Defunctland: The History of the 1964 New York World's Fair 

Moses: "I want this fair so I can refurbish it into a park and be remembered as a philanthropic genius and not a racist destroyer of cities" Disney: "I want this fair because I want to see Lincoln talk"

"Lincoln was not able to comment, mostly due to the fact that he still wasn't working." It's quotes like that and the "losing to Seattle" line that add subtle, sophisticated humor. I love it.

"It's a miracle, Lincoln is alive and Moses needed him now more than ever" What a sentence to hear out of context

I love how Robert Moses came up with cartoonishly evil supervillain plans to cover up the fact that he was a cartoon supervillain.

"It would not bear his name, and it would not be his legacy." I do love a happy ending.

"worse, to the people of seetle" as a resident of seattle this made me laugh my ass off

"Do you suppose God is mad at Walt for creating man in his own image?" has the exact same energy of that "Do you think God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he's created?" line from Spy Kids.

“Walt wanted to show amusement park’s sophistication.” *shows video of animatronic cavemen rubbing their butts*

“Lincoln, the first president to suspend habeas corpus, was not available to comment.” Had me dying

Kevin you forgot to mention, another very interesting event during Walt Disney and the 1964 World's Fair. Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astro Boy, Kimba, and Unico) actually meet Walt Disney during the 1964 World's Fair. According to some of his sketches and doodles recounting seeing Walt in person. He actually geeked out seeing his idol on opening day. Walt made an agreement with Tezuka on creating a manga adaptation of "Bambi". Another story mentioned from his doodles was that he and Walt were discussing on working on an animated film as a collaboration. But that idea quickly died after Walt's death in 1966. (True Story) Tezuka's own words talking about his once in a life time opportunity on meeting Walt. "I was lucky enough to get a chance to talk to him. I came across him leaving the stage just after delivering the speech." "I got nervous but somehow introduced myself to him." Tezuka: "I am a head of a Japanese animation studio." Walt Disney": Nice to have you here." Tezuka: "I am the one who made Astro Boy." Walt Disney: "Really? I know Astro Boy. I saw the work in Los Angeles. It’s a great work." Tezuka: "Thank you very much. My staff would be honored. Well, may I have your comment about the work?" Walt Disney: "It’s a very interesting Sci-Fi story. Future children are looking toward the space. So I, myself, think about making Sci Fi, too. If you have time, visit me in Burbank."

Let's not extend mass transit to the World's Fair. Why is no one showing up to the World's Fair?

It gives me great satisfaction to know that Moses lived long enough to see that he failed, and how he would be remembered 😊

Excellent documentary. I attended the 1964 season of the fair, when I was 4. We rode the cars past living dinosaurs. I saw children from all over the world dancing together in the Small World attraction. From my perspective, it was sheer magic. Moses may have been a huge jerk, and the fair a financial failure, but it thrilled those who experienced it. I still have my doll from the Korean Pavillion.

Moses: What if I build a park on this gross swampland? Disney, eyeing Orlando: 🤔

I really like to see what was going on inside the mind of Robert Moses. He hated middle class or below than that "peasants" which is like most of the population, but also wanted more people to come to the fair and spend money. It's like, what was he thinking? Kings and noblemen would flood in to the fair?

I was under the assumption those were real flying saucers and the world’s fair was just a cover up for them landing there. Why else would they hold it in Queens?

The way you explained the ending made it sound like an oldschool Shyamalan twist. "There was just one problem. Walt Disney was dead."

As a 19 year old in April of '64, I worked at the World's Fair for several months as a waitress in the Brass Rail Steakhouse. Having come to New York from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I found the Fair beyond anything I had known, and was inspired by its many attractions. My favorite was the movie, "ToBe Alive!" shown in the S. C. Johnson pavilion. I, along with some five million other people, stood in lines, sometimes in the rain (especially in April) to see it. The wait was worth it, every time. So, in spite of all its mismanagement, including its failure to turn a profit, for me, the Fair was a success.

"But he was only able to deliver his speech a total of seven times, which was technically six more times than the real Lincoln had." This is a memorable quote!

Oh no, not more Robert Moses. Edit: "After all, he was Robert Moses" should be played after each case of him doing real life Disney villain things.

It's kinda funny that Moses sought to make this fair to change the fact that he was seen as a horrible person, Only to prove he was a horrible person every time something didn't go his way in the making of fair.

Moses: "i want to be remembered as a good guy" Everyone: "have you tried uuuuuh being a good guy" Moses:"nah that'll never work"

“There was just one problem. Walt Disney was dead.” THE WAY I SCREAMED

I love the drama of the last phrase "It was the project that Walt has been dreaming, this would be he's contribution to society, this would be Walt Disney legacy, there was just one problem, Walt Disney was Dead"

27:51 - One detail about Lincoln's voice that I rarely hear mentioned ( and have only seen in Jim Korkis's well researched books ) is the input of an impersonator who heard Lincoln speak in person. This boy heard Lincoln speak in person back in the day and as an old man he'd had the fortune to lend his impression to a wax recording. While his voice wasn't a match, the cadence became known as the standard for how Lincoln paced his words. In a world before any form of recording device, a really good impersonator ended up being the next best thing.

Just realised that mostly every episode of Season 3 are literally all the things and events that inspired Walt Disney.

I went to that fair with my family. I was probably 13. I remember seeing Lincoln and tasting for the first time what I now know as teriyaki. We had a great time. I obviously remember it.

"He wanted a troubled Lincoln. A Lincoln who had seen the horrors of the war. And instead of just telling Dano that's what he wanted, he decided to break him himself." Ah, the Stanley Kubrick method!

"If he died then in 1959, he would certainly be known as the man who destroyed New York" ...dies in 1981, still known to many of us NYers as the man who destroyed New York

'Moses's crusade against the spicy below the neck area angered perverts and local fun havers alike' has to be one of the greatest sentences 😆

The fact that no one has signed you on for a major televised event is absolutely insane. You are a master of Documentaries

Ah yes, the monster rats, and their leader: a powerful rat named Charles Entertainment Cheese...

Yesterday, I was talking with my dad, a lifelong Jewish Brooklynite in his late 60s who grew up in the kind of low-income housing that Robert Moses commissioned and who even went to the '64 World's Fair. I told him how much this series was teaching me about Robert Moses, and he let out an exasperated "Ohhhh boy...", like he wasn't so much angry at all of the terrible things Moses did as he was just in disbelief that he did them at all. Then he said "I'm not sure if he was actually Jewish, but I'm pretty sure he was and hid it." To which I responded "For both our sakes, I'm GLAD he hid it." EDIT: I should clarify, this is not to imply that Robert Moses wasn't a bigot just because he was part of a minority group, it's just that my dad and I have this weird obsession with finding out if certain famous people are also Jewish. And in this particular case, it was more embarrassing than cool.

"as a young boy, Walt Disney had dressed as Lincoln and delivered the Gettysburg address. His knowledge on the president had evolved little since, but his childlike appreciation had not wavered." ---- That's my favorite burn in this episode.

This Robert Moses guy clearly lacked vision. He should have used the army of monster rats as beasts of burden to help build the fairground.

Kevin's completely nonchalant delivery is a total knockout _every time._ The Seattle gag was rad, but what really got me was- "Moses became more rude towards the members of the press as they wrote negatively about him. And in retaliation, the members of the press wrote negatively about him."

Man. Defunctland is too quality for RU-vid. He should be makin that History Channel money. Edit: I now see the error of my ways; Netflix/Disney+ money.

are we not gonna talk abt how moses literally yelled a man to death,?

I remember going to the World's Fair twice when I was 4 or 5 living in nearby Hollis, Queens. I loved it, except for remembering a guy dressed in some kind of straw outfit that my mom called a witch doctor. I bumped into him and ran screaming the other direction. I also learned only in the past 13 years that Robert Moses wouldn't allow Branch Rickey to build a new stadium for the Dodgers in Brooklyn, instead offering a site in Queens. Rickey said "we are the Brooklyn Dodgers, not the Queens Dodgers." Moses continued to say no. Then Rickey's team became the Los Angeles Dodgers. Robert Moses is the perfect embodiment of "what goes around comes around." Total lack of self-awareness.

Dingwall: "People didn't even know how to pronounce Seattle..." Moses: "I can't believe I lost to Seetle!"

“Lincoln, the first president to suspended Habeas Corpus, was not available for comment.” He’s getting shadier every episode, right? I’m dead. I can’t.

the globe at flushing meadows has become one of the most famous skateboarding spots ever. super cool to see it carried on and become historic for something else. i had no idea it was built for the worlds fair! rad.

I lowkey forgot how evil Robert Moses was until I got to 9:19 where I was reminded that he did NOT want people like me to be anywhere near his work. A whole supervillain.

After almost 60 years, a lot of the fair’s processes and politics behind it are still relevant. Good job on doing a lot of research no matter how ugly it is

Very well done! I visited the Fair as a boy in 1964. It was quite impressive for a youngster like me. One bit of trivia: The Coca-Cola Pavillion served a recipe for the soda that was far sweeter and tastier than their regular product.

"Fine, I'll make my own World's Fair - with very little blackjack and absolutely no hookers." -Robert Moses, probably

BIE rejecting Moses has the same energy as Bender from Futurama getting kicked out of (insert unnamed theme park that I mistakingly identified as Ponyville here I sᴡᴇᴀʀ I'ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ᴀ ʙʀᴏɴʏ ᴏɴ ɢᴏᴅ) *"I'm gonna go build my own World's Fair! WITHOUT blackjack; and WITHOUT hookers!"*

It was really cool to see the development of the first true animatronics! I knew disney was big in animatronics, but I had no idea Imagineers *INVENTED* them! And from one clip, it looked like the Lincoln Bot’s motion was being programmed by a person in a rig going through the motions himself and the bot mirroring. A lot of modern robots, including industrial bots that have to follow a precise path and have delicate motions, are also programmed this way. Robotic surgery uses a similar control technique in real time, and I know of a few prosthetic limbs that use an intact limb on the other side to “train” the motion of the prosthetic. Such cool tech and its amazing that it seems to have started with Theme Park entertainment lol.

The level of anxiety the entire time thinking Kevin was going to play that song..........

“Angering local perverts”. Add that to each video please.

The irony of this situation is the most amusing. You had these people who thought they could control progress only for progress to prevail and prove they couldn't control it. You also have a guy named after someone who delivered people to the promised land actually bringing people into debt and pocketing the change. Amazing. Great storytelling, I'm really obsessed with these videos.

Something about "watching" a terrible man try to make a great legacy for himself by acting more and more horrible, and continuously get hit by karma for it, over and over again until the end.... this really is one cathartic episode to watch.

"People didn't even know how to pronounce 'Seattle'... and worse, to the people of Seat-el"

Our family went to this fair when I was a kid, taking a 2-week driving vacation and camping along the way. What a grand place for a youngster! I didn't realize that Walt Disney had worked with the crew building this place. I DO recall the huge globe at the fair, our meeting point if we got separated.

We can all thank Robert Moses for the Cross Bronx Expressway, a road that definitely isn’t paralyzed with traffic 24/7 and definitely didn’t destroy the Bronx. We can also thank Moses for the BQE, a highway that is literally falling apart and is gonna cost the city billions to rebuild. Oh, and it’s also always paralyzed with traffic.

"Never let Robert Moses do you a favor. He'll use it as a way to destroy you."

I love that Brennan Lee Mulligan made Robert Moses the villain in the Dimension 20 season "The Unsleeping City"

Defunctland has such pretty thumbnails. They have such a unique style.

"After all, they had a robot-Lincoln to protect!" is a very rare sentence.

Love these documentaries. This one was really good, especially the shade thrown at Robert Moses. Sweet, candy coated shade that we know is extremely bad for us, but goes down sooo good.

Wants to make Low income New Yorkers visit his park to improve his public image but stops the expansion of the subway because it will bring low income New Yorkers to his park. 10/10 Logic

An animatronic Lincoln doesn’t seem like a big deal to us in our time but man, think about how insane it was for them to see back then! It’s like when we had holograms of Tupac etc. perform on stage live.

I already watched the EPCOT episode so I knew what was coming at the end, but I STILL got chills. You're a completely stupendous storyteller like wow

"Threatening the world with a -bad time-" has the same energy as "I shall make problems on purpose."

I am 90 - was a designer of the interior of the Tower of Light, sponsored by power companies., our animation was very good on a minimal budget' - I was the designer of the World Design Center , 100 foot dia dome constructed of Eurathane foam displaying products from around the world. It was proclaimed by the New York Times as the only truly modern future building method . Our land lease was taken by Moses to construct a modular steel building "Off the Shelf" , not approved by the fair. - It was an Excellent Experience !

Flushing Meadow and My Life In 2020 are both known as The Corona Dump.

I get it now! All the Zoom interviews with people that had "The Power Broker" on their shelves were foreshadowing this Defunctland video!!!

My family drove all the way from Kentucky to see the World's Fair in 1965. It was my father's idea. I vividly remember arriving on the outskirts and us finding a parking place. The first thing we saw was the giant metal globe (Unisphere) and all the water fountains. I was 17 years old and VERY impressed. We went to see the Lincoln exhibit and he worked! I sat attentively watching him speak and then stand up! I'll never forget it. We also saw the Disney exhibit of the Carousel and I was amazed with it because I could hear it's gears working under the floor as it it turned us in a very slow 360' circle. We rode the Ford convertibles which were on a track very high up. It was a cool trip. Went to the Vatican exhibit and got on a conveyor belt that slowly moved us to a room where the Pieta was on exhibit. The room gave off a glow of blue and the amazing piece by Michelangelo was sitting behind a bullet proof glass. SO inspiring! We saw the cars that could drive across the lake and then come out of the water onto dry land and continue on. I loved the boxy design of them. Speaking of designs, for someone my age, I look back on it and am amazed that one thing that really stood out to me was the multi colored lights coming from the parking lot into the whole fair grounds. They were interspersed throughout. They has a unique design of perfect rectangles of different color plastic with a regular white lightbulb inside, attached to each other and most lamp posts were different because of how many rectangles were on them. To this day, I still think these were one of the most creative things I saw at the fair! I went to the Korean exhibit and filled out a "Pen Pal" form and actually received letters from a Korean boy! I wrote my name on a paper that was put in the Time Capsule so someone 5,000 years from now will rejoice upon seeing it! :) I think the fair was fabulous and a success in its own right. I'm glad this Moses fellow brought it all to fruition. I still have my fair booklet they gave us when we bought our tickets, plus the Guide Book that I bought. If you want the 100% scoop on the World Fair, go to this site. It is filled with history and details, plus what happened to many of the buildings and how some were torn down and put back up elsewhere. nywf64.com/

There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day.

So Robert Moses tried to secure his legacy but it failed due to him being an asshole who got angered quite easily while Walt Disney succeeded due to being a flawed but amicable man who could control his temper most of the time. What a shock. :P

I live in the New Jersey suburbs, and learned more about Moses here than I have in almost 20 years as an area resident. Well told story. As a 10 year old, my family took me to the World's Fair in 1965, where I remember a fraction of these exhibits.

"He decided to break him himself..." Your line reads are perfect.

I love how you clearly point out racist actions in such an easy to listen to and understand way.

If anyone has ever watched "The Flintstones", they might remember the time machine episode where they visit a lot of different time periods, including the 'present' (when the episode was made) and they actually at the NY World's Fair!

Hot damn 41 minutes! You know it’s a good one when Kevin breaks the 30+ minute mark

I'm starting to think this Robert Moses guy was kind of a jerk.

I was able to attend the ‘64 worlds fair. I can remember those exhibits that were shown in this video. Thanks for the memories.

It's not Sunday without a great visit to Defuntland.

All the people behind Defunctland should be in charge of making every single documentary from this day forward.

What an incredible experience in 64 and 65. I will never forget it!

Can never get over how much I connect with Kevin and everyone else across the globe watching these videos. I guess it really is... a small world after all.

So many things made me go "oof" in this episode. "We can't have people working 3-4 hour shifts.... Imagine how much we'd have to pay them!"

My Nana would tell me stories of the 64’ world fair and how as a little girl she was in awe. I miss you Nana ❤

I went to flushing meadows last year in 2019. That globe actually impressed me when I first laid eyes on it.

My parents live maybe a mile from Flushing Meadows Park. The groundfill their home was built on is debris from the '39 World's Fair. You haven't lived until you've spent the whole day pulling large chunks of rebar, concrete, and glass out of the ground while trying to dig a few post-holes. Thanks, Robert Moses!

"The Power Broker" is an amazing and exhaustive biography. Highly recommended.

“Amazingly, the figure worked and was able to speak for a short time before the mechanics caused its skin to rip off”

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? Or the time when the storm tangled up the wire To the horn on the pole at the bus depot And in the back of the edge of hearing These are the words the voice was repeating: Ana Ng and I are getting old And we still haven't walked in the glow of each other's majestic presence Listen Ana hear my words They're the ones you would think I would say if there was a me for you

My favorite story about the animatronic Abe Lincoln, though I'm not sure if it's true, is about one of the earliest tests. Abe stood up, started to speak, and then a hydraulic line ruptured. Abe immediately collapsed back into his chair with bright red hydraulic fluid pouring out of his chest. Supposedly, one of the men present (It might have been Walt or Moses, I don't recall) quipped "This is great, you recreated his assassination!"

That line about Lincoln being unavailable for comment was spicy and I am all the way here for it.

**This episode in an nutshell** Walt Disney: Haha look at this animatronic parrot! It can talk! Robert Moses: SHIIIII-

"His knowledge of the president had evolved little since" is one of the most beautiful stealth insults I've ever heard.

Why is no one talking about that cliffhanger! Leaving us on a dead Walt buried under Epcot or something. How am I supposed to know?

Dislike because no clip of the army of monster rats. What a tease.

“one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it” -master Oogway Very applicable to Moses here.

As a child I attended the '64 fair many times and remember the pavilions. My parents attended the '39 fair, the summer of their wedding. I never knew any of this. Fascinating.

Petition to make Robert Moses the new person to continually reference in the same way Kevin references Michael Eisner

The 1964 world's fair was one of my father's earliest memories. Showing this to him ASAP!

I went as a child to the fair, I've been to a couple of Mets games, and have walked around the area, it breaks my heart to see these once beautiful landmarks left to rot.

"Local perverts and general fun havers alike"