3/31/11

Ford Rotunda - The five bridges sweeeet.

Time is short today, due to required attendance at the P.A.G. Mid-Early Spring Tetherball Tournament (MESTT), over in GO! Plaza. SO, here's a quick postcard that's to cool to make fun of. The Ford Rotunda at the '64 World's Fair.

I don't know how many of those pretzel-shaped bridges there are hanging off this building, but it looks like two, which is close enough to five to allow me to use the name of the 1970 album by The Nice for the title of this post.

Yes, the building is super beautiful, but look what's in those Habitrail (tm) bridge things. Cars are in there! The crop at the end of the post will be a closeup view of the bridges. Man, I wish I could find some kind of DVD film of the 64 fair. Maybe I'll check Amazon...

Once again, any mention of the '64 World's Fair reminds me of the They Might Be Giants song Ana Ng. "All alone at the '64 World's Fair. Eighty dolls yelling 'small girl after all'. Who was at the DuPont pavilion? Why was the bench still warm? Who had been there?" Me and my friend used to do that song in the coffee house back in college.

at

6 comments:

  1. Unknown3/31/11, 2:12 PM

    Hey, this reminds me:

    So I was headed back to Boston from NJ on Tuesday and I was driving through Hartford, CT.

    Barreling south down I-84 was this:

    http://www.kitfoster.com/images/2009-9-30_FuturlinerWeb-Large.jpg

    It's the Futurliner bus from the 1953 Parade of Progress. Peter Pan bus lines restored one.

    It's cool to see a bus on 84 that isn't carrying a hundred and fifty old people to Foxwoods.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dave Pryor4/6/11, 12:30 AM

    This looks painted - is it a photo? The image quality is impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  3. PhilAreGo@gmail.com4/7/11, 9:07 AM

    You know, I'm not sure. I think it's a photo that was then retouched a lot. You know: analog photohsop. I think a lot of these old pictures are "plussed up" like that. Also, I have a suspicion that some of the cheaper full-color printing processes in the old days resulted in a color picture that looks like a B/W photo that has been tinted with watercolor.

    Thanks for commenting, Dave!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6/9/12, 3:54 PM

    Drew Ford in San Diego duplicated the "rotunda" look for their showroom. I bought a truck there in 2005.

    ReplyDelete
  5. fizzy7/6/12, 10:54 PM

    Visitors to the Ford Rotunda sat in the cars, all convertibles, which were automatically "driven" (probably pulled along a conveyor belt) through the exhibits in the building, and also through the "Habitrails" for a view of the grounds of the Fair. Can you imagine that there was a time when companies spent this kind of money for fun, and didn't whine about paying taxes either?

    ReplyDelete
  6. PhilAreGo@gmail.com7/8/12, 9:41 AM

    Wow, Fizzy! It sounds like you were there. The display sounds fantastic. Too bad the car companies don't put that much effort into their booths at the auto shows, or I may have to attend.

    [-Mgmt.]

    ReplyDelete