1939 New York World's Fair

The 1939 New York World's Fair, located on the current site of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (also the location of the 1964 New York World's Fair), was one of the largest world's fairs of all time. Many different countries around the world participated in it, and over 25 million people attended its exhibits. The NYWF of 1939 allowed all visitors to take a look at "The world of tomorrow."

In literature and the arts

The 1939 World's Fair made a strong impression on attendees and influenced a generation of Americans. Later generations have attempted in to recapture the impression it made in fictional and artistic treatments:

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• World's Fair, by E. L. Doctorow
• 1939: The Lost World of the Fair by David Gelernter is a sui generis blend of essay and fiction. It is a politically conservative tract which yearns for the days when authorities had authority and Robert Moses knew best.
• All-Star Squadron, a comic book published by DC Comics from 1981 until 1987 and set during the 1940s, was about a superhero team whose headquarters were in the Trylon and Perisphere.
• In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, one of the main characters breaking into the abandoned fairgrounds and the Perisphere itself, where he has a significant sexual experience.
• Fifty Years After the Fair is a song written and recorded by Aimee Mann. With a mixture of nostalgia and remorse, it describes the Fair from the current vantage-point of "tomorrow".