I missed one of the greatest events in American cultural history. My parents had no desire to experience the traffic of New York, a city that was surely the most dangerous place to drive on the face of the earth! We spent our summer vacations the years of the Fair far from the terrors of Queens taxi drivers and the World's Fair arterial highway system. Fly to the Fair and avoid the traffic? Heavens no! That was much too expensive for our Midwestern family of four in '64.

But even though I missed out on the Fair, something happened in 1964 that was even better than the Fair in my book because that was the year my cousin, Richie, took a job with Ozark Airlines at O'Hare Field in Chicago. And that was the year airplanes came into my life! It wasn't long before Dad took a deep breath, said "Youse kids shut up in the backseat so I can drive" and braved the Illinois Tollway for a visit to cousin Rich who had promised to give us an insider tour of "The World's Busiest Airport."

Far from the glorified bus stations they are today, a modern airport in 1964 was a true Space Age marvel and Chicago's O'Hare Field was no exception. Rich escorted us through corridor after corridor of polished tiled floors and huge smoked-glass windows set between steel columns. Outside the windows sat incredible four-engined jetliners, gleaming Boeing 707s and DC-8s, boarding people destined for far-off places like Los Angeles, New York, Dallas and Miami, with insignia that said TWA and Eastern and Braniff International Airways. It was a bustling place but far from crowded. Air travel, especially jet air travel, was still a Space Age wonder in 1964. It was exciting! To this eight-year-old-small-town-kid who'd never been closer to an airliner than 30,000 feet below one, that day must have been like going to the World's Fair. From then on I was hooked on airports and airplanes.

Being a little collector even then I wanted something that I could take home from my visit to O'Hare. A quick pass along the ticket counters at the front of the airport provided me with a treasure trove of memorabilia in the form of airline timetables. Every airline published timetables periodically during the year and these paper pamphlets represented the airline to the traveling public listing every flight by city of origin and destination, showing stops in between.

Returning home, armed with my American Bricks and tin-litho airliner models, I was soon building my own miniature airports and flying my own planes to the exotic destinations of the schedules in my souvenir timetables. On the cover of the one I'd picked up from an airline called Delta was a picture of a happy family of four standing behind a round white suitcase with a strap handle and a big ol' Delta "widget" logo plastered on the front. Behind them, in the background, stood the Unisphere. The caption above read "Fly Delta Jets to the New York World's Fair." "Wow!" I'd think, "Wouldn't it be something to be able to fly to the New York World's Fair?"

This is the Delta Air Lines timetable featuring the Fair! Thanks to Perry Sloan, webhost of the www.airtimes.com website, I was able to find my long-lost memory of the Fair. Although it's not exactly as I remember it, it is undoubtedly the same timetable that I picked up as a 9-year-old back in the mid-sixties at O'Hare Airport. airtimes features thousands of timetable images on line. It's a fascinating and colorful look back at some remarkable history.

Jump ahead a few decades and meet Bob Esler. Bob has been collecting those wonderful airline timetables for many years. I met Bob after a friend pointed out an on-line auction he was hosting for a United Air Lines timetable featuring the Unisphere. He also pointed out that Bob and I live in the same town (and only a few blocks apart as it turns out!) Remembering that old Delta timetable that I had gotten on my visit to O'Hare all those years ago, I asked Bob if he had any other timetables in his collection that featured the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair. What he presents for you here is a colorful and interesting piece of World's Fair history and I'd like to thank him for this wonderful contribution.

Expecting to draw some 70 million visitors, the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was seen as a business bonanza by America's airlines and they promoted the Fair heavily. In an era of regulated air fares flying was relatively expensive and a means of travel mainly for the well-to-do and well-heeled businessman. The Fair presented the airlines with a golden opportunity to expand their business in the leisure market with the millions who would be coming to New York for the Fair. With the advent of the Boeing 727 in 1964 pure jet travel was becoming available in more and more American cities and the Fair was a great reason to try one of these brand new jets and fly to New York for a combined air/Fair adventure.

Out at Flushing Meadows, TWA, Pan American, and United Air Lines hosted exhibits in the Transportation & Travel Pavilion. Eastern Air Lines had their own on-site waiting lounge with bus transportation to and from the Fair and LaGuardia and Kennedy Airports. For a real Space Age treat, TWA offered frequent helicopter service from the Port Authority Heliport at the Fair to their brand new Eero Saarinen designed Flight Center at JFK. International airlines KLM (Dutch) and SAS (Scandinavian) hosted exhibits at the Fair as well.

These and other airlines poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into promoting the Fair with counter displays, in-flight magazine stories, newspaper and television ads, and those good old timetables. On the following pages you'll see some examples of how America's airlines said "Come to the Fair!"

Mohawk Airlines, an East Coast regional carrier of the era, placed Unisphere of the cover of their May 1, 1964 Timetable! Source: online auction