(Left to right) Adlai Stevenson, Robert Moses and Walt Disney at the opening of Disney's "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" at the Illinois Pavilion, New York World's Fair, April, 1964.

Robert Moses was the head of the New York World's Fair. To describe him and all of his accomplishments in decades of public service would take a thousand page book. That has already been done thanks to Robert A. Caro's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of the man called the "master builder" of New York. It is well worth reading. The Fair is but one chapter in a book filled with the history of a man who helped to shape a great city. To present the New York World's Fair in any manner is impossible without including him.

Mr. Moses died in 1981 at the age of 92. He was 70 years old when he assumed the Presidency of the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair Corporation in 1960. He ran it as he had many of his public works projects -- with a combination of limitless energy and genius and a good amount of bullying and antagonism. He was shrewd and he was ruthless. That his critics thought his ideas good or bad -- it didn't matter. He said "Critics build nothing." He got things done. In this age when "do nothing" is the phrase most often uttered when speaking of our national and civic leaders, it's almost a novel idea, isn't it?

The World's Fair was the last great work in a lifetime of great works and it left Robert Moses with the tarnished image of a greedy man who used the Fair to promote his own self interests -- financial, and as a means to complete his Flushing Meadow Park rather than to educate, entertain and promote "Peace through Understanding" (two words that may not even have been in his vocabulary until the Fair). We'll leave this topic for the biographers as well.

Back in 1971 I was in the 9th grade at West Junior High School in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin enrolled in a second semester speech class. I decided that my final speech for the year would be on "World's Fairs." Naturally, I wrote to the "Chamber of Commerce" of the City of New York for information on their World's Fair. Where else would a kid write to get information from a city?

Miraculously, my letter was forwarded to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and to the desk of Robert Moses himself. He sent back a wealth of information and when I pestered him for more, he sent back more -- even signed the letters himself.

Imagine, Robert Moses, the man described as "imperious," took the time to write to some kid out in the hinterlands of Wisconsin who was interested in the 1964 World's Fair and helped him out with a Junior High School class project. That brief contact led to my never-ending interest in the Fair and culminates today with this web site where I share my hobby with the world! I guess one might say that I'm somewhat biased in my opinion of the man.

One would like to think Mr. Moses would be pleased to know that he made a lasting impression. I don't know what he'd think about websites or the internet and the fact that one can now find a wealth of information there on the Fair and, indeed, on Robert Moses himself. I believe that he would be pleased that his Fair still fascinates and delights after more than half a century has passed. After all, he told the Gloomy Gusses, acid skeptics, grouches and jaundiced-eyed grumblers that it would!

Bill Young

nywf64.com