48 REMINISCE.COM * JULY 2018
RETRO REPLAY
UNISPHERE: LOC_LC-DIG-PPMSCA-49946W
hen the second
and final season
of the 1964 -
’ 65 New York
World’s Fair
closed, I was barely 5 , too young
to remember much about the
wonderland that thrilled so many.
Living near Flushing Meadows-
Corona Park, we visited the fair
often, but my parents didn’t take
any photos of those outings.
Our photos tell a different
story, one that started in
1960 when my father, Henry
Sealine, and his partner, Arnold
Silverstein, were contracted
by Robert Moses, the head
of the World’s Fair Corp., to
provide food and beverages for
construction workers at the fair.
My father and his partner
commissioned the photos. Inevery one, a pavilion or structure
stands in the background with
a white truck and customers
in the foreground. The partners
had a fleet of 10 trucks, each
with the fair’s logo, a tiny
Unisphere, on its side. They also
operated several stationary food
kiosks next to the larger pavilions.
Today food trucks are pervasive
on city streets, but then they were
quite new. My father designed
and retrofitted the interior of
each truck for proper storage of
thousands of food items sold each
day—primarily soup, sandwiches,
coffee and cold drinks.
On opening day, the trucks
supplied free coffee and pastries
to thousands of attendees. I’m
proud of my dad and the part he
played in those months leading
up to the fair’s opening day.Disney’s“It’saSmall
World”animatronics
lured 10 million
over two seasons.Jet packs zipped
visitors around
the fairgrounds.Architect Minoru
Yamasaki displayed
a preliminary scale
model of New York
City’s Twin Towers.Ford Motor Co.
introduced the
Mustang with a base
price of $2,300;
400,000 sold
that year.Bell Laboratories
debuted the first
picturephone.Source: Mentalfloss.com1964 -’ 65
WORLD’S FAIR
FIRSTSOn Display
got hungry, Dad’s food trucks delivered.
MEALS ON WHEELS
BY HANNAH BACHARACH • BRONX, NYTHE UNISPHERE, built
pro bono by U.S. Steel,
appeared on all fair
marketing material.When workers