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Seattle World's Fair 50th Anniversary Slide Show & Book Presentation

Share your stories at this slide show and talk on The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World's Fair and Its Legacy by authors Paula Becker and Alan J. Stein on May 15th -7:00 p.m.- 8:30 p.m. at the  Mercer Slough Environmental Education Center – sponsored by The . Free. For more information contact -http://www.eastsideheritagecenter.org

“The Future Remembered “ By Paula Becker & Alan Stein

The Seattle World’s Fair 50th Anniversary Book

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Astronauts, Elvis, sky rides, royalty, the Kennedys, religion, topless showgirls, the Canadian tattoo, the Cold War and futurist speculation ? the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair had it all. The era and its people come to life in The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and Its Legacy ? a new, coffee-table-style book filled with fascinating history, stories and pictures to celebrate the fair’s upcoming 50thanniversary.

Browse this 300-page, image-rich hardcover and learn how the space race lit the fire under Seattle’s movers, shakers and dreamers, and how they turned their little-known, geographically isolated city into the place that “invented the future” and gave us the remarkable legacy of a fondly remembered six months of learning and fun in 1962.

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Fair Facts:

  • The fair’s Man in Space logo is a combination of the biological symbol for male and the astrological symbol for Mars stamped with an icon representing the globe
  • Century 21 personnel used the world’s first electronic pagers called Bellboy devices
  • A big hit at the employee cafeteria, Centuria, was a machine that magically changed dollar bills into coins for purchasing hot entrees from vending machines
  • One of the fair’s key players conceived the Space Needle concept after having dinner at the top of Stuttgart, Germany’s television tower
  • Initial concept drawings envisioned the Monorail hanging from a track
  • The first letter mailed from the fair post office was written by President Kennedy and sent with the new 4-cent commemorative World’s Fair stamp
  • A trip to the World of Tomorrow began with a ride in the Bubbleator
  • Top leadership was exclusively male, but some women, such as Gracie Hansen and her Las Vegas style revue A Night in Paradise, “saved” the fair from being only about science.
  • The Center is asking people to submit their Seattle World’s Fair remembrances at www.thenextfifty.org/stories


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