Soak Up This Rare Color Footage From The 1939 World's Fair

Jen Carlson

Published Mar 31, 2016

Modified Mar 31, 2016

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Jen Carlson

Published Mar 31, 2016

Modified Mar 31, 2016

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This 25-minute film features stunning footage in full color from the 1939-40 World's Fair. The footage was taken from some of the remaining attendees of the Fair, and one man explains he was 24 years old when he finally went on the final day. "I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to buy 400-feet of 16mm color, and color had just come out. I walked my feet off taking pictures."

There's a definite tone of nostalgia and wonderment in their remembrances—"It was like looking into the future," one man says. And filmmaker Amanda Murray describes it as being "a modernist, techno-utopia landed [that] in New York, rocketing kids from the Depression into 'The World of Tomorrow.'"

The magical land—typically seen now through b&w photos—was sent up in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, there was an IND World's Fair Line to bring people in, and those benches you see people sitting on were created by Robert Moses.

[via Kottke]

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1939

1940

color footage

world's fair