Chicago's 1992 World's Fair logoThis week, I was interviewed by a reporter from the Chicago Tribune about the current state of world's fairs.
With Chicago bidding for the 2016 Olympics in a big way, apparently the reporters were asking why they'd never heard about world's fairs in recent years.
In discussing a couple of the biggest culprits (the bankruptcy of New Orleans' 1984 World's Fair and current politics), I was reminded of Chicago's 1992 Exposition. New Orleans might have been the last U.S. world's fair, but it was not the last world's fair awarded to an American city. That distinction goes to Chicago which was approved for a joint exposition with Seville to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus's sailing to the Americas. Ultimately, it was canceled when the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois couldn't agree on who would guarantee funds for the project. The "Age of Discovery" theme at Seville's Expo '92 was originally to have applied to both cities.
I was surprised the reporter had never heard that Chicago had been awarded the 1992 expo, but I'll keep an eye out for his report... and take time to think of all of the expos that might have been, including Tokyo's 1996 project, Expo '96 Budapest, and Toronto's failure to bid for Expo 2015 earlier this year.
With any luck, we just might see a 2017 or 2020 exposition in North America that won't be cancelled.
2 comments:
I've got a Chicago telephone book from circa 1986 with a preliminary site plan of the other Expo 92 on the inside cover. Looks like it was to have been quite an event on the same basic site as the 1933-34 Century of Progress. Too bad, as you said, the bad experience of New Orleans with Expo 84 and the politics of the time have pretty much killed any hope of the US hosting a world's fair.
I live in Milwaukee and would have gone to Chicago every weekend for the World's Fair. There was plenty of alternatives, I went to Ameriflora '92 in Columbus, Ohio and to Expo 92 in Sevilla, Spain a week then the next week at Columbo 92 in Genova, Italy. Didn't left out Floriade 92 in the Netherlands that was also recognized by B.I. E.
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