepared an exhibit with a thought. It was this: man has invented inventions which have changed his environment. Man will continue inventing and changing, said the signs and the young pretty girl guides. They warned: automatism and machination can make man frantic. Learn. Learn to love beauty and to find an appreciation for the arts. Do not lose yourself in a fog of mass misinformation. Don't, advised the French, give in to boredom.

Mftifc,

fflttfe*

443l8lÂ§Â§llltj

wtlsB^mmm,^

« *j

«# ^w

jump ,• • j p . .mm:

•,.'"

W .*4 ^

§** % ^

Chapter Eight

Money, Money, Money

Though in trouble at home, the prophets of Century 21 found themselves not w i t h out honor in Washington, D. C. Following passage of Public Law 85-880 in August, 1958, constituting the first federal support and recognition for an international exposition in the United States since the New York and San Francisco fairs, President Eisenhower in November designated the Department of Commerce to be responsible for administration of the federal program and (Congress having authorized, but not appropriated money) made available $60,000 from his emergency fund for development of the federal plan. Francis D. Miller, the fifty-three-year-old deputy co-ordinator of exhibits for the United States at the Brussels World's Fair (the title translates to number t w o American representative), was appointed by Secretary of Commerce Lewis Strauss to be Deputy United States Commissioner for the Century 21 Exposition. Miller's first assignment was to make a detailed report on the recommended participation by the federal government in the Seattle show. Miller, w h o before going to

773

Brussels had been a director of sales for American Airlines and eastern advertising manager for Esquire magazine, chose as his helpers W o r t h e n Paxton, a New York designer, w h o roughed out ways in w h i c h exhibits might be staged; David Wurster to assist Paxton and R. R. M u l l e n , a public relations consultant, to help package the suggestions in a way palatable to the Bureau of the Budget and Congress. The Century 21 Corporation sent Deputy Director Jim Faber back to Washington to help in the preparations, and to act as liaison man between the government and Century 2 1 . President Eisenhower sent out a directive instructing federal departments and agencies to submit suggestions for scientific exhibits illustrating their work. The staff was deluged w i t h ideas ranging from the absurd (a building-sized model of a cancer cell in which spectators could roam) to the wonderful (an exhibit depicting the life creating and sustaining process of photosynthesis). Miller, Faber and a volunteer team of scientists including Dr. Paul Weiss of the Rockefeller Institute, and Jim Mitchell and George Rothwell of the National Science Foundation, w i n n o w e d the abundant crop. By March they had settled on a program, to be housed in a single, large building, which it was hoped " w o u l d excite youth and promote the understanding of adults in four basic science areas: life sciences, energy, man, and space." In the life sciences section it was proposed that the exhibits "develop in a series of co-ordinated steps the major areas that biochemists and others are exploring in nature and in the processes of life." The theme of the energy section was to be a "review of man's endless search for new sources of energy" w h i c h , after revealing accomplishments up to 1961, w o u l d "proceed rapidly from conventional power to power from fusion and fission, and to the direct conversion of nuclear power w i t h o u t an intervening heat cycle." The area of man was to show "those inventions and the results of science research that have eased man's w o r k l o a d , provided him leisure w i t h dignity, and w i t h new powers to heal himselfâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as well as the power to destroy himself." As for space, " t h e introduction to this science was to be presented as an accomplishment of our government. The National Aeronautics Space Administration w i l l make it possible for the visitor to see how information from satellites is transmitted for analysis in terms of its scientific significance." The plans for the exhibit seemed adequate. Then the staff added up the cost estimates: $5,003,550 for site development and construction; $200,142 for architectural services; $6,658,228 to develop the exhibits; $490,000 for staffing the exhibits, and $148,080 " o t h e r . " The grand total came to far more than the United States had ever spent on an exhibition in this countryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;$12,500,000. Appalled, they took another look. But exhibits that can be at once interesting, entertaining, educational and accurate do not come at bargain basement prices. The $12,500,000 was what the scientists really felt they needed to do the j o b . A not u n k n o w n practice in government is for groups seeking funds to pad their requests against the probability of cuts. The fact that $12,500,000 seemed a great deal of money to all concerned argued against such inflationary tactics. Besides, the scientists had scruples. After agonizing appraisal it was decided that the best thing to do w o u l d be to brave the Bureau of the Budget w i t h a request for the full amount, but to

774

be prepared for amputations of vital parts of the program, not only by the Budget Bureau but by the House and Senate committees. A few naive scientists dreamed of achieving an unmutilated entity; the old hands in the Commerce Department, including Secretary Strauss, w h o suffered annually through Congressional reaction to requests for funds to operate Commerce's International Trade Fair program, warned that Century 21 w o u l d be " d a m n lucky to get three m i l l i o n . " Faber suggested that the boys back in Seattle be prepared to sound ecstatic if the Congressional authorization was between three and five m i l l i o n . Fran Miller went before the Bureau of the Budget w i t h charts, diagrams, statements of need from leaders in the scientific communityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and a deep sense of resignation. He emerged amazed and unscathed, and w i t h the $12,500,000 request bearing the Bureau's seal of entire approval. The next stop was the W h i t e House. Late in A p r i l , Miller was ushered into the presence of D w i g h t Eisenhower to try to convince him that the administration should ask Congress to authorize and appropriate $12,500,000. The President was concerned lest the Seattle exposition develop the sort of unrestricted competition in building and display that had marked the Brussels World's Fair. "Is this to be an open or an invitational tournament?" the President asked. Miller replied, " I n v i t a t i o n a l . " A n d he explained that the intention was to rent nations space in buildings rather than to have each country build its o w n , which w o u l d give control against excessive propaganda efforts. The President was so pleased w i t h the proposals for the United States exhibit that he asked Miller to repeat the presentation for the entire cabinet. They liked it too. So it was that Jim Faber f o u n d himself one day in May drafting a letter for President Eisenhower to sign and send to the Honorable Richard M. Nixon, president of the Senate, and the Honorable Sam Rayburn, speaker of the House of Representatives, recommending that House and Senate authorize and appropriate the funds for the Science Pavilion. It said in part: "Those planning the exposition marshalled the talents of some of the nation's top scientists to develop the theme of scientific achievement and future goals . . . I designated the Department of Commerce to develop a comprehensive plan for all of these agencies to demonstrate their scientific accomplishments and goals, especially to the youth of America, the people of the Pacific area, and the w o r l d at large through the medium of the international exposition at Seattle in 1961. "The act (Public Law 85-880) also provided for co-operation w i t h the Washington State World's Fair Commission. The Secretary of Commerce has reported to me that the Department of Commerce has received excellent co-operation from the Commission and its science planning board. The plan for federal participation which I now submit is consistent w i t h the science emphasis desired not only by this group, but w i t h i n the ranks of our scientists in government. "The leadership of the United States in many fields of science brings w i t h it the responsibility for showing h o w such accomplishments are made in our democracy. Furthermore, w e must constantly state and demonstrate our belief that increased scientific knowledge must be used for the benefit of man. The plan for these federal agencies to demonstrate their achievements and aims at this international exposition

775

w i l l carry w i t h it an expression of the willingness of the United States to share scientific progress. Therefore, I recommend that the Congress authorize and appropriate funds for its i m p l e m e n t a t i o n . " Sincerely, D w i g h t D. Eisenhower. W i t h the President's request, the buck was passed to Congress. Two bills w o u l d have to be passed, the first authorizing an appropriation, the second and more difficult appropriating the funds. In such a situation, the Washington delegation, representing the area w i t h the most to gain, w o u l d have to lead the drive for passage. The natural to quarterback the effort was Warren Magnuson, a man possessed of a legendary reputation as trencherman at the Congressional porkbarrel. If anyone knew how to bring home $12,500,000 w o r t h of bacon, it w o u l d be Maggie. Senators Magnuson and Jackson

introduced

Senate Bill 2065, authorizing

the

$12,500,000 appropriation. It was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where Magnuson was sure Chairman W i l l i a m Fulbright w o u l d see it received sympathetic attention. The bill almost slipped through committee unchallenged, but at the last moment, Senator Frank Lausche of O h i o , a Democrat but no friend of distant spending, gave battle. Senator Lausche, well briefed by letters from the anti-fair faction in Seattle, cited the legal difficulties the Century 21 people were having in Seattle. He contended that even if the city w o n the right to spend its bond money, it w o u l d all go to the civic centerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;none to the fair. He argued that the requested appropriation w o u l d make the federal government "a participant in what in fact w i l l be a state fair, somewhat embellished by a scientific exhibit." Failing to block approval of the authorization, he joined w i t h Senator Hickenlooper of Iowa in trying to eliminate the specific figure of $12,500,000 from the authorization. Again he failed. The bill emerged from the committee w i t h a " d o pass" recommendation. In the House it was assigned to the newly created Committee on Science and Astronautics, where it languished unattended for months. Irv Hoff, Senator Magnuson's aide and alter ego at the time, recalls that it took strenuous log-rolling to get the bill out of committee. It emerged again w i t h a " d o pass," but bearing the scars of minority reports from Congressmen James Quigley, David H. Hall and Leonard W . Wolf. The dissenters complained that the benefits of federal participation " m a y be desirable but are certainly not necessary;" that the authorization requests should have been included in the budget requests of the various agencies desiring to participate; that there was no evidence that any foreign nation w o u l d actually accept an invitation to Seattle; and that if the federal government found it necessary to stage a scientific exhibit at the Century 21 Exposition, an adequate show could be put on in the existing National Guard Armory. The bill reached the floor of the House on August 13. Representative W o l f renewed his objections, gaining vehemence. " I feel that this is a waste of the taxpayers money. The project is not one which has particular merit and has little, if any, international significance." He did not prevail. The bill passed on a voice vote and was sent to the Senate. O n August 2 1 , a sweltering Friday, there was a decisive battle on the floor of the Senate. Senators Magnuson and Jackson lowered a barrage of speeches championing the authorization bill. Senator Lausche fired back salvo after salvo:

776

" I n my judgment, if the federal government spends $12,500,000 for this exhibit, the action w i l l become a precedent. Other states in the future, when they have centennials or sesquicentennials, w i l l ask the government to construct buildings as a part of the exhibits. M y fear is that before another t w o decades pass w e shall have, as a consequence of passage of this bill, many pleas before the Senate asking for similar treatment. "The point I wish to make is that the principal promoter of the exhibit up to this time (Seattle) has not spent one nickel in preparation of the grounds to become fit for a world's fair. It did sell bonds in the amount of $7,500,000 but that money is to be used for the development of a civic center, or mall, such as exists in many cities in the country. " I suggest that the available population w i t h i n a radius of five hundred miles, from which to draw, cannot justify a f a i r . . . I do not believe that the federal government w o u l d be justified in spending $12,500,000 on this show." Senator Hickenlooper buttressed Lausche's doubts about Seattle's having spent a nickel w i t h the statement that, "There is a serious question whether the State of Washington w i l l put a single nickel into the fair." But members of the Senate Appropriations Committee promised to verify state and city contributions before recommending actual appropriations. The bill passed the Senate on a voice vote. M i n o r differences between House and Senate versions were ironed out in committee, and the $12,500,000 was approved. It was now late August. The session was drawing to a close, and if the authorization was to be translated into actual funds, the appropriation bill w o u l d have to be rushed through. Senator Magnuson decided the best tactic w o u l d be to avoid asking for the $12,500,000 in a chunk. Nine million w o u l d cover the immediate expenses of putting up the United States Science Pavilion and starting actual development of the exhibits. He could seek the rest of the authorized funds at a later session. It was too late to start a new bill through Congressional channels. The best tactic w o u l d be to add the appropriation by amendment to an existing money bill that had originated in the House. This w o u l d have the additional advantage of avoiding a full scale hearing before the House Appropriations Committee, where lurked a number of all-out economy men. " W e looked for the biggest money bill a r o u n d , " one of Magnuson's assistants has explained. " W e wanted it big so that another nine million w o u l d n ' t be noticeable. The Mutual Security and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill suited our purposes exactly. It was 'must' legislation. It involved something like five billion dollars, enough of which was military so that ultimate passage seemed sure." O n a day when committee attendance was particularly favorable, Chairman Magnuson, on the Senate Appropriations Committee, brought before his group the $9,000,000 amendment to the Mutual Security Bill, relinquished the gavel and spoke in favor of it, then retrieved the gavel and congratulated his committee members on their good judgment in commending the amendment. Not until the last day of the session did the bill reach the floor of the Senate and House. Back in Seattle, Century 21 officials and sympathizers stayed close to their

777

phones. W i t h the United States Science Pavilion there w o u l d be some sort of a fair: how good, they could only hopeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but there w o u l d be a fair. W i t h o u t the federal participation, collapse was possible. State Representative Ray Olsen was among those sweating out the news of whether the Magnuson amendment had been accepted. He was recuperating in a hospital from a heart attack, supposedly isolated from any possible strain. The hours dragged by. It was late at night when the w o r d came. The tactic had succeeded. The Century 21 appropriation of $9,000,000 had ridden piggyback through

both

houses on

the

Mutual Security Bill. W h e n he heard the news on the radio, Representative Olsen told his nurse, " I ' l l be going home any day n o w . " Even before the Science Pavilion appropriation was passed, President Eisenhower had issued a proclamation directing the Department of State to proceed w i t h invitations to foreign nations for participation in the Century 21 Exposition: " . . . Whereas such participation will

contribute

to the welfare

and

domestic

commerce

through

the interchange

"NOW,THEREFORE, of America,

pursuant

governor

countries

to participate

Exposition)

and

by the States of the Union and foreign of all the participants by

of scientific I, DWIGHTD.

furthering

countries international

between

in the World

nations

knowledge:

EISENHOWER, President of the United

States

act of Congress and at the request of the

Washington,

hereby

Science-Pan

to be held at Seattle, Washington,

"IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto United States of America to be

understanding

and cultural

to the aforesaid

the State of

by promoting

invite

appropriate

Pacific Exposition

foreign

(Century

from May, 1961, to October,

1962.

set my hand and caused the seal of the

affixed."

The State Department transmitted formal invitations to eighty-four nations w i t h whom

the United States had diplomatic

relations. The President's

proclamation

authorized invitations to all countries except " c o m m u n i s t de facto governments h o l d ing any people of the Pacific Rim in subjugation." But the State Department was most reluctant to issue an invitation to Russia. Convinced that participation by the Soviet Union w o u l d underline the international importance of the fair, and w o u l d help at the gate (partly through creating controversy), Century 21 representatives kept trying to clear the way for a Russian exhibit. At one point, the State Department hinted that it w o u l d acquiesce to Russian participationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; on condition that the Russian exhibition be staffed by Poles. Jim Faber recalls his final interview w i t h the State Department official in charge of keeping the Russians at arm's length: " W e were in his office at Foggy Bottom and he was telling me that out in Seattle w e just didn't realize how devious the Russians were, how they use cultural events such as ballet tours and trade fairs for espionage. 'They turn up everywhere,' he said. 'They push in here, there, everywhere. Why, I recall an incident involving Governor Harriman in New York. I received a paper on it last week.' Here he began shuffling papers on his desk, then looking in the drawers. Not finding what he was after, he said, 'I'll have my secretary bring you that file. "'Tanya, w i l l you come in here? Tanya?'" The Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, jealous of its prerogatives w i t h regard to money bills, was less than delighted at Senator Magnuson's

778

finessing a nine million dollar appropriation by riveting an amendment to the Mutual Security Bill. No sooner was Congress back in session than the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of Commerce and Related Agencies invited Philip Evans, the acting commissioner for federal participation, to appear before them w i t h "an up-to-date report on just where we are on the Century 21 program." Evans is a handsome, personable young man of independent means w h o had spent t w o years teaching at the University of Washington in the English Department, t w o in Europe as a correspondent for The Post-Intelligencer and the Milwaukee Journal, and on his return to Seattle had served as a radio and television news analyst and a director of the W o r l d Affairs Council. After an unsuccessful bid for election as the Republican candidate for congressman-at-large (Don Magnuson w o n ) , he accepted a position in the International Trade Fair program of the Foreign Commerce Section of the Department of Commerce; he was involved w i t h trade fairs at Poznan, Poland, and Izmir, Turkey. O n his return to this country, he began as a special assistant to Commerce Secretary Mueller, w h o recommended him as acting commissioner of Century 2 1 . Earnest and idealistic, Evans was not experienced in the rough-and-tumble of Congressional in-fighting. Members of the House subcommittee were clearly out to punish h i m , and his program, for the slights they felt had been inflicted on them by the Senate. The tone and method of the hearingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one of bland but deadly mousetrapping â&#x20AC;&#x201D;was quickly established. The subcommittee chairman was Representative Prince H. Preston of Georgia: MR. PRESTON: " H o w many people have you employed thus far, Mr. Evans?" Mr. EVANS: "Eighteen, sir." MR. PRESTON: " D o you have a schedule of these people?" MR. EVANS: "Yes, sir. Here is a copy." MR. PRESTON: "Have you appointed all of the top people in your organization?" MR. EVANS: "Yes, sir." MR. PRESTON: " O r is this just a beginning?" MR. EVANS: " W e have appointed all of the eighteen w h o are anticipated now, except an assistant to me . . ." MR. PRESTON: " I t seems to me that you are really well staffed to do this j o b . " MR. EVANS: "Yes, sir." MR. PRESTON: "You should not suffer for assistants or advisers." MR. EVANS: " I t is a very able staff." MR. PRESTON: " I do not know anything about their capabilities. I trust they are capable, but you have plenty of them. That is the point I am undertaking to make." The next to have at the acting commissioner was New York's Representative Rooney, one of the fiercest of Congressional committee room cross-examiners: MR. ROONEY: "This exposition is being run and was planned by the State of Washington, was it?" MR. EVANS: "Yes, sir." MR. ROONEY: "The federal government is merely a participant in it?" MR. EVANS: "Yes, sir." MR. ROONEY: " W h y , for goodness sake, t w o and one half years before the fair

779

opens, do you need a payroll such as shown on this sheet entitled staffing pattern?" MR. EVANS: "The need at the moment is great because w e need to actually identify the items, that is, the scientific exhibit items which should be developed for and included in the fair, and to make contacts w i t h American industry and w i t h all the government agencies in order to have all the exhibit items coordinated and brought to Seattle by that time . . ." MR. ROONEY: " W h a t is the monthly payroll of this group entitled staffing pattern?" MR. EVANS: "Approximately $9,000." MR. ROONEY: " W h a t w o u l d the building be used for f o l l o w i n g the conclusion of the fair?" MR. EVANS: "The legislative history indicates a need for office space in Seattle. Other public uses or federal uses at present have not been contemplated. There is, I might add—" MR. ROONEY: "Can you definitely say it is going to be used as an office building?" MR. EVANS: " N o , sir." MR. ROONEY: " W h a t might it be used for?" MR. EVANS: " I t might be used for warehouse, might be used for other federal uses—" MR. ROONEY: "You have all these people presently on the payroll . . . and you've done all this w i t h o u t k n o w i n g what the building w i l l be used for—this three million dollars-plus building—at the conclusion of the exhibition in 1962, is that correct?" MR. EVANS: "Yes, sir. The decision as to the secondary use of the building is not ours to make. If the Department of Commerce finds the building surplus for its needs at the conclusion of the fair, it turns the building over to General Services Administration, w h o then asks other agencies of the government what use they might make of the building . . ." If the Congressmen were giving the acting commissioner a bad time about the size of staff and the vague future of the federal building, it was just a warm-up for their inquisition concerning the scientific exhibits and possible Russian participation. The National Science Planning Board had in its preliminary discussions kept e m phasizing that science is not national but international. "There can be no flag on science," one of the board members remarked, and his colleagues indicated agreement. A basic aim of the early planning was to demonstrate that the scientific method is a tool that can be used by all, that the unfolding story of science is not a story of peoples but of mankind. O u t of this concept grew the idea of asking other nations to loan specific items to the United States which w o u l d illustrate phases of scientific development which that country had pioneered. If the scientists were thinking in terms of the universal, the politicians were zeroed in on the particular. The idea of spending American millions on a pavilion which might reflect a portion of credit on an alien intellectual or a foreign nation—perchance C o m munist—filled the congressmen w i t h indignation. Evans caught the brunt of their w r a t h : FRANK T. BOW, O h i o : "Let me ask you this question, sir: H o w much of this anticipated budget do you anticipate using for exhibiting of European science exhibits?" MR. EVANS: " W i t h i n the plan, as I see it now, I w o u l d say less than ten per cent." MR. ROONEY: "That is almost a million dollars." MR. EVANS: " N o , sir, less than ten per cent of the exhibit costs, which is $3,200,000—"

720

MR. PRESTON: " W i l l there be anything in this exhibit from the Soviet Union?" MR. EVANS: "That has not been determined, sir." MR. PRESTON: " N o t been determined?" MR. EVANS: " N o , sir." MR. PRESTON: "Is it possible that there might be?" MR. EVANS: " I t is possible." MR. PRESTON: " I n order to bring this d o w n to a little more definite status, Mr. Evans, the answer you gave to a question a moment ago leads me to suspect that there is a strong possibility that in this building built by American dollars there w i l l appear some scientific exhibit by the Soviet Union. W o u l d you be w i l l i n g to hazard a statement this morning as to whether there w i l l or w i l l not be?" MR. EVANS: "Yes, I w o u l d . I think it is possible, but at the moment not likely, because that w o u l d be very difficult to have such an exhibit." MR. PRESTON: " D o you think it w o u l d be desirable?" MR. EVANS: "Yes; in the sense that, if w e could avoid by including some exhibit under our control from the Soviet Union in our presentation of science the way we want to present it, and thereby avoid the Soviet Union creating a separate pavilion or exposition of its o w n on a competitive basis to try to suggest what the Russians might want to suggest, I w o u l d prefer that w e controlled what they do, rather than they." MR. PRESTON: " O f course, you and I know we aren't going to control anything the Soviets d o . " MR. EVANS: " I n our pavilion, sir, we are." A n d so it went through the cold January morning, the acting commissioner and the congressmen talking past each other, riding their separate rails of the universal and the national, w i t h no one w i l l i n g or able to throw the switch of compromise. It took months of political feather smoothing and log rolling to restore equanimity. The concept of an international house of science embracing exhibits from abroad as well as home was officially laid aside, though the point of universality was made magnificently in the exhibition as ultimately staged. After the change of administrations Evans was diplomatically (or politically) sidetracked. Eventually a scientist w i t h a flair for the graphic, Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus, became United States commissioner, w i t h Craig Colgate Jr. as his deputy. But Evans had one satisfaction which could never be w i t h d r a w n : it was he w h o named M i n o r u Yamasaki to create the United States Science Pavilion. Senator Magnuson returned to the appropriation wars in 1961 in search of an additional one million dollars to staff the Science Pavilion and bolster some of the exhibits. Over in the House the long-memory members of the House Appropriations Committee lay waitingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;alert, entrenched and embittered. A t the committee hearing, in spite of detailed and fervent testimony by Commissioner Spilhaus, the committee sandbagged the bill. Representative Rooney, w h o had earlier succeeded in changing the concept of the pavilion from a w o r l d science display to one flying the flag, now fought successfully against further appropriations to make the American science show a success. After the defeat, Magnuson stopped Rooney in the corridor. " W h y did you do it to me, John?"

727

" W a r r e n ! It's 3,000 miles from New York to Seattle." "John, as I recall you are having a world's fair in New York in 1964." "Correct." "Just remember, John, it's also 3,000 miles from Seattle to New York." The appropriation bill went through the Senate as if greased. Later, w i t h Representative Rooney's co-operation, a House-Senate conference committee ironed out the difference. The Science Pavilion received an additional $900,000, bringing the total appropriations to $9,900,000. As lagniappe, Magnuson sleight-of-handed appropriations of $70,000 for the Library 21 Exhibit; $26,000 from the Health Education and Welfare Department for the United States Office of Education's Learning Center adjoining the library, and helped persuade the National Aeronautics and Space Agency to provide the timely space show in a pavilion built by King County. Ray Olsen had shepherded a bill through the 1961 session of the State Legislature w h i c h made it possible for counties and other governing bodies to spend funds on the fair. Olsen had to do it twice, t o o ; an amendment in the Senate to his original bill made the act questionable in the eyes of bonding attorneys. The second bill, rushed through in the dying moments of the session as a special departmental request, met legal approval and cleared the way for County Commissioners Ed M u n r o , Howie Odell and Scott Wallace to sell $743,000 w o r t h of bonds, w i t h which the buildings on the perimeter of the Coliseum were constructed. As the opening day drew nearer, the Legislature warmed to the project. At the 1959 session, when a bill enlarging the World's Fair Commission was being considered, o p ponents led by Representative Edward Harris, Republican of Spokane, moved to delay the fair activity until 1965. Representative Harris questioned whether an exposition w o u l d n ' t be "a one-night stand of a glorified carnival." Representative A. L. (Slim) Rasmussen, Democrat of Tacoma, predicted it w o u l d be a " t w o - b i t fair" that w o u l d not impress visitors favorably. Both protested the civic center site, arguing that only Seattle w o u l d benefit. Representative Olsen counterattacked. " I f the fair is delayed," he warned, "there w i l l be no federal participation." Julia Butler Hansen, Democrat of Wahkiakum County, averred that postponement w o u l d be " o n e of the most embarrassing events ever to occur in this state." The motion to delay was overwhelmed, seventy-six to fourteen. M i n d f u l that some legislators remained unconvinced that there shouldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or couldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;be a fair, the World's Fair Commission determined to make its report to the 1961 session something special. They arranged for a j o i n t session of House and Senate early in the legislative session. The time was chosen carefully: not during the first week since there w o u l d be too much organizational activity; not Monday of the second week because some members might not be back from weekends at h o m e ; but Tuesday, before the crush of w o r k settled on the legislators, when their minds were fresh and their goodwill still uncurdled. Jim Faber had resigned as director of public relations for Century 21 in a dispute over policy (he refused to predict an attendance figure he felt overly optimisticâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but which was eventually achieved). Faber's successor, Jay Rockey, formerly director of public

722

relations in New York for the A l u m i n u m Company of America, but a native of Olympia, Washington, prepared a show the likes of which the Legislature had not seen before. Eddie Carlson served as master of ceremonies for the audio-visual extravaganza, w h i c h featured colored slides of the A-Y-P Exposition, of TV stars and opera singers w h o were co-operating in the publicity; of President Eisenhower, Senator Magnuson, Senator Jackson; of a Greek goatherd being interviewed about whether he intended to come to Century 2 1 ; of models of the exhibit buildings. But the triumph of the display was the individual pictures of Governor Rosellini, Lieutenant Governor Cherberg and all the legislative members of the World's Fair Commission. The shots of their colleagues gave the senators and representatives a chance to let off steam in good-natured boos. A n d after the session there was an opportunity to refuel at a party at the O l y m p i a n , where the commissioners quietly spread the w o r d that another $3,000,000 appropriation by the state w o u l d be most helpful and could be financed w i t h o u t strain out of the existing corporation license fees. The Senate took the lead this time in pushing the appropriation bill, which bore the names of Senators Howard Bargreen, Michael J. Gallagher and Reuben Knoblauch. The House bill was sponsored by Ray Olsen, Leonard Sawyer, Audley Mahaffey and Jeannette Testu. The money went primarily for completion of the enormous Coliseum and construction of the theme exhibit. Of all those w h o helped raise the money that made the Seattle World's Fair possible, none stuck their necks out farther than the businessmen w h o led the underwriting campaign. A politician runs an obvious risk in appropriating the taxpayers' money for a project that may come a cropper. But those asking private underwriting must get friends and business associates to put really substantial amounts into a venture whose success is at best problematical. The man w h o puts his arm on his associates for $25,000 each risks friendship as well as reputation. The first operating funds for the Century 21 Corporation (government money could be spent only on land and construction, not promotion) were raised in December, 1957, w h e n the group of twenty-five subscribers put up $1,000 each. The f o l l o w i n g June, Tom Gildersleve, the managing director of the Olympic Hotel, headed a campaign directed toward hotels, restaurants and f o o d purveyorsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;who obviously stood to benefit from a fair. The goal was $50,000. Pledges amounted to $37,722, not all of which were paid. In January of 1959, w i t h the employees unpaid and creditors restive, Century 21 received a financial respite when five men, each among the original $1,000 subscribers, sent in checks for $2,500 apiece to meet the payroll and placate the bill collectors. Still another limited drive was undertaken in June, this time under the direction of Frank Dupar. It sought $125,000 and w o n pledges of $128,225. But now the expenses of the Century 21 Exposition were becoming enormous. Prom o t i o n and publicity campaigns had to be mounted, foreign nations and American industry courted as exhibitors, art works commissioned, rental buildings erected. A study indicated that it w o u l d cost at least $3,000,000 (including the money already raised) to finance the operating expenses of Century 21 from the time of its inception until the doors opened and it began to collect money from gate receipts and its share of the concessions.

723

To raise $3,000,000 in Seattle calls for not only talent but prestige. The head of such a fund raising committee must be a top man w h o can talk to top men. Joe Gandy, w h o was about to take over as president of Century 21 Corporation, and W i l l i a m S. Street, president of Frederick and Nelson and a fierce believer in the fair from the start, decided that the top man for the j o b was youngish D. E. Skinner, president of the Alaska Steamship Company. Bill Street called on Ned Skinner in Skinner's wonderfully old-fashioned office high in the Skinner Building on Fifth Avenue, an anachronistic office w i t h maps and mahogany and a fireplace, redolent of the days when the sea was Seattle's excuse for existence and the Skinner and Eddy shipyards were setting international records in building steel ships for the First W o r l d War. Skinner is not a man w h o says yes quickly. A third-generation shipping man, as lean and dark and purposeful as the destroyers he navigated during the Second W o r l d War in the Pacific, Ned Skinner has a crisp and ready command of the negative, from " n o thanks" to " g o to h e l l . " But Bill Street found him an easy mark. " I t was n o t , " Skinner explained later of his acceptance of the chairmanship of the underwriting committee and a Century 21 vice-presidency, "that I failed to realize there w o u l d be an u n c o m m o n collection of headaches and problems, as well as a dirty lot of detail w o r k , but this is not the sort of thing a man is asked to do every day; nor to repeat next year. This was like being asked to help make possible the Alaska-YukonPacific Exposition. H o w w o u l d you have felt, looking back, if you had said ' n o ' to that?" In preparing for the campaign, Skinner had help not only from community leaders, already convinced and c o m m i t t e d , but also from a professional fund raiser, D o n Fry, a former general manager of Earl J. Smith and Associates of Chicago, a firm of consultants specializing in fund raising and the financing of community projects. He had joined Century 21 the previous December. The principal problem in the fund drive was to w o r k out ways in which firms could contribute to the financing w i t h o u t depleting their w o r k i n g capital. Skinner and Fry devised a program which is best described in a report Fry wrote for the files: " A program was w o r k e d out w i t h the banks of the Clearing House Association. The Clearing House Association agreed to lend $3,000,000 to Century 21 on the collateral of pledges secured from approved business firms. The loan was based on ninety per cent of the face value of the collateral. "For those w h o preferred to advance the money in cash, Century 21 issued its debentures bearing interest at six per cent. " I t was agreed that forty cents from each general admission should be set aside in a trust to amortize the underwritingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both the b o r r o w i n g of credit secured by pledges and the loans evidenced by debentures. Attendance was estimated at 10,000,000 and forty cents from each paid admission w o u l d create a fund of $4,000,000 to amortize the $3,000,000 of borrowing. " A trust indenture was prepared setting forth the plan and naming Lowell P. M i c k e l wait, Nat Rogers and Henry Broderick as trustees for the underwriters." W h i l e this funding arrangement was being made, an exhaustive study was conducted to appraise the potential of the Seattle business community to raise $3,000,000. It was agreed that if the amount were raised it w o u l d have to come from a limited

724

group of the larger firms w i t h each being asked to subscribe rather substantial amounts. Allan Morgan, vice-president of the Seattle-First National Bank, headed a rating committee consisting of representatives from other banks belonging to the Clearing House Association. They were given a list of some four hundred prospects, and asked to rate their value as prospects, w i t h a $100,000 ceiling. (The banks of the Clearing House Association were left out of the ratings, but the Association was tapped for $300,000.) After giving the list the banker's eye, the committee suggested that the $3,000,000 could be secured by the solicitation of approximately three hundred firms. Skinner and Gregg C. MacDonald, the vice-chairman of the underwriting committee, then organized a series of conference-type meetings to which the prospects were invited in groups ranging from t w o to thirty, the average attendance being twenty. At these meetings Joe Gandy, or when he was not available, Hugh Smith of the public relations staff, presented the Century 21 Exposition story, complete w i t h color slides, after which Ned Skinner discussed the underwriting program, using a flip chart. The meeting was then opened to questions, which were often pointed if not hostile. A remarkably high percentage of those w h o attended the meetings loaned their c o m pany's credit or bought debenturesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the margin was ten to one in favor of credit. In the course of a year's solicitation, the $3,000,000 was subscribed by approximately t w o hundred fifty firms. But as the fund raising drive was nearing its announced goal, the directors of the Corporation realized they needed more for site development. The contractors putting up the fair buildings needed to be paid in cash so they could pay their employees. The committee was asked for another $1,500,000. A financing plan similar to that used on the original program was adopted. It was agreed that an additional twenty cents from each paid general admission should be set aside in a trust to amortize the $1,500,000 of borrowing. A total of sixty cents was to be taken from each paid general admission ticket for benefit of the t w o trusts. An indenture, similar to the first one, was prepared and the same trustees designated. As an experiment, a drive among small businesses, conducted largely by junior executives was tried. It raised a disappointing $200,000, less than a quarter of what had been anticipated. So the top executives moved back in. The first team scored a second time, getting a notable assist from Tacoma, where Reno O d l i n , president of the Puget Sound National Bank and Bernard Orell, vice-president of the Weyerhaeuser Company, were instrumental in bringing in subscriptions totalling $200,000. This was in addition to $100,000 that three Tacoma firms had subscribed to the first program. The underwriting campaign had the cooperation of and received subscriptions from the Teamsters and from a group of AFL-CIO unions through the efforts of the Washington State Labor Council. Although

no organized

effort was made to

secure

support in cities other than Seattle and Tacoma, a few subscriptions came in. Individuals and the heads of firms that subscribed received a silver lapel emblem. Those w h o subscribed $500 or more were invited to the formal banquet and ceremonies on the eve of the opening, including a monorail ride and a party atop the Space Needle. They also got their money back ahead of schedule, which in spite of Ned Skinner's persuasive salesmanship must have surprised some of the subscribers. After all, only one previous six-month fair had repaid its debenture holders the full amount of their subscriptions. That had been the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.

725

i, /

Chapter

Nine

A World's Fair, Really

W h e n City Councilman Al Rochester referred to the proposed golden anniversary celebration of the A-Y-P Exposition as a " w o r l d ' s fair" in the petition he wrote for the City Council to present to the Legislature in 1955, he used the term loosely. Rochester gaily concedes that he had never heard of the Bureau of International Expositions, which claims the sole right to designate a fair as being of w o r l d class. Nor w o u l d knowledge of the existence and pretensions of the Bureau of International Expositions have been likely to deter a man w i t h Rochester's ebullient disregard for status. Nevertheless, the Bureau of International Expositions is important. Early in this century what had been occasional international fairs of earlier years began to proliferate. By the end of the First W o r l d War governments found themselves besieged by importunate impresarios coveting exhibits for festivals from Riga to Rochester to Rangoon. To exhibit was expensive; to refuse, insulting. For their o w n protection, a number of governments negotiated a treaty setting up the Bureau of International Expositions and assigned it the task of deciding which fairs were the real McCoy.

727

The United States is not a signatory to the treaty creating the Bureau of International Expositions. If Seattle wanted to call its exposition a world's fair w i t h o u t the international agency's sanction, it could have done so—as New York is doing. But for Seattle the difficulty w i t h such a policy was that some thirty nations, including most of those considered necessary for a true world's fair, have signed the Bureau of International Expositions treaty. Terms of the treaty prohibit signatory powers from taking part in fairs not recognized by the organization. This limitation—which was designed to give member nations a diplomatic excuse when asked to contribute to lesser fetes—can be circumvented. A country w i t h a desire to take part in an unrecognized exposition can have its exhibit sponsored by a quasi-official organization, such as the national chamber of commerce. But the prestige and pulling power of the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle, Washington, was not such that great powers were battering at the gates to be let in. O n learning of the existence of the Bureau of International Expositions, the Century 21 people had asked help from the State Department and the Commerce Department in gaining international acceptance. There had not been a world's fair for twenty years, the United States was not a signatory to the treaty, and no desk in either department had more information about the Bureau of International Expositions than could be found at the Library of Congress—which wasn't much. Letters to the Bureau of International Expositions went unanswered. W h e n Governor Rosellini, Speaker of the House John O'Brien and Jim Faber were at the Brussels World's Fair in the summer of 1958, they thought they had a date arranged w i t h Bureau of International Exposition officials. They were stood up. So Faber slipped off to Paris to see if there really was a Bureau of International Expositions. (Similar doubts existed in Europe about the existence of a city w i t h the improbable name of SEE-tul. A b o u t as many Europeans could find Seattle readily on a map as there are Pacific Northwesterners w h o could locate Ibadan, a t o w n in Nigeria of Seattle's size, w i t h o u t help. W h i l e talking to a representative from the Soviet Union at the Brussels World's Fair, Faber realized that the Russian did not have the foggiest notion where Seattle was. "Seattle—Seattle, W A S H I N G T O N , " said Faber. " A h , yes," replied the Russian, relief crossing his broad face. "Very hot there in summer. But Virginia is lovely.") Accompanied by a State Department interpreter, Faber set out for the Bureau of International Exposition headquarters. He expected a smaller version of the United Nations building. He found the office in the loft of what he recalls as "an obscure building on a back street in Paris." A note on the door translated as out to lunch. French luncheons can last a long time. O n his third call Faber was ushered into the presence of a short, gray-haired, positive lady, Madame Michel Issac, the director w h o presided over an office full of cardboard filing cases. He was ushered back out w i t h Gallic verve as soon as Madame Issac determined that he was not the representative of the United States government. During the brief chat it was made clear to the Seattleite that the Bureau of International Expositions talked only to government officials, and that the United States as a n o n signatory power did not even have the right to approach the organization. Faber reported back to Seattle that recognition of Century 21 even as a second category fair—one in which the participating governments do not have to build their

128

o w n pavilions and after which the ground does not have to be levelled—was probably beyond Century 21's grasp. For one thing, the Bureau of International

Expositions

w o u l d not recognize a fair that ran for more than one season. Seattle was talking about the summers of 1961 and 1962. Acting United States Commissioner Phil Evans was the next to approach the redoubtable Madame Issac. Handsome, knowledgeable, w i t h pertinent background picked up at the trade fairs in Poland and Turkey, possessed of adequate French and a Presidential proclamation inviting international participation in the Seattle affair, Evans marched up the steps of the headquarters building on the Avenue de Franklin Roosevelt and, shortly afterward, marched back d o w n , empty-handed and convinced that recognition was beyond reach. There matters rested until early in 1960 when Joe Gandy decided to see how a salesman w o u l d fare as a diplomat and flew to Paris w i t h Century 21 as his c o m m o d i t y and Madame Issac his potential customer. Joseph E. Gandy is a big, rugged-looking man w i t h hazel eyes, dark, wavy hair now faintly fringed w i t h gray, and a notably long nose in a long, ruddy face. He looks like a successful corporation lawyer, and as a matter of fact was graduated from the University of Washington law school (Dean Alfred Schweppe signed his degree), but it was his prowess as a persuader that made him an executive in Smith-Gandy, one of the area's largest Ford automobile agencies, and a prominent figure in community life. A man of varied interests—the Seattle Urban League, Seattle Municipal League, Seattle Arboretum Foundation, Greater Seattle, Inc., Seattle W o r l d Affairs Council, Seattle Art Museum, past president of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the Seattle Central Association—Gandy was heir-apparent to the throne of King Neptune at the 1959 Seattle Seafair when the board of the Century 21 Corporation tapped him as president to succeed Eddie Carlson, w h o had decided that the t w i n jobs of president of the Commission and the Corporation, w h i l e fine for liaison, were too much for one man w h o also had a hotel chain to run. Gandy agreed that as soon as he shucked his Seafair king's playsuit, he w o u l d devote full time to the fair. He took a year's leave of absence, w i t h o u t pay, from Smith-Gandy, a year w h i c h in December of 1962 was still lengthening. Though he had been a member of the Corporation from the start, Gandy had not f o l l o w e d the day-to-day developments. He says his surprise was great w h e n , after accepting office, he learned that federal money in meaningful amounts had yet to be appropriated (it came through shortly) and that substantial local underwriting was in the talking rather than the receiving stage. "The boys had forgotten to mention to me that we were broke," he said long afterward, w i t h a burst of laughter. Gandy's reaction was characteristically uncomplicated: get the money to support the fair, then get the recognition for the fair. " T o have a world's fair," he reasoned, " y o u have to have the w o r l d . To get the w o r l d to take part in your fair, you need the recognition of the Bureau of International Expositions. To get it you have to show them that you have the backing of the federal government, the state, the city and the business community. So let's get our ducks in a row and give it another blast." The state and city ducks were already suitably in line, Senator Magnuson was charming the federal w i l d f o w l into position, and Ned Skinner soon exercised his magic

729

on the birds of business. When w o r d reached Seattle early in 1960 that the Bureau of International Expositions had decided to hold a special meeting in Paris for preliminary consideration of rival claims of Montreal and Moscow to the right to hold a 1967 world's fair, Gandy decided the time had come to see how a good Ford salesman w o u l d make out in Paris. Allen Beach was then the fair's deputy director of exhibits and concessions. Beach, a native of Seattle, had been manager of the United States Exhibition at the Tokyo International Trade Fair; deputy director of the United States Exhibit at Brussels, and trade fair manager for the Department of Commerce's Office of International Trade Fairs. He preceded Gandy to Paris to make preliminary plans. As an old hand in the international exposition game, Beach was sensitive to the desire of officials in minor organizations to be courted in a grand style. So by the time Gandy arrived, Beach had established headquarters for him at a posh hotel, had prepared engraved invitations from the president of the Century 21 Corporation to every delegate to the bureau asking the honor of his presence at one of a series of elaborate luncheons and dinners, and had lined up the services of James Kennedy, a former Seattleite then a resident in Paris, as interpreter, guide and jacque-of-all-trades. An incident at the first luncheon left Gandy w i t h a depressed feeling of the great distance to be covered. After an exquisite meal, Gandy had explained Seattle's plans, stressing the unity of the community, the backing of the federal government, the beauties of Washington State. At the close, one of the guests, the delegate from a small but important M i d d l e Eastern country, remarked that he didn't think Seattle a suitable place for a world's fair. " W h y do you have that impression?" " M y dear Mr. Gandy, the climate is so bad. It w o u l d be a disservice to the people of the w o r l d to encourage their presence there." "You've been there yourself?" "Six weeks ago." " A n d what, precisely, did you find objectionable about the climate?" " I t rains all the time and very hard. W h y it was raining so hard I couldn't see to the top of the Washington M o n u m e n t . " Though disconcerted at Seattle's lack of international fame, Gandy rebounded quickly. The next day, a Saturday, Gandy called the French manager of Kodak, persuaded him to open up shop and prepare a large and beautiful map of the United States w i t h the State of Washington in bold outline, another map of the state w i t h Seattle predominating. They were ready by the time the next guests from the Bureau of International Expositions arrived. Gandy was able to slip in some unobtrusive geography lessons along w i t h his sales pitch. "As you k n o w , " he w o u l d say, "Seattle is not a suburb of Washington, D. C. W e are the metropolis of a great and exciting region, the Pacific N o r t h w e s t . . ." This, in turn, sometimes led into explanations that the Puget Sound country had neither Eskimos nor icebergs but was, instead, a region rather like Normandy, though not as rainy. The special Bureau of International Expositions conference ended w i t h o u t agreement on whether Moscow or Montreal should have the 1967 world's fair. Nor did Seattle have an opportunity to make a formal presentation to the bureau of its bid for 1962.

730

But the visit did give Gandy the feel of the problems he faced and ideas of how to solve them. In the first place, there was the problem of New York, which also was seeking recognition for a fair, theirs for 1964. The New York representatives were in effective possession of the United States Embassy in Paris. "The Embassy w o u l d n ' t help us then, or ever," he has said. "They were so uncooperative I thought about taking my maps over there and pointing out that we were part of the United States, t o o . " New York's big push for recognition was far from a total handicap. The staff of the Bureau of International Expositions was Parisian, and among Parisians there is a streak of hostility toward other cities which sometimes claim to be the world's most wonderful. As for the delegates from the member nations, Gandy soon realized that they resented the New Yorkers' air of assurance that the bureau could not possibly turn them d o w n . A n d when he learned that on their first visit to Madame Issac they had given deep offense by spelling out the changes they wanted to see made in regulations for New York's benefit, he sensed what his o w n approach to the lady should be. W h e n Joe Gandy talked to Michel Issac, he pointed out that Seattle's aim was to abide implicitly by every regulation of the bureau. He was able to say that already, in deference to the organization's policy of six-month fairs, that Seattle had dropped its plans for a two-summer show. (The announcement had been one of Gandy's first as president of the Century 21 Corporation. It was made soon after the $9,000,000 federal appropriation cleared Congress. Though the decision increased doubts at home about the likelihood of the fair's ever happening, it made possible the eventual international acceptance.) As New York's sales approach grew harder and harder, Gandy's softened like soap in water. A veteran member of the international agency said that many of the members remembered vividly the labor union difficulties their exhibitors had experienced at the 1939 fair in New York. They had trouble on the docks, trouble w i t h the Teamsters, trouble w i t h the contractors, jurisdictional trouble in hiring a staff. There were strikes and slowdowns and the threat of strikes and slowdowns. " W e felt we had been racketeered." Here Gandy saw a chance to offer the customer something the rival product didn't have. W h e n he returned to Seattle from Paris, he went to the Labor Temple and sat d o w n for a chat w i t h Harry L. Carr, president of the King County Labor Council. Gandy explained that worries about w o r k stoppages might block recognition of either the Seattle or New York fairs. A no-strike pledge by local labor could be a trump card in Seattle's hand. "But it shouldn't be given unless it is absolutely certain it w o u l d be h o n o r e d , " Gandy insisted. " I f we w o n recognition on the basis of the pledge and then somebody wildcatted, it w o u l d be an international black eye that Seattle w o u l d wear for years." Harry Carr said he w o u l d take it up w i t h the membership. W h e n Gandy left for Paris again in late April he carried w i t h him t w o secret weapons in the form of letters. "Dear Mr. Gandy: "The labor movement in Seattle and King County of the State of Washington w i l l agree to the f o l l o w i n g stipulations.

737

" 1 . The King County Labor Council and its affiliates w i l l for the installation and during the Century 21 Exposition furnish all labor to Century 21 and its lessees at the current labor rates and working conditions, w i t h o u t any stoppage of work, strikes or otherwise and w i l l process all grievances through the mediation services of the King County Labor Council. " 2 . Exhibitors may bring technicians and such personnel that may be required as long as their activities are confined to the Century 21 Exposition." Signed Harry L. Carr and C. W. Ramage, King County Labor Council of Washington. "Dear Mr. Gandy: " D u r i n g the construction period and for the duration of Century 21 Exposition, the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council, through its various affiliates w i l l supply skilled craftsmen to Century 21 and its lessees at the current wage rates, fringe benefits and local w o r k i n g conditions w i t h o u t any w o r k stoppage through strikes or disputes. " A l l grievances w i l l be processed through mediation and in no way affect the continuity of w o r k within the Century 21 grounds. "Exhibitors may bring skilled technicians and supervisory personnel that may be required as long as they do not do the w o r k of skilled craftsmen w h o in the normal course of their daily w o r k do like work for local contractors." Signed, Clyde Fenn, Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council. En route to Paris, Gandy stopped in London to confer w i t h British and Canadian delegates to the Bureau of International Expositions conference. (Seattle was giving what support it could to Montreal's drive to beat out Moscow as host city for the 1967 fair, and in return Glen Bannerman, director of Canada's Government Exhibition Commission, was supplying information and advice.) In London, Gandy chanced to meet an old friend, Stanton H. Patty of The Seattle Times, w h o was headed home after covering an international fisheries meeting in Geneva. Gandy phoned The Times and received permission to take Patty w i t h him to Paris, at no expense to the paper. " I need someone I can tell my troubles t o , " Gandy explained. The next evening they were in the Century 21 Exposition offices in the penthouse atop the New York Times building in Paris. The view was wonderful but the phone didn't w o r k and the office was still reminiscent of the Gestapo, which had used it as a headquarters during the occupation. Plywood shutters covered the w i n d o w s , and a motley of chairs had been pressed into service as filing cabinets. Gandy found himself perching on the w i n d o w sill to sort his mail. The next day Gandy set out on a round of visits to all the bureau delegates at their embassies. At each stop, he left copies of the labor leaders' no-strike pledge, at each he spoke of the federal recognition already given Seattle's fair (New York had none), at each he was careful to ask if there were anything else Seattle might do to conform not only w i t h the letter but the spirit of the bureau's regulations. The careful attention to the customer's sensibilities was having its effect. Madame Issac came to a luncheon at the George V Hotel. Gandy was careful not to talk business w i t h her, but Mrs. William W. Phillips, the French wife of the American w h o was about to be appointed the fair's European representative, told Gandy that Madame Issac definitely was sympathetic to Seattle's bid.

732

Gandy and Madame Issac met again at a party. The director mentioned the agenda of the meeting on May 5 called for consideration of Seattle's bid. The letter Gandy worked hardest over was that to Leon Barety, the president of the Bureau of International Expositions. He wanted to strike exactly the correct notes of urgency and of respect for the bureau and its regulations. "Dear Mr. Barety: "As president of the Century 21 Exposition (Seattle 1962) I wish you to know that, although the United States of America is not as yet a signatory to the 1928 convention, w e have done our utmost to insure that our exposition w i l l conform in all respects to the letter and the spirit of the rules and regulations of the Bureau Internationale des Expositions. " O u r exposition w i l l open on April 2 1 , 1962. In terms of the requisite international arrangements, this opening date is but a short time away. It is therefore essential that we obtain as soon as possible an opinion from the bureau as to official participation by its members in the Seattle Century 21 Exposition. " W e should be most grateful if it might be possible during the course of tomorrow's meeting to obtain at least some opinion regarding the Century 21 Exposition." Gandy wanted Barety to receive the letter just before the meeting opened so that its contents w o u l d be fresh in the presiding officer's m i n d . Genevieve Phillips offered to make the delivery. Gandy was delighted: Mrs. Phillips was not a person to be sidetracked, and having a beautiful Frenchwoman present the letter could not but help. Through a misunderstanding, Mrs. Phillips went to the w r o n g office to pick up the letter. Several phone calls and a frantic cross-Paris dash later, she reached the bureau headquarters and handed M. Barety the letter. " H e was very nice," she told Gandy. For hours that was the only encouragement Gandy got. Though he had learned informally that Seattle's bid had been advanced to third place on the agenda, no w o r d came from the meeting. Twilight fell and the birds sang in the chestnut trees, and the homeward bound cars made the stone walls echo w i t h their klaxons, but the phone did not ring. Gandy and Kennedy and Patty tried to keep up each other's spirits w i t h aphorisms. " W e ' v e done all we can. There's nothing to do now but wait. No news is good news." It was dark outside now and the men were silent. The phone rang and both Kennedy and Gandy reached for it. Gandy w o n . The anxiety drained from his face and the others got the message even before he spoke. The Dutch delegate, L. P. H. O o m a n , was calling to say that the bureau had voted tentative approval of Seattle's bid. The question of recommending final approval was referred to a special classification committee, which w o u l d report back to the November meeting. But Gandy knew that Ooman was chairman of the special committee and its members were largely Seattle sympathizers. New York's bid had been turned d o w n w i t h the explanation that Seattle's recognition made it impossible to consider another American fair. Gandy had made his biggest sale. The impossible had been achieved. But already the salesman was thinking of the morrow. "This is just a hunting license," he said. " N o w we have to go out after other game. W e have to sell the governments on participating."

733

Chapter Ten

The Space Needle Story

In a story studded w i t h improbable coincidences and but-for-that-it-wouldn't-havehappeneds, no segment is more unlikely than the occurrence of the Space Needle, which w o u l d n ' t be there if the W e b b Moffetts hadn't decided to pick up a MercedesBenz while on vacation in Europe. The Moffetts are friends of the Eddie Carlsons. They were dining together one evening when Mrs. Moffett mentioned their coming vacation and said, "You need a break, Eddie. You look like the last frayed string on the violin. W h y don't you and Nell come w i t h us to Europe." " O h , sure," said Carlson. " W e ' l l order our tickets in the m o r n i n g . " O n their way home, Mrs. Carlson said, " D o n ' t kid Virginia about our going along, dear. She doesn't kid w e l l . " " I was only half-kidding." A n d so they went. The Moffetts were to get delivery on their Mercedes-Benz at Stuttgart. The party flew in late one afternoon w i t h only a day to spend in the German t o w n . They were

735

met at the airport by Mrs. Margot Colden, a w o m a n w h o was a friend of a friend. " O n l y one night?" she said. "Then you must have dinner at the TV tower. At least you w i l l be able to see all the lovely countryside as we d i n e . " The TV tower turned out to be a narrow funnel of reinforced concrete w i t h elevators —pay elevators—to carry visitors up four hundred feet to a barrel-shaped superstructure housing a multi-floor restaurant. The view out over the old city, at the confluence of the Neckar and the Wesenbach rivers, was magnificent. But Eddie Carlson wasn't wearing his tourist cap that night; he had on his hotel manager's hat. The place was full, though it was a weekday evening, and Carlson kept thinking, "They're not only here but they paid to get up here. They actually paid a fee to buy a dinner." That night Carlson, an habitually light sleeper, thrashed and turned and thought about the TV tower. He recalled other famous towers people pay to ascend—the Empire State, the Eiffel, the Statue of Liberty. At breakfast in the Graf Zeppelin Hotel he doodled on a place mat pictures of a spire soaring up from the fairgrounds. O n top of it he balanced a disc—like a flying saucer. At the cashier's desk there was a rack of postcards w i t h scenes of Stuttgart. Carlson picked out some of the TV tower. He drew his sketch on the back of one and mailed it to Dingwall in Seattle w i t h the note, " W h y don't we build a Space Needle for the fair?" The postcard apparently made it into the circular file at the Civic Auditorium— at least, several searches failed to locate it in the permanent files—but Carlson and Dingwall are both sure that Space Needle was the w o r d from the start. Carlson asked Mrs. Colden to go to the Rathaus and get more information on the TV tower and its operation. She brought him a sheaf of material in German and translated enough of it to show that the Stuttgart spire was not only a money-making restaurant but a profitable antenna site for TV stations. " I f we ever do build one of these," Carlson told Mrs. Colden as he left Stuttgart, " y o u ' l l have to be there when it opens." By the time Carlson got back to Seattle, the idea of the tower was, he admits, "a bit of an obsession." Two days after his return he had lunch at the Olympic Grill w i t h Jim Douglas, another Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity brother, and the Century 21 vicepresident in charge of construction. " J i m , " said Eddie, pulling from his pocket one of the postcard photos of the TV tower, " I can't get this thing out of my m i n d . We've been trying to find a symbol for Century 21 that w o u l d attract attention around the w o r l d . The Monorail idea is as close as we've come, and it's still yes, no or maybe on that. But a restaurant like this, way up in the sky, w o u l d tie in w i t h our man in the space age theme, it w o u l d reflect soaring and aspiration and progress; even flying saucers. A n d think of the view from up there— the mountain ranges, Puget Sound, the lakes, and Seattle and the fairgrounds below, as a floor show." Douglas said, "Let's go see Jack Graham." The architectural firm of John Graham and Company has offices just d o w n the street from the Olympic Hotel. Jim Douglas had great respect for Jack Graham, w h o had designed for him Seattle's Northgate center, a concept that touched off the regional shopping center pandemic in the United States. Graham's firm had already been asked to suggest theme buildings for Century 2 1 . Two of his men, Jim Jackson and Art Edwards,

736

were sketching a futuristic aquarium in which visitors w o u l d course through transparent tunnels while the fish of the w o r l d swam past, and an elevated restaurant perched on hundred foot legs over a fountain-splashed park. Jack Graham was even more the man they were after than Carlson and Douglas suspected. He had w o n his Beaux Arts medal at the University of Washington for the design of a memorial shaft; at Yale's graduate school he had sat at the feet of Buckminster Fuller, the apostle of the dimaxion houseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a circular habitation hung from a central shaft housing the utilities; and at the moment Graham was building, atop the Ala Moana shopping center in H o n o l u l u , a circular building housing a revolving restaurant. Looking at a postcard of the Stuttgart tower, Graham suggested that the pie in the sky be put in orbit. "Let's make the restaurant revolve," he said. "Is that possible?" "It's possible. I'll have the boys do some sketches and w o r k up some estimates on costs. It may not be feasible." By June 1 , Art Edwards had conjured up a balloon-shaped building set on a slender circular shaft and steadied w i t h a filigree of cables around which a spiral toboggan slide w o u l d carry visitors up and d o w n . Carlson and Douglas liked it, but asked what it w o u l d cost. It was too early to tell, but it was clear the cost of building the space tower w o u l d soar into the millions. There was only so much space on top. Could a restaurrant seating three hundred persons pay off the construction costs? Planning was changed to include an aquarium below the restaurant, a planetarium above, and a TV antenna tower at the ultimate peak. But these made the tower ungainly and more expensive, and Seattle TV stations already had their towers. Edwards' sketches spiraled back toward the concept of a slender pole holding a delicate saucer â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a Space Needle, they called it around the office, and they didn't recall having heard the name before. A drawing of the spire and saucer was shown to Governor Rosellini and some prospective financial backers at a meeting in Carlson's eyrie atop the Olympic on December 5, 1959. Enthusiasm was instant and universal. Everyone was sure someone else w o u l d put up the money. The months dragged on. The hopeful pursuits of design and dollars continued. Vic Steinbrueck of the University of Washington School of Architecture was called in as a consultant and, w i t h John Ridley, finally hit on the tripod as a substitute for the columnar supporting base. That eliminated the need of supporting cables and gave the structure a delicacy other designs had lacked. Nate Wilkinson suggested leaving the radial steel floor supports uncovered to give greater delicacy. The problem of aesthetics was licked. If money were f o u n d , the rest w o u l d be up to the engineers. Eddie Carlson tried to talk the county commissioners into building the Needle. It w o u l d be a symbol of the area: it should be a public building. Howie Odell was enthusiastic but Ed M u n r o believed a restaurant, whether high in the sky or d o w n to earth, was a j o b for private enterprise. One of the most enterprising private citizens known to John Graham was young Bagley Wright, a financier. When Wright complained one day that a hotel development he had been planning had fallen through, Graham asked, " W h y don't you build our Space Needle instead?" He showed Wright the designs and, seeing that he was im-

737

pressed and wavering, sent him over to Gandy, in hopes that Century 21's master salesman could close the deal. Wright was hooked. But he could not see his way clear to taking the w h o l e risk. Gandy sent him to Ned Skinner, w h o already had been infected w i t h the virus of enthusiasm from the Needle. Skinner said maybe, and suggested a visit to Norton Clapp, the politically conservative but financially venturesome entrepreneur w h o had just built the fine new Norton Building. Clapp referred Wright to Al Link, w h o managed Clapp's real estate ventures. Link wanted to know how good the view really w o u l d be from the Eye of the Needle. So Wright hired a helicopter and w i t h Ned Skinner hovered delightedly over the fairgrounds on a clear day They came d o w n convinced. Jack Graham, w h o was already involved through his contributions toward design, agreed to come in. So did Howard Wright, president of the Howard Wright Construction Company, the prospective contractor. Papers were drawn up for the Space Needle Corporation. But the corporation w o u l d have to get bank credit in order to build. A n d how do you go about getting a mortgage on an unbuilt structure of radical design at an unspecified location? The first plan had been to build the Needle on land leased from the city. But the contemplated site had been acquired by condemnation for use as part of the civic center. The promoters' legal advisers pointed out that there was a serious question whether it could be leased to private individuals for a profit-making venture. "Even if the city is w i l l i n g to give you a lease," said one of the lawyers, "just think of where you'll be if you get the thing halfway built and Al Schweppe or some cantankerous taxpayer gets a restraining order tying you up a year or t w o while the courts figure out whether you're a legitimate public f u n c t i o n . " So they began to look for private land nearby. The Nile Temple site was a possibility. The Masons indicated they were w i l l i n g to sellâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for half a million dollars. The Needle people were trying to deflate that asking price when the engineers discovered that deep under the ground was a big storm drain. Nobody wanted to try to balance the Needle on a sewer. Next they looked at the service station site across Broad Street from the fairgrounds. It posed solvable problems: city officials indicated they w o u l d say yes to a request for permission to lower the arterial and bridge it w i t h an overpass. But the property owners made what seemed to the prospective buyers grand allusions. Negotiations crumbled under the weight of the asking price. Finally somebody remembered that there was a plot in the civic center area which hadn't been condemned because the city already o w n e d itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an area on which a fire station had stood. Soil tests showed the land firm, unperforated by sanitary or storm sewers. This parcel the city could dispose of as it saw fit. They sold it for the Space Needle. Jack Graham bought the site in his firm's name, the Space Needle Corporation still not having completed negotiations for bank financing. (The financial

log-jam

didn't break until March 6, 1961, when the Bank of California agreed to loan part of the money, and other banks fell in line.) In mid-February, Professor John Minasian, a hulking, beetling, be-mustached expert on tower construction, was brought up from Los Angeles to perfect the structural design. He strengthened it, adding rigidity and nearly a million dollars. The concrete

738

consultants had disagreed on the best method for building the Needle, and Jack Graham had made a last-minute switch to steel. Steel construction involved new problems. The tower design called for the legs in the high midsection to be curved. Each leg was to be formed by w e l d i n g a trio of yard-wide, inch-and-three-quarters

thick " I " beams that weighed

three

hundred

pounds to the running foot. United States Steel shipped the ninety foot long beams to Seattle from Chicago on sixty-five-foot open-end gondolas, w i t h flat cars at either end acting as " i d l e r s " to permit coupling onto the train. The beams were cast straight. Bob LeBlanc at Pacific Car and Foundry was told to bend them. The bending had to be so precise that every bolt w o u l d slide easily into place in the 90,000-pound columns. Nothing quite like it had been done before. LaBlanc's solution was to heat pieshaped portions of the beams: as they cooled the w i d e part of the heated section w o u l d shrink more than the narrower part, curving the beam. He described the method as "templets, touch and horse-sense." It was April 17, a year and four days before the scheduled opening of the fair, when the great shovels waddled onto the grounds and began scooping out the hole for the foundation—a "Y"-shaped excavation, thirty feet deep, laced w i t h t w o hundred fifty tons of reinforcing steel and seventy-two anchor bolts, each four inches thick and thirty-one feet, six inches long. O n May 26 the actual pour began. Hour after hour, from sunrise to sunset, the cement trucks backed up to the hole and spewed their soupy contents d o w n upon the bracing steel. It was the longest sustained cement pour in the history of the Pacific Northwest. In twelve hours the pad was topped off. More than 2,800 cubic yards of concrete—four hundred seventy truckloads, fifty-six hundred tons—buried the reinforcing framework. The foundation is so massive that although there are 3,500 tons of steel in the tower alone, the center of gravity of the whole structure is below ground level. Eddie Carlson looks back on the foundation pour, along w i t h opening day, as the high moments of Century 2 1 . " W a t c h i n g the pour," he says, " I cried a little." N o w the stage was set for Seattle's most spectacular free show. A month to the day after the pour, the core of the Needle started to rise on the hardened pad. The central shaft is six-sided, w i t h three broad faces up which the elevators now run, and three narrow connecting faces. The first sections were lifted into place by an enormous, high-boomed crane, then w e l d e d . The pedestals for the first legs were nestled onto the great anchor bolts, and the first ninety-foot leg bones were set in place and tied into the core w i t h girders. Sidewalk superintendents pondered how the sections w o u l d be raised once the Needle got beyond reach of the ground-bound crane. That was answered when the temporary crane lifted another crane and set it gently in the eleven-foot interior of the shaft, its arm reaching out over the top. As the Needle w e n t up, the inside crane lifted itself up the shaft it was building. A n d when it came to the very top, it was taken apart and lowered d o w n the outside. By mid-July the Needle was visible in much of the city. It grew improbably fast. Even those w h o likened it to a rank w e e d , and found it ugly, marveled at the speed w i t h which it rose, changing the skyline. It compelled attention as the w o r k m e n , clinging to the cables, walking the beams, labored in rain and w i n d and blinding sun.

739

:im-

illilr';:?'"p'

4litiliilt§ •sK0W$lffMiSfi$

f!Si4«S4i§4444 ¥M\

..si44iii

-mimmmm^mmk

llllilllllilll imiai III 8KBBM

You couldn't ignore the Needle. Throughout the summer and early fall the spire took shape, narrowing first, then stretching its arms to support the saucer. The fall rains turned cold and the winter gales stormed in from the Pacific, buffeting the men, tangling cables, and swinging the great chunks of metal that were being lifted into the sky. Ewen Dingwall recalls an evening conference in his office when somebody glanced out the w i n d o w and noticed that the red light required atop the structure by the Federal Aviation Agency was not burning. So the headquarters people phoned over to remind them. The man in charge apologized for forgetting to flick the switch. " W e ' v e been awfully busy," he explained. "The w i n d came up unexpectedly and is gusting at more than fifty miles an hour and it's caught us w i t h a thirty-ton chunk of leg halfway up. The leg is spinning. W e can't put her d o w n and we're trying to boom her up and secure her against the side. Sorry about forgetting the light." The crews worked all night w i t h o u t relief in the dark of the gale. But they saved the section of leg. Another storm was blowing on the December day when the crane was swung over the side and lowered. It took twenty-four hours to get it d o w n . But on December 20, the fifty-foot torch tower was nudged over from its temporary rack to fill the gap where the crane arm had been. The point of the Needle was 600 feet above ground. The structural w o r k was completed. Not a man had been lost. W i t h the Needle a fixture on the skyline, interest began to center on the intricacies of the revolving restaurant. A misconception about the Needle is that the entire tophouse rotates. Actually the portion that revolves is a fourteen-foot ring next to the windows. The inside core, sixty-six and a half feet in diameter, is stationary and is used for service and kitchens, elevator lobby, stairway, washrooms and a reception foyer. The moving portion of the floor rides on steel wheels and on tracks located near the inner and outer edges of the perimeter ring. Loaded w i t h flooring, furniture, guests and f o o d , it weighs about ninety tons. Yet so carefully balanced is the turntable that a man can start it rotating on its tracks by hand. The power for the turntable is supplied by a one horse electric motor w h i c h , by means of a reducer providing a reduction of eight hundred to one can deliver a force of 18,850 pounds to the drive shaft. The circular shape of Seattle's pie-in-the-sky created culinary problems of an unusual sort. It took prolonged planning and shuffling to fit rectangular kitchen equipment into a circular cooking area. Furthermore, the kitchen is stationary while the dining area revolves around it. H o w were the waitresses to keep track of their revolving guests? A clock device, timed to the rotation, was installed in the kitchen. It points to the location of each dining area so waitresses know which way to go in pursuit of their spinning patrons. Above all, the Space Needle's great attraction for Seattleites is that it lets them look on their city in a wonderful and favorable way. The stationary observation deck and the three hundred sixty-degrees an hour rotating restaurant let the observer look along a one hundred forty-mile sweep of the Cascades; or f o l l o w the course of the Duwamish River back up the valley toward M o u n t Rainier; or gaze d o w n the Sound past Tacoma; or up the Sound toward Bellingham, or across the Sound at the austere peaks of the Olympics. A n d directly below gleams the golden cap of the Coliseum, the fairyland water gardens of the Science Pavilion, and the movements and mysteries on the streets of a great city.

747

The impersonal eyesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the camera lensesstole fleeting images of the then present. People often seemed harnessed in trappings of camera cases and filter boxes. They surged on celebrities, or slowly backed away that one more pace to bring the Space Needle in range. They fidgeted doggedly around the pools, searching their viewfinders for the perfect scene. The cameras found what the people wanted to see â&#x20AC;&#x201D;happenstance, or beauty, or spoofing, or history . . . or, for some, each other.

M I N I A T U R E

lUTnxiTt!

JiuiUulJ

loTOS

MINUTES

A i i

lECTRONJC

SPEED-LIGHT

At the far end of the Science Pavilion, downstairs, was a quiet corner which may have been one of the most significant at the fair. It was a junior-size laboratory for child-size curiosity. It was an area barred to adults (except for the college girls who were there to answer questions). The children participated in simple experiments which explained basic laws of motion, of navigation, of telescopes and astronomy, and of microscopes and minute things. The kids listened, tried and squinted. And they learned for themselves.

~+^

JUNIOii WM&§?

\\J

•

ENTRANCE: THIS AREA IS FOR YOUNGSTERS UP TO AGE 14; ADULTS NOT ADMITTED

Chapter Eleven

The Seattle World's Fair!

The Space Needle marked the turning point. The rising steel was a thermometer of civic enthusiasm. As the Needle thrust its beams into the sky, and the city saw the strange thing take a shape that resembled the drawings that had been run in the papers, the realization grew that there actually, really-and-truly, was going to be a Seattle World's Fair. To many, it came as quite a surprise. "Plenty of people thought w e had been selling pie-in-the-sky," Eddie Carlson remarked to a friend, " a n d then one day they looked up and there this thing was, spinning a r o u n d . " The giant spire was a perfect peg on which news stories could be hung. Jay Rockey, w h o had borne w i t h a strained smile myriad variations on the question, " H o w come my aunt back in Illinois never heard about Century 21?" f o u n d himself w i t h the problem of looking suitably modest as he shrugged off the questions of his publicity peers, " H o w the hell did you get your fair on the cover of Life magazine twice, and on a postage stamp?"

747

The elegant design of the four-cent stamp featured a slimmed-down Space Needle w i t h Monorail tracks curving around its base. They combined to form a simple statement of man's urge toward terrestrial speed, his aspiration toward space. Postal regulations forbid the use of stamps to advertise products and since the Monorail was a privately owned transportation system and the Needle a privately o w n e d restaurant building, their appearance on the postage stamps raised a few eyebrows. But the Needle had, indeed, become the unofficial symbol of the Seattle World's Fair, and it was fitting that the stamp embodied a design created by the Seattle artist, Robert T. Matthiesen, w h o had created Century 21's official man-in-space symbol. Bob Matthiesen, back in the spring of 1959, had been asked to design a letterhead for Century 2 1 . D o o d l i n g in his office one Saturday morning in A p r i l , he sketched a rocket, stylized it into an arrow, and, still dissatisfied, drew a circle around the feather end. That reminded him of the botanical symbol for a male plant (Matthiesen is a rhododendron fancier as well as a stamp collector) and looking up the symbol he found that, in what amounts to a figurative pun, it not only represents man, but also Mars. He fattened the orb, shortened and broadened the spear, and cut out a sample from a magazine advertisement that showed a star-filled heaven. The next step was to impose a globe on the orb and letter in Century 21 Exposition and the j o b was done. In submitting the letterhead design, Matthiesen suggested that it should be registered and used as an official trademark. "That way," he pointed out, " y o u have a specific thing to sell." The sale of the right to employ Matthiesen's celestial bug brought the fair an estimated half-million dollars, and its gratis distribution in the right places produced inestimable values in free, w o r l d - w i d e advertising. Though the Space Needle replaced it in the popular mind as the symbol of the fair, the man-in-space emblem kept its official status. Fittingly, the fairgrounds Post Office used a modification of Matthiesen's bug in cancelling the stampâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and the stamp was based on another letterhead design Matthiesen did for the fair. The Needle, narrow and quickly recognizable, fitted admirably into a program of tie-in advertising. The carriersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;air, rail and busâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;quickly chose it as the symbol of Destination Seattle. The oil companies showed the Needle in advertisements designed to encourage motorists to drive to Seattle. Race tracks staged Space Needle handicaps; college cheering sections had Space Needle card stunts; a milling company came out w i t h a "space n o o d l e . " So familiar did the strange structure become that there were national jokes about it: The Space Needle looks like the Empire State Building after taxes. The New Yorker ran a cartoon mentioning neither Seattle nor the Seattle World's Fair but simply showing t w o people gazing up at the wheeling restaurant, one saying " I ' m not that hungry." Eddie Carlson has the original framed in his office. At one time, the Monorail was to have been the prime attention-getter. W i t h the need for fast and attractive transportation an international problem, the Seattle World's Fair directors felt that the experimental Monorail running from the heart of t o w n to the fairgrounds w o u l d focus international attention on Seattle. The concept was by no means new. A ten-mile overhead monorail line has been running in the Rhineland city of Wuppertal since 1 9 0 1 ; application for a Tacoma to Seattle monorail franchise was filed by a Tacoma firm in 1903; and several amusement

148

parks have featured monorails, most notably Disneyland, which has a line twice as long but only half as fast as Seattle's. Seattle World's Fair directors—worried about parking near the fairgrounds and publicity in far places—were more than w i l l i n g to have the Monorail experiment conducted in Seattle, as America's first w o r k i n g example of the system. Transportation theorists also wanted to see if, as Monorail enthusiasts claimed, modern techniques w o u l d make it possible to run an overhead track along a city street w i t h o u t undue i m pairment to air space, or interruption of automobile traffic and serenity. Though they were w i l l i n g and anxious to have the M o n o r a i l , the Seattle World's Fair had difficulty in landing a responsible builder. The h o m e t o w n Boeing Company sniffed at the bait and turned away. Lockheed took the hook but after a prolonged run of negotiations, broke the line; not, however, until after considerable space in the w o r l d press had been devoted to Seattle and its transportation experiment. Finally, Joe Gandy reeled in Sixten Holmquist, president of the Wegematic Corporation, which holds the United States patent rights for the Swedish-designed Alweg Monorail. A l w e g —anxious to show what a metropolitan system could do in handling masses of people —conceded more favorable terms than other candidates had asked, and they agreed to have the trains run along the top of the tracks, rather than below. Gandy had become convinced from inspection of European systems that the hanging train concept required too high a superstructure for use along city streets. The A l w e g Monorail was erected during the same period that the Space Needle rose —and Howard Wright, w h o invested in it, too, was again the prime contractor. The fifty-four-ton, "T"-shaped, concrete pylons which support the tracks for the t w o trains were cast on the street, then lifted by a crane and settled onto footings. The prestressed concrete rails, three feet w i d e and five feet deep, varying in length from seventy-six to ninety feet, and weighing from forty-seven to sixty tons, were cast by Concrete Technology Incorporated on the Tacoma tideflats and, w i t h special dispensation from the Highway Department, were trucked to Seattle. The t w o trains for the Monorail were made in West Germany of light metal alloys. They consisted of t w o sections of t w o cars each, articulated so that the joints are observable only on the outer skin. Each car rides on powered vertical wheels w i t h rubber tires that move along the top of the concrete rail, while other horizontal rubbertired wheels roll along the sides of the concrete rib, maintaining balance. The trains are powered by General Electric thirty-two volt electric motors which permit speeds of seventy miles an hour on the straightaway run, though such speeds were impractical on the short track. W h i l e the Space Needle dominated the construction news in Seattle, the Monorail was the subject of ten times as many queries from abroad and the story of its concept and creation made easier the sales j o b of the men negotiating for foreign representation. " A royal hunting license," Joe Gandy had called the Bureau of International Exposition's tentative recognition of the exposition. Even before the Century 21 Exposition had been declared a world's fair of the second category, salesman Gandy, w i t h Bill Phillips as gunbearer, set out on safari across Europe, w h i l e Ewen Dingwall flew hopefully to Moscow.

749

The Seattle World's Fair had its share of famous visitors. Two Presidents-Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy-visited the grounds during construction, but neither attended the fair during its run. Prince Phillip, consort of the British Commonwealth's Queen Elizabeth II, spent a day at the fair; so did Adlai Stevenson, United States Ambassador to the United Nations. There were movie stars and governors, sports figures and philosophers. And there were the two most famous men of the yearâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Russian Cosmonaut Gherman Titov, and American Astronaut John Glenn. They, in 1962, had soared in the first man-carrying space capsules to the edge of the atmosphere, held from free-falling into space by the tenuous balance between earth's magnetism and man's flimsy mechanical means. Titov, a short, explosive, opinionated, darting force, tested the displays of a score of nations, and found them (in his opinion) uniformly lesser in quality than those of his own country. Titov's own satellites were his taciturn wife, Tamara, whose remote control smile was triggered by impulses from her husband's eyes, and a multi-mannered entourage of Russian diplomats and interpreters. John Glenn, who attended the fair during the national seminar on the peaceful uses of space, attracted some of the largest crowds to the fairgrounds. His way was courteous, he was forthright to a fault, and he basked in the radiation of the smiling, curious and admiring faces orbiting about him.

flnlSi

The Seattle hunters found parties from New York already encamped in most European capitals in hopeful anticipation that Manhattan's greater fame w o u l d prove more useful than the blessing of the Bureau of International Expositions on the Century 21â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Seattle World's Fair. The Russian bear got away from both parties, but Gandy returned w i t h a mixed bag of European exhibitors ranging from San Marino, which took an appropriately tiny 1,444 square feet for the exhibit of its prime product, postage stamps, to France, which took 15,200 square feet in the Coliseum for the largest and most thought-provoking of all the foreign exhibits: the only one to suggest that living in the c o m i n g century w o u l d involve human problems as well as mechanical progress. An exhibitor signed on the dotted line did not, the salesmen f o u n d , necessarily mean an exhibit on the fairgrounds. It sometimes took more selling to keep a government convinced than to convince it in the first place. A n d government exhibitors developed a disconcerting habit of disappearing. O n a swing through Latin America, Gandy signed up Peru and Argentina, only to have their presidents replaced before he got back to Seattle. O n t w o successive days in Caracas, Gandy's negotiations w i t h Venezuelan officers were interrupted by gunfire â&#x20AC;&#x201D;once when bandits held up the treasury, the second day when a rebel band shot up the government skyscrapers. The final interview concluded w i t h Gandy and the Venezuelan finance minister under a table as bullets came through the w i n d o w . Venezuela felt conditions were too unsettled to warrant spending time and money on an exposition in Seattle. Just before leaving Brazil for Africa, Gandy had a long private interview w i t h President Janos Quadros, w h o agreed that Brazil should be represented at the Seattle World's Fair. O n landing in Dakar the next day, Gandy received a call from the State Department, which wanted to know all the details of the talk and whether the president had appeared anxious or nervous. It developed

President

Quadros had unexpectedly resigned, and Gandy had been the last American to talk to him. Gandy flew back to Brazil later and renegotiated the agreement w i t h the new president. Nor was all the unrest in this hemisphere. Indonesia signed a contract, then canceled as President Sukarno's dispute w i t h the Netherlands over New Guinea drew toward its climax. Of all the cancellations and threatened cancellations, the most nerve-racking was that of the European Community. Seattle World's Fair officials were particularly proud that Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, constituting the C o m m o n Market, along w i t h the members of Euratom and the Coal and Steel Community, were making their c o m m o n b o w as an exhibitor w i t h a 14,700-foot pavilion at Seattle. Then, w i t h opening only weeks away, Gandy received a confidential and unofficial but perfectly authentic tip that the C o m m o n Market was about to withdraw. The bureaucrats assigned the j o b of preparing the exhibition were having trouble w i t h protocol, precedence and finance. They felt the simplest thing w o u l d be not to participate. Withdrawal of the European Community at such a late date might have snipped Seattle's growing confidence in the fair at the stem. Gandy decided he had to move quickly but quietly. He phoned papers to say he had to make an unexpected trip to Paris and w o u l d like to take Jack Jarvis and Stan Patty, The P-l and Times reporters, to

757

cover an unspecified story. Both papers agreed. The party left for Europe that night. "That way," Gandy said later, " I got the men most likely to dig up the story of the proposed cancellation out of t o w n . A n d I made sure I'd have friendly reporters w i t h me when I walked in to see the European Community people in Brussels to ask them what they thought they'd accomplish by canceling." Stopping in Paris, Gandy checked w i t h French officials (who said they knew nothing of the proposed cancellation, and opposed it) and phoned Bonn, Rome and Washington, getting promises of support. W h e n Gandy met w i t h the European Community leaders in Brussels, the withdrawal was canceled. They had only one question to ask as they reinstated their exhibit. " W h a t w e ' d like to know, Mr. Gandy, is how you got here so fast?" " I just happened to be in Europe," said Gandy blandly, crossing his fingers and protecting the source of the leak. Another difficulty—and an embarrassing one—was w i t h Boeing. President W i l l i a m M. Allen was no fan of fairs. He hadn't liked them as a child and as a grown man, he said, he had been able to bear the New York World's Fair for less than an hour. He did not feel the Seattle show w o u l d benefit the community. Boeing stood aloof. W h e n out-oft o w n corporations were asked to participate, they often asked, " H o w much is Boeing spending?" The reply was necessarily limp, " W e ' r e still negotiating." Bill Street of Frederick and Nelson gets the credit for finally selling Bill Allen and Boeing. Street's successful pitch took the line, "There's definitely going to be a fair in Seattle. W e have passed the point of no return. Whether our fair reflects credit on the community, though, depends on whether everybody co-operates. Boeing's influence could be decisive." Boeing came in, magnificently, as sponsor of the Spacearium in the Science Pavilion, making possible in less than a year the development of a projection system some experts warned it w o u l d take a decade to make. Of particular pride to Joe Gandy was the late decision of the Ford M o t o r Company to build a pavilion. " I n selling the Seattle World's Fair," says Gandy, " I was t h r o w n out of the best offices in America as politely and more frequently than any man in history. Nowhere was I turned d o w n w i t h greater politeness or firmness than at Ford. But I kept sticking my foot in the d o o r . " Gandy's final flight to Michigan was inspired by the answer to his telegram asking for another interview. Ford's wire said bluntly that its decision on participation had been made in the negative and it w o u l d be appreciated if Gandy stopped bothering them. Gandy interpreted this as an invitation. Putting the telegram in his coat pocket, he headed for the airport. The next day he was telling a Ford vice-president, " I ' m not here as president of the Seattle World's Fair. I'm here as a Ford dealer. You owe it to us not to say no w i t h o u t looking at what w e are doing. Fly somebody out and look at the grounds. W e aren't laying eggs out there—those are buildings. Come look at them. We're going to have a fair that is an opportunity, not an o b l i g a t i o n . " Ford came, saw, built and was happy w i t h the result. The tide was running now and fair stood the winds for Century 2 1 . Even the TV quiz scandals proved to be a boon. Broadcasters were on the defensive, and Newton H. M i n o w , the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission increased their apprehension w i t h his speech on TV's "vast wasteland," and a blunt warning that

752

renewal of licenses to broadcast was not to be considered automatic but had to be earned through public service. Skittish station owners across the land were gleaning their schedules for overlooked broadcasts they might include in the hours of time they could list as actively devoted to promoting public good. It was in this period that Senator Magnuson, who as chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce had a direct interest in the FCC, wrote to Chairman Minow to say that the Seattle World's Fair would appreciate a letter from the FCC to the effect that programs and announcements concerning the Seattle World's Fair constituted public service programming. The reply was a publicity man's dream: "If we are correct in our assumption that the proposed announcements and programs consist solely of material publicizing the Seattle World's Fair and that no payments are to be made to the stations broadcasting the material, then the announcements and programs may be entered in the stations' logs as noncommercial spot announcements and programs. In my view, such broadcasts would clearly fall within the public service category." Jay Rockey's public relations staff saw to it that copies of Minow's letter reached every radio and TV station in the country. Magnuson sent out a companion letter on Senate Committee on Commerce stationery extolling the fair. And listeners and lookers all over the country abruptly found themselves exposed to emanations from the publicity office. Assured of great amounts of air time for which it would not be billed, the Seattle World's Fair publicity department was able to foot the bill for animated TV announcements working in the call letters of the individual stationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a service that helped program directors decide in the fair's favor when determining which of several possible public service announcements they would run. As word of the Seattle World's Fair got around, magazines developed an interestfirst the architectural journals, then the travel magazines, and finally the big slicks. In the six months before the fair opened, Anne Swensson, the co-ordinator of magazine publicity, logged eight hundred seventy-six stories in magazines with a total circulation of more than 200,000,000. Among the responsibilities that Jay Rockey accepted rather casually during a chat with Ewen Dingwall soon after taking over the public relations job was handling the advance ticket sales. It was an area in which he had no experience. Advice was conflicting. Some urged that he get going immediately on a sales drive; Rockey held back. "It was partly," he has explained, "that I felt sales would go better when we got something above the ground, something that would convince people there'd be a fair to go to after they bought their tickets. And partly, I was busy on other things. But mostly, the whole project scared me. If we started a ticket drive and didn't sell any tickets, I thought the weight of it might squash us flat." So he waited with ticket manager Louis Larsen while the complaints about inaction mounted, but also while a volunteer staff, under Michael Dederer, a Seattle fur merchant, took shape. And also, the name was mutating in the public vocabularyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;changing from Century 21 Exposition to Seattle World's Fair. When a number of large things were above ground on the Seattle World's Fair campus, and there were signs of rising local enthusiasm for the fair, the drive startedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;November 13, 1961. The goal was a sale of 700,000 tickets, though some officials admitted they would be

753

pleased at half that figure. By Christmas advance sales had passed the t w o million mark. By the cut-off date late in March, they reached four million. It was at this stage that the consultants decided the fair might draw 9,250,000 rather than 7,500,000. Even the failures were taking on the trappings of success. There was, for instance, the effort to buy the gracious but m o r i b u n d Liberte (nee Europa) from the French Line for use on the Seattle waterfront as a floating hotel. Nothing came of it except failureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and millions of words of useful publicity. Early in the fair's history, when the staff numbered six and headquarters were the slightly renovated cloakroom in the Civic A u d i t o r i u m , when each operational dollar was guarded like a military secret but lawsuits against the Corporation were a dime a dozen, the long-range brooders had started to fret over housing the millions of visitors their show might attract. After all, the experts reminded them, Seattle had been hard put to house the Rotary International convention; the influx of 50,000 delegates requires special Pullmans, and the use of private housing. What, then, might a fair do? Jim Faber, a one-time crewman on passenger ships, recalled that merchantmen had been used as floating hotels at the coronation in England. He suggested that Century 21 buy the lie de France, which was due to be scrapped. Response was not totally negative. En route to Europe on an assignment for the fair, Faber stopped in New York to outline the proposal to French Line officials there. " M y role as an Onassis," he has reported, "was somewhat chilled when in order to make my first appointment I had to leave my hotel phone number. W e were staying at the Gotham, which is hardly the Olympic of New York. M y status was further reduced during my initial conversations w i t h a French Line vice-president when he learned I was sailing on the Liberte at less than first class; and my rating hit cipher when to cut off the conversation he asked where I w o u l d be staying in Paris and I had to come up w i t h the name of some leftbank fleabag we had gleaned from Europe on Five Dollars a Day. " I was w i l l i n g to give up the w h o l e project but the director of public relations for the French Line, w h o had arranged the interviews, insisted I continue. He arranged a meeting w i t h French Line officers in Paris, explaining to me, 'I just want you to promise to come back and tell me what happens when you sit d o w n and tell them you want to buy the lie de France.' " W h a t happened in Paris was even shorter. Someone must have sent them a Dun and Bradstreet, or at least the name of that miserable hotel. I was shunted d o w n the line to some third assistant w h o recalled that French Line freighters made port in Seattle, and was this my first trip to France? He took a few languid notes and I left to the tune of the French equivalent of ' D o n ' t call us, we'll call y o u . ' Luckily, I did not hold my breath waiting." Faber's 1958 misadventures attracted little attention, but by the time Joe Gandy essayed the Onassis role, the fair was news, and Gandy's near miss on purchasing the lie's adopted sister, the Liberte, was a matter of international interest. Gandy's interest in the Liberte had been aroused in May of 1960 when he was courting the Bureau of International Expositions. Jim Kennedy had called his attention to a newspaper story that the Liberteâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which

the Germans had built as the Europa

and

which was the most valuable maritime prize ever taken in warâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;was to be scrapped.

754

Gandy, Stan Patty and Kennedy had gone to the French Line office, where they secured an interview w i t h M. Chardon, the general manager. The interview started hopefully w i t h the Frenchman explaining that bids were called on a w o r l d - w i d e basis for scrapping and that the best markets were usually Japan and Hong Kong. Gandy pointed out that Seattle was halfway to the Orient. The Frenchman replied that that was obvious, but that while his line was not seeking favorable publicity through participation in the fair, it was greatly concerned that nothing happened to diminish its reputation for the quality of its cuisine and the flair of its service. He made it clear that the French Line was looking for a nice, simple bid for scrapping the ship. Joe Gandy is demonstrably hard to discourage. His reaction was to think of ways of financing purchase. He interested James Uhlmann Jr. of Los Angeles in the project and they went to Paris in July. The French Line came up w i t h figures so high that even Gandy gave up and phoned Seattle that the deal was dead. A few days later, in Switzerland, the thought came to him that he was dealing w i t h the w r o n g people. The French Line is subsidized by the French government, and Gandy decided that the best approach w o u l d be through the foreign office rather than the business office. The approach through these channels led to an indication that if the French Line were guaranteed $1,200,000 for the use of the vessel in Seattle for t w o hundred days, something might be arranged. Gandy's search for a $1,200,000 guarantee involved him in negotiations w i t h business interests from Las Vegas and H o l l y w o o d to Tokyo and Chicago and Miami Beach, as well as to palaver w i t h M. Hyvernaud, chef de cabinet de M. Triboulot, ministere des anciens combattants; in time M. Triboulot agreed to introduce a bill into the French senate authorizing the French Line to send the vessel to Seattle, even if it involved a paper loss. But at this stage the French raised their price, at least partly as the result of bidding from another but inadequately financed Seattle group. In the end, the Liberte went to the torch rather than the fair and the substitutes that came to Seattle in her place were not reasonable facsimiles. But the Liberte

was

a w o r l d name, and Seattle's negotiations to acquire her had attracted w o r l d attention. The idea that came through in the stories was that Seattle's fair was destined to attract such crowds that a great luxury liner was needed to handle the surplus. By A p r i l , all doubts had ended that there w o u l d be a fair. But there was plenty of question about whether the show w o u l d be ready on opening day. The weather didn't help. Unseasonal snow crumpled the roof at the Monorail terminal and an arch at the entrance; seasonal rains helped tires and feet churn the grounds into a morass. The grounds looked like a staging area. Great stacks of building materials were strewn across roadways, or unloaded in lots which turned out to be someone else's building site. Forty-eight hours before the Seattle World's Fair was to open any layman could see that order could not possibly be brought out of the chaos on time. "The best exhibit opening day w i l l be the celebrities dodging the plasterers," a joke went. Nobody took time to laugh. Somehow, April 21,1962, the grounds were clear, and the exhibits were complete. No world's fair had ever come so close to being ready on time. It was the least of the miracles on lower Mercer Street.

755

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Afterword

Most world's fairs end on a note of discord. "Generally," a critic has observed, "there are tons of litter to clean up, financial disaster to be faced, and a lot of w e i r d shaped buildings for which no one has any use now that the ball is over." A consulting service employed by the World's Fair Commission warned that "large deficits typify world's fairs presented since the 1930's." New York and San Francisco showed deficits of $18,600,000 and $9,100,000 respectively, even after t w o years of operation. It took a second year to get the Chicago World's Fair in the black. The final deficits for the New York and San Francisco fairs resulted from t w o main factors: excessive construction costs and insufficient attendance. Attendance forecasts were unrealistic, and construction was based on the forecasts. Actually, each fair showed an operating profit for its r u n - N e w York $12,800,000, San Francisco $6,900,000 —but these were not enough to offset the cost of the buildings. The Century 21 Exposition ended in the black. A principal reason that it showed a profit was that its major structures were built at the expense of the taxpayer or private capital w i t h an eye to use after the fair. The cost of their construction did not have to be met out of the fair's operating f u n d , A jibe of the pre-fair days was that no admission should be charged since this wouldTDe the first world's fair the taxpayers had paid for in advance—a taunt that had some truth. In Europe, world's fairs are almost entirely governmental functions, but no other American fair has had so many of its buildings raised by federal, state, county and city appropriations. The high percentage of public capital invested in the fair made it easier for the Corporation to end its operations w i t h money in the bank, but credit must be given, too, to the watchdogs of the Seattle Clearing House Association—men of such conservative bent that they wrote it "Century XXI"—who cast appraising eyes over the balance sheets throughout the run of the fair. (Credit, too, to Gandy and Dingwall for staving off the panicky demands of the more hidebound in mid-July that the caretaker staff on the grounds be decimated, that the marching band be laid off after Labor Day, and that pennies be pinched in other ways. Those measures w o u l d surely have diminished the favorable impression of fair operations reported by 98.4 of those interviewed on the grounds by researchers.) Mistakes were made, and some of them were expensive beauties. The Interbay parking development cost $250,000 and was closed after serving fewer than a dozen cars, but to the last moment before the fair opened, the belief was that parking shortages w o u l d be the operation's worst problem. The World's Fair Corporation assumed, though its legal responsibility was tenuous, the burden of repaying $105,000 in advance payments for lodging at a motel-trailer operation that went bankrupt. Some of the goods sold on the fairgrounds were shoddy and vulgar, and some of the concession buildings did not live up to the standards set early in the fair. W i t h i n t w o months of the closing of the fair, most of the ephemeral excrescences had disappeared. As the hot dog stands were removed, the permanent buildings of the civic center, the dream behind the dream of the fair, took their planned relationship. Something permanent, something beautiful has been created: Something to build o n .

757

Addendum DAY

ATTENDANCE

SPECIAL EVENT

DAY

ATTENDANCE

Sat.

51,510

O p e n i n g ceremonies

Wed.

53,380

Sun.

42,633

Easter services

Thurs.

51,685

Mon.

39,389

Wisconsin Day

Fri.

46,889

Indiana Day

Tues.

27,233

Idaho Day

Sat.

58,461

Georgia Day

Wed.

30,658

Sun.

49,725

South Dakota Day

Thurs.

24,979

Mon.

68,552

Missouri Day

Fri.

22,231

Texas Day

Sat.

47,676

Montana Day

Tues.

68,889

Minnesota Day

Sun.

40,836

Portland Day

Wed.

61,846

Apr. 21

30 1

Mon. Tues.

19,669 18,821

Thurs.

60,803

Flag Day

Fri.

53,391

California Day

Alabama Day

Sat.

54,997

Law Day

Sun.

45,338

American-Norway Day

Girl Scout Day

Mon.

66,781

Rhode Island Day

Tues.

74,145

Wed.

22,144

Thurs.

20,510

Fri.

31,327

San Francisco Day

Sat.

75,758

Camp Fire Girls Day

Sun.

45,493

Los Angeles Day Washington State Week

Mon.

26,916

Tues.

22,682

Wed.

26,153

Thurs.

29,403

Fri.

31,519

Sat.

59,228

Sun.

46,293

Mon.

30,571

Tues.

29,766

United Nations Day Michigan Day

Wed.

68,663

Illinois Day West Virginia Night

Thurs.

65,218

Colorado Day

Fri.

55,788

A-Y-P Exposition Day

Sat.

66,012

North Carolina Day

New York Day

International Jaycees Day State Beautification Day Iowa Day

Wed.

60,892

Florida Day

School Patrol Day

Thurs.

55,961

South Carolina Day

Mothers Day

Fri.

49,566

Sat.

57,907

Wed.

34,650

Kobe Day

Thurs.

30,936

Denmark Day

Fri.

33,989

Sat.

66,923

Sun.

52,361

Mon.

42,313

Tues.

uly

Sun.

58,673

Mon.

61,022

O h i o Day

U. S. A. Week Washington, D.C., Day

Boy Scout Day 3

Tues.

62,365

Pennsylvania Day

Wed.

49,930

Independence Day

36,425

Thurs.

62,840 63,587

Vancouver, B.C., Day

Wed.

27,793

Fri.

Thurs.

29,857

Sat.

76,117

Fri.

34,122

International Law Day

Sun.

69,578

Mon.

59,968

Sat.

57,182

Oregon Day

Tues.

67,529

Sun.

43,874

British Week

Wed.

64,578

Mon.

40,358

Thurs.

60,998

Tues.

45,429

Fri.

55,304

Wed.

54,664

M e m o r i a l Day

Sat.

60,981

New Mexico Day

Thurs.

44,389

American Waterworks

Sun.

57,509

"Visit U. S. A . " Day

Mon.

61,789 65,972

Nebraska Day

Alaska Day Philippine Week Kiwanis Day

Children's W e e k

Day June

Nevada Day Communications Day

Sweden Week

Kansas Day

International Rotary Day

Arkansas Day

May

SPECIAL EVENT

Fri.

42,845

Tues.

Sat.

47,243

Connecticut Day

Wed.

66,277

Sun.

43,035

W y o m i n g Day

Thurs.

64,319

Architects Day

Fri.

56,584

New Jersey Day

Mon.

44,182

Sat.

58,624

Kentucky Day

Tues.

50,998

North Dakota Day

Sun.

47,691

Hawaii Night

Mon.

54,067

755

Japan Week

ATTENDANCE

DAY

Aug.

SPECIAL EVENT

DAY

Tues.

58,278

Fri.

Wed.

56,530

Sat.

60,816

Thurs.

52,927

Sun.

49,375

Fri.

46,896

Mon.

25,738

Sat.

49,733

Sun.

44,829

Tues.

42,990

Mon.

51,106

Tues.

55,383

Wed.

56,286

34,493

Wed.

46,490

American A u t o m o b i l e

Thurs.

37,884

Association Day

Fri.

57,836

Fleet Day

Sat.

107,164

Sun.

Delaware Day

Mon.

33,725

United Arab

Tues.

31,025

Republic Day

Wed.

30,776

Thurs.

56,392

Thurs.

28,653

Fri.

50,725

Fri.

34,786

Sat.

54,971

Sat.

74,212

Sun.

52,468

Sun.

58,318

Mon.

64,595

Tues.

72,773

Wed.

78,100

Week M i a m i Day

Tues.

27,610

26-

Wed.

26,464

International D o w n t o w n V e r m o n t Day

79,698

Sat.

72,018

Sun.

65,214

Massachusetts Day

Thurs.

23,190

Lions International Day

Fri.

23,129

Mon.

Korea Day

Tues.

66,811 71,862

Executives Day

International Trade Day

Broadway High School

Snipe Regatta Day

A l u m n i Day

Wed.

68,112

Arizona Day

Sat.

74,594

Thurs.

64,688

Utah Day

Sun.

72,793

Fri.

Sat.

60,494 67,614

Sun.

64,159

Mon.

65,146

Tues.

73,440

Wed.

Thurs.

Oct.

Mon.

28,748

Maine Day

Tues.

23,840

Library Day

Wed.

24,331

Thurs.

26,469

41,047

Fri.

42,779

67,648

Sat.

111,079

Sun.

68,253

Mercer Island Day

Oklahoma Day

Mon.

32,020

Republic of China Week

Babe Ruth-Little

Tues.

28,900 34,838

Wed.

Thurs.

32,688

Fri.

40,920

55,173

Sat.

75,855

Wed.

53,266

Sun.

93,344

Thurs.

46,654

Fri.

40,756

Sun.

60,383

Mon.

55,063

Tues.

29 30 31 1

Sat.

55,261

Sun.

68,221

Mon.

47,981

Tues.

30,141

Wed.

32,837

1 3

Flying Farmers Day

Thurs.

33,905

India Week

2 4

58,957

New Hampshire Day State Host City Day

66,488

Louisiana Day

27,638

64,349

Fri.

Philatelic Day

Mon.

Fri.

Sat.

Victoria, B.C., Day

Thurs.

Maryland Day

European C o m m u n i t y

Canada W e e k

73,990

SPECIAL EVENT

Elks Day Seafair Day

League Day

Sept.

ATTENDANCE

Mexico Week

Columbus Day Governor's Appreciation Day Fraternity-Sorority Day

Peace Corps Day 15

Mon.

53,648

Tues.

61,880

Wed.

70,791

Thurs.

70,525

Fri.

93,785

Virginia Day

Sat.

128,721

Brazil Week

Sun.

124,479

Tennessee Day Labor Day

Mississippi Day

9,609,969

759

Thailand Day

Closing ceremonies

0ROI7.072 Sel821M Northwest

Drgsn, MurreyCentury 2 1 . 1^63,

•§PP» SK|^||S<

203^138

NAMF AMn Arvnr.ro*>

203^138 1963

qU917.972 Sel823M

- *

«*• m

1/ il^trt^

Northwest SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY Please keep date-due card in this pocket. A borrower's card must be presented whenever library materials are borrowed. REPORT CHANGE

OF ADDRESS

PROMPTLY

•

.HP* f. • *?•**

^ ^O

.The Seattle Public | Library # <*

2 W± MA.\

#»niw&

;

„« . * * * * * £ < • ; • « *

ateattle 5

4 ft '

&m&r$ \