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A MCGRAW-HILL PUBLICATION
Fighting for Industry Support Giving Industry a Chance to Show its Stuff
FIFTY CENTS
IMiiltlCIPAL REFERENCE LIBRARY Branch of Seattle Public Library 508A County-City Building Seattle 4, Wash. MAY 1 6 1961
APRIL £ 2 , 1 9 6 1
U.S. World Fairs Start Beating Their Drums This week the New York World's Fair 1964-65—in a fanfare of promotion that was to include tugboat rides to the fair site, a luncheon, and a view of the grounds for invited guests from a newly built construction tower—staged a Preview Day "celebrating three years to opening day." The day before, 3,000 miles away, Seattle began its Preview Year promotion for the Century 21 Exposition, scheduled to open Apr. 21, 1962. • Rival Drums—Both events were just another part of the constant drum-beating necessary for any fair to rouse the enthusiasm of the public and, more importantly, of private industry—which always pick up the biggest tab. But the overlapping promotions also dramatized an undercurrent of rivalry between the Seattle event and New York's mammoth redo of its 1939-40 world's fair. Actually, since the Seattle fair will have long since closed by the time New York's opens, there is no real clash between the two. Yet in the bid for attention and participation of industry and the world at large, each is supremely conscious of the other. The two fairs have much in common—exhibits, new buildings, entertainment, cultural activities, everything that typifies an exposition. Both will emphasize science and technology. Seattle's Century 21 Exposition's theme is "Man in the Space Age"; New York's theme is "Man's Achievement in an Expanding Universe." • Scope—But there are important differences, too. One, as you might expect, is just plain size. The New York World's Fair is billing itself as a billion-dollar event, stretching its construction figures a bit to include the new Throg's Neck Bridge linking the Bronx and Queens and its approaches to the fair site at Flushing Meadow ($120-million), the accelerated federal-state arterial highway program ($95-million), and the new National League stadium ($17-million). Even without those figures, the 1964-65 fair is planned as a whopper, with exhibitors and concessionaires alone expected to lay out $550-million. It will cover 646 acres at Flushing Meadow, using the same sites and some of the same facilities as the 1939-40 fair. It also has a working arrangement with the city's big Lincoln Center of the
Performing Arts, which will be finished in 1964. Seattle's exposition, just a mile from the outskirts of the city's downtown center, covers 74 acres with a total investment of something like $80-million. Though far more modest than those boasted by the New York fair, these figures represent a major undertaking for a city with a population of less than 1-million. And Seattle can make one claim that New York can't match: Unlike the New York event, its fair is officially recognized by the Bureau of International Expositions in Paris, which means the bureau's 30 member nations can participate with government-sponsored exhibits.
I. Born in Controversy While Century 21 has been surprisingly free of any serious infighting since it was first conceived in 1955, at the outset the New York World's Fair had to vie with Los Angeles and Washington, D. C , for endorsement by the U. S. government. It won that battle when Pres. Eisenhower appointed a commission to settle the squabble (Pres. Kennedy subsequently gave New York his blessing, too). • Moses Maps Tactics—The New York fair has ubiquitous, strong-willed Robert Moses as its head—at once both its biggest asset and its lightning rod for criticism. There have been a number of public skirmishes. The fair argued with the Paris fair bureau, but failed to win even the informal recognition granted to the 1939-40 fair. There were several reasons: Seattle got the nod first, and under Paris rules only one fair in ten years can win sanction in any one country. Besides, international fair rules limit an exposition to six months—and New York was determined to have a two-year affair. And finally, the fair corporation is charging any participating government for space—again, against international rules. There have also been hassles with some architects and industrial designers, who think Moses is going to wind up with a hodgepodge of buildings and an unimaginative theme-structure—the Unisphere (cover), a stainless steel 120-ft.-
Seattle's Century 21 Exposition
New York World's Fair 1964-65
Pres. Joseph E. Gandy (right) and Gen. Manager Ewan C. Dingwall of Century 21, Inc., get a preview of how the fair will look when it opens Apr. 21, 1962. Highlight of the 74-acre exposition will be the $9-million federal science building.
Pres. Robert Moses (left), Bernard F. Gimbel, chairman of the organization committee, and Thomas J. Deegan, Jr. (right), chairman of the executive committee, check model of $1-billion exhibit that will rise in Flushing, on site of 1939-40 World's Fair.
diameter globe of the earth that U. S. Steel Corp. is paying for. It will be located on the spot where the 1939 fair's Trylon and Perisphere once dominated the scene. • Strife in City—Then, just a few weeks ago, there was a flare-up with a New York City councilman over finances. The fair had issued $67.5-million in notes to cover costs of putting the grounds in shape, but met delays in selling the notes. Now the city has agreed to pick up $24-million in notes, but not before Councilman Joseph T. Sharkey and Thomas J. Deegan, Jr., public relations man and chairman of the fair's executive committee, had an open argument over the city's role. As past head of numerous public authorities and commissions, Moses is an old hand at dealing with controversy in bulling through civic projects. So he tends to dismiss with abrupt and colorful language any criticism of the fair or any hint it is having troubles: " W e go through that all the time." On the international front, for instance, fair officials say they already have acceptances from more than 30 nations, including the U.S.S.R. and the Holy See. Some nations belonging to the Paris bureau are also planning pavilions through cooperation of industry groups, though not as national exhibits. • Looking for Backers—As for financing, now that city's $24-million commitment has been made, Moses is announcing formation of a campaign committee that will approach industry to raise the remaining funds necessary for fair ground construction work, which has already started. The campaign will run for 60 days, with weekly announcements of progress. From the start, Moses has insisted that financial backers of the fair, unlike those who picked up part of the 1939-40 tab, will be fully repaid with interest. "There are no serious difficulties," Moses says. Likewise, he says the Unisphere will symbolize just what it is supposed to— "trite perhaps," as he told a Brandeis University audience recently, "and certainly distasteful to lovers of abstract art, but we believe easily recognizable by the average visitor as symbolizing the interdependence of all people on a small shrinking planet in an expanding universe." Moses has strong ideas, too, about the general architecture of the fair. He cites the "devastating effects" of the 1893 Chicago Fair's classical revival as an example of the dangers inherent in promoting an over-all fair style. Exhibitors will design and build their own pavilions, subject to approval by the fair and to certain limits, such as height and size. Each company will pay $4 per sq. ft. rental each year ($3 for foreign exhibitors) for the ground occupied. W h a t a company's own archi-
STATE-FINANCED COLISEUM will house exhibit on the theme ''Man in the Space Age." This will be the main pavilion at the $80-million Seattle fair.
UNISPHERE, symbolizing "Man's Achievement in an Expanding Universe," is the theme of the New York fair. It will replace temporary tower now under construction.
tects and designers come up with, however, will be the company's affair. Says Moses: "The fair administration belongs to no architectural clique . . . worships at no artistic shrine." He adds: "This will produce endless variety, if not uniformity."
Futurama of 1939: " W e hope to show some of the dramatic possibilities for transportation and living that technological progress can bring to reality not too many years hence." General Electric is known to be working with Walt Disney, and OwensCorning Fiberglas Corp. is trying to arrange some sort of marina or small boat dock. The fair has set aside seven acres for a federal exhibit. It hopes to establish a Franklin National Center of Science & Education, which it suggests could be a permanent affair. If Congress approves such a permanent display, it would be one of the few buildings remaining once the fair closes. The Unisphere, unlike the Trylon and Perisphere, will be permanent, as will the New York City Building and the amphitheater, both left over from 1939 —but that's about all. Flushing Meadow will be restored as a park.
II. Who'll Be There Just what the industrial exhibits will finally look like is too early to tell. The fair itself is too busy coraling new exhibitors and getting their firm commitments on paper. Many companies already intend to exhibit. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. is taking 105,000 sq. ft. (two year rental: $840,000) for an exhibit that fair officials look upon as setting a sort of over-all communications theme. General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and American Motors Corp. will have exhibits in a separate transportation area of the grounds. Others include E. I. du Pont; International Business Machines Corp., Aluminum Co. of America, National Cash Register Co., Liebman Breweries (makers of Rheingold beer), Edison Electric Institute, Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., and General Electric Co.—to name a few. Coca-Cola has 46,000 sq. ft. on which it plans to build an ultramodern bottling plant costing more than $1million. Pepsi-Cola will have an exhibit, too. Restaurant Associates, Inc., and the Brass Rail Restaurants have food concessions. • On Drawing Board—Few companies, though, are far enough along in their planning to give even the fair itself much of an idea what they will show. General Motors simply says it will have something to rival its world famous
III. Seattle, 1962 Seattle's Century 21 is already well on the way to completion. It became more than just a dream in 1957 when the Washington state legislature appropriated $7.5-million for an exhibition that would emphasize science. This was combined with an already authorized $7.5-million city bond issue to refurbish Seattle's civic center. W h e n the show is over in October, 1962, the city will have a set of new buildings and some permanent attractions. The state and city have both already authorized additional funds to be certain of completion on time. • Business Kick In—Led by such men as Edward E. Carlson, head of Western Hotels, Inc., William S. Street, presi-
dent of Frederick & Nelson department store, and Joseph Gandy, a Ford dealer now president of Century 21, Inc., Seattle businesses are kicking in $4.5million by buying 6% debentures, payable out of revenues. Private business stepped in to build the $3-million space tower (cover) as a permanent commercial venture. The 550-ft. needle will have a revolving 200seat restaurant and an observation tower on top. Rapid transportation—9 5 seconds from downtown Westlake mall to the fair—will also be a private venture. The Alweg Corps, of Seattle and New York are building an overhead monorail with a capacity of 10,000 passengers an hour. Though it will come down after the fair is over, the system is being billed as the "rapid transit of the future." • Science Pavilion—But by far the biggest coup of Seattle's world's fair group is a $9-million appropriation by Con-
gress—biggest of its kind it ever made— for a permanent science pavilion and exhibit. On Feb. 21—at a radio signal transmitted by Sen. Warren Magnusen (D-Wash.) in Washington, D. C., and bounced off the moon—ground was broken for the biggest of the planned exhibits at the fair. Right now Seattle officials, led by William Street, are out beating the bushes for big exhibitors. They already have AT&T and General Electric signed up for major installations, now are seeking other major companies with big ideas. Others committed include National Cash Register, a forest products industry group, the three major aluminum producers as a group. In all, 36 companies have made firm deals for space. The push now is for more big names. • Countries Coming—Foreign nations definitely committed include Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, Thailand,
Greece, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and six African countries. Century 21 is certain that it will have all 30 members of the Paris Bureau of International Expositions. Donald Deskey Associates, Inc., New York industrial design firm, has the job of filling the state-financed Coliseum, obtaining the exhibitors, designing the exhibitions, and installing them. Exhibitors pay $14.90 per sq. ft. for space in any Century 21-constructed building, $4.90 for rental of ground for erection of their own pavilions. When the fair ends, Seattle will have as new permanent structures the federal pavilion (with the General Services Administration to determine its use), an 18,000-seat sports arena, a small 800seat theater and banquet hall, the space tower, and the 10 buildings that will house foreign exhibits—plus a refurbished civic concert and convention hall.
Reprinted from Business Week — entire issue copyrighted by McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Inc.