This not quite World’s Fair was dedicated to man’s achievement on a shrinking globe in an expanding universe. New York wanted to do it to show off progress since the 1939 Worlds Fair there. Conceived before the societal changes of the late sixties, by the time it was executed the fair was facing the realities of a changing world. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Though the stamp shows the well designed culturally appropriate Pakistan Pavilion over a background of the Fair’s signature stainless steel Unisphere, the largest globe in the world, the stamp is somewhat let down by pour printing. The fair did provide a way for Pakistan to introduce itself to the Fair’s over 50 million visitors who were mostly children. The fair made an impression on the youth of that generation, as it was perhaps one of the last gasps of 1950s America.
Todays stamp is issue A60, a 1.5 Rupee stamp issued by Pakistan on April 22, 1964. It was a two stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
The site of both the sanctioned 1939 New York World’s Fair and the unsanctioned 1964-1965 fair was Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. It had long been a marshy garbage and ash dump. New York builder Robert Moses had dreams of turning it into a massive 1100 acre park. The 1939 fair was just the opportunity to make his vision a reality. Unfortunately, the full scope of what he had in mind for the property could not be covered in the first fairs budget. A second worlds fair would provide the resources to finish the job.
Selling the rest of the world on the fair proved difficult, Seattle had hosted a worlds fair in 1962 and Montreal was scheduled for 1967. The Bureau of Exhibitions had several rules that were against the fair. No country was to have more than one fair in a 10 year period, no fair was supposed to last more than 6 months, and no fair was to charge rent to exhibitors. The organizers of the fair traveled to Paris to request that the rules be waived and the event be officially sanctioned by the BoE. This was refused and the organizers then went out with intemperate remarks about the BoE and the BoE responded by making an official statement suggesting that countries not participate in the fair. This is the only time this as happened. The fair went ahead but no shows were Canada, the Soviet Union, Australia and most of Europe. Indonesia initially agreed but relations deteriorated and the completed Indonesian Pavilion was occupied and barricaded during the Fair.
40 nations did participate, mostly ones trying to ingratiate themselves to the USA. The most popular of the foreign pavilions was Vatican City, that brought over and displayed the Pieta. There were still over 100 pavilions mostly sponsored by American corporations. They mostly displayed consumer goods with a space or computer theme. The fair had a goal of 70 million visitors which would have had it break even with it’s initially high ticket prices. That goal was why it went two years but it only managed 51 million visitors, even after a second year ticket price cut.
The Unisphere globe was maintained in the park after the fair closed as United States Steel donated 1 million dollars to insure continued maintenance. Nevertheless the fountains were turned off in 1970. In the middle 1990s there was a refurbishment that turned back on the fountains. As of today, June 24, the Unisphere has not been removed as part of the BLM erasure of history. In 2019 it however was scaled by an environmental group to hoist a banner protesting the Amazon River fires that year.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Robert Moses and his realized dream of turning a dump into a park. I would propose a statue, but you know….. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.