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
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.
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
