The World of Tomorrow

“The past is black and white, the future is color,” as is this view of the New York World’s Fair of 1939 and ’40. A former Queens garbage dump transformed into the 20th century’s most streamlined exposition (on the same site as the ’64-‘65 fair, now Flushing Meadow Park), with a modernistic trademark (not a pyramid and globe, but a “Trylon” and a “Perisphere,” as narrator Jason Robards Jr. is careful to point out), and acres of pavilions showcasing the worlds’ nations (including the Soviet Union) and U.S. corporations, the ’39 fair offered glimpses of things to come, with attractions like General Motors’ “Futurama,” with its vision of new cities and magical highways, and the painfully primitive Electro the Robot. Culled from black-and-white newsreels and industrial films, but mostly from vibrant Kodachrome (Kodak’s home version of Technicolor) home movies of astonishing quality.