Century 21: Jet City
I was an excited nine-year-old boy when my parents led my brother and me up to one of the carefully guarded entry gates at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. Stamping my foot as we bumped along, slowly advancing up the long line to the ticket booths, I stood on tiptoes and strained to see around the flank of tall, bulky adults who blocked my sightline into what promised to be a tantalizing vision of America’s space-age future. When we finally arrived at the gate, Dad pulled out his wallet and forked over whatever enormous sum the fair charged for our entry fee.
It was at then that I received one of the biggest surprises of my young life. A smiling woman ticket agent told me and my brother, Bliss, to hold out our hands. Then, reaching into a bag by her side, she pulled out two live turtles, placing one in my palm and the other in Bliss’s. The little green creature, only two and a half inches long, felt cool and damp as it wriggled tentatively in my outstretched hand. But the most curious thing was that the turtle’s shell was not green. Instead, it had been painted a vivid cadmium yellow, offset by the black logo of the Fair’s theme, a squashed oval with a fat arrow pointing to the upper right, inscribed with the phrase “Century 21.”
I looked over at Bliss, who was struggling to get his turtle under control. To my surprise, his was not yellow. Instead, it had been painted red. Then, quickly gazing around me as we proceeded into the magical grounds of the “Century 21 World’s Fair,” I noticed that other children were handling blue turtles or purple ones. I don’t remember how we managed to hold on to our turtles during our fun-filled day in the festival, or whether or not we found a way to feed and water them, but of course I loved my very own amphibian.
Our first day at the fair was filled with many wonders. Chief among these, of course, was the brand-new Space Needle towering over the grounds. Staring up at its flying-saucer top, so vertiginously high in the sky above us, I couldn’t help imagining George and Judy Jetson buzzing around it in their flying cars. I smiled, knowing that the Jetsons were a family of four just like we were. (At the time, I was mainly informed by three animated cartoons. “The Flintstones” gave me a view into man’s distant stone age past, and “Rocky and Bullwinkle” taught me about the Cold War via its comic Russian villains, Boris and Natasha, but “The Jetsons” thrilled me with what surely promised to be America’s aerodynamic and supersonic future in the Jet Age. Of course, a year or two later, I was old enough to grasp an intriguing paradox: the Flintstones and the Jetsons were essentially the same family. The only difference between them was that Fred Flintstone carried a club that resembled a giant turkey drumstick and drove a car with stone wheels, whereas George Jetson had a robot named Rosie and flew around in what looked like a personal flying saucer.)
Oh, how sophisticated the World’s Fair was: for lunch, we hurried over to an outdoor food court with tents featuring the cuisine of all the nations of the world. In the French tent, a woman flipped omelets and exclaimed “Ooh-la-la!” However, I reserved my biggest wonder for the German booth, where a curious sausage called “bratwurst” was served. At the time, I had no idea that the world had ever produced any other type of sausage than a hot dog and it seemed to me that a bratwurst was the most sophisticated foodstuff ever invented. In this, I displayed my kinship with Cathy in “The Patty Duke Show,” who “adores the minuet, the Ballet Russes and Crepe Suzette, while Patty loves to rock-n-roll, the hot dog makes her lose control!” I had memorized the entire song. “What a Wild Duet” they were indeed! Clearly, my preference for Cathy, with her inward-curled hairdo—so much more refined than Patty’s outward flip–demonstrated that the incipient gay man inside me was already forming.
After lunching on bratwurst on a hot dog bun, we proceeded to an exhibit called “World of Tomorrow.” This was held in a swoopy-roofed new building called the Colosseum (today’s Climate Pledge Arena.) Entering its cavernous interior, we ascended to the World of Tomorrow in a large, transparent sphere of an elevator called, appropriately enough, “The Bubbleator.” As we stood in line to enter the slow-moving giant space helmet of a Bubbleator, I gazed up at the shiny, mirrored ceiling high above. It was composed of thousands of cubes that jutted downwards and receded upwards like abstract stalagmites. The ceiling resembled an inverted topographic model composed entirely of shiny cubes, each one about three feet square. My body tingled with excitement. How wondrous it was going to be to penetrate this mysterious space-age cloud to view whatever was displayed above. I was Jack and the Bubbleator was the Beanstalk!
Unfortunately, the World of Tomorrow failed to live up to the full promise of its dramatic elevated entry. While the Bubblelator rose at its stately pace, my fertile imagination had every opportunity to conjure a world as exciting as Narnia, but once we ascended through the topmost cube in the ceiling’s cubist cloudscape, we found ourselves on a disappointingly flat floor. Exhibits of this, that, and the other thing clung to normal vertical walls as we proceeded through the exhibit.
Eventually, we arrived at “The House of Tomorrow.” My memory of this so-called house has almost entirely disappeared, but I believe it had undulating walls that were concave like those of a jet fuselage. Large oval windows pierced the walls, looking onto brightly lit light shafts that didn’t even attempt to render the futuristic cityscape that undoubtedly would have surrounded the home. But at least the house came equipped with some sort of phone that allowed you to modulate the heating system or order a computer around like Captain Kirk would memorably do four years later, when “Star Trek” premiered on TV. (Years later, I distinctly remember Captain Jean Luc Picard in “Star Trek: Next Generation” standing in his captain’s quarters and commanding, “Computer: Tea, Earl Grey, hot.”)
If the World of Tomorrow did not rise to the occasion of the mirrored cloud through which one reached it, the United States Science Pavilion was an entirely different story. As we climbed the stairs which separated it from one of the fair’s main thoroughfares, five lofty free-standing Gothic arches rose into view, piercing the sky. Then, when we reached the top of the stairs, I eagerly looked down at a gigantic rectangular reflecting pool interrupted here and there by discreet fountain jets that rocketed up from low concrete bowls shaped like water lilies. There was that flying saucer theme again! The lovely scene was framed and enclosed by a series of pristine white walls imprinted with a delicate pattern of arches, forming a sort of Gothic exoskeleton over the entire building. The overall effect pointed confidently toward a utopian future while simultaneously absorbing an idealized architectural past.
As we continued along the white terrazzo walkway toward the Science Pavilion’s entrance, I noticed that we were on the upper tier of a double-tiered system of walks punctuated by square terraces. The thin slab of the lower tier appeared to float magically above its lake, and I was transported by this shimmering vision of white concrete, white pebbles, and sparkling water. Now, for the first time, my active imagination assured me that I would be witnessing all the marvels of the amazing century to come, Century 21!“This was designed by Minoru Yamasaki,” my architect father informed my brother and me in his usual pedantic tone. “He’s one of the most important architects of our time.” To me, Yamasaki was just another name in the long catalog of architect’s names Dad had conferred upon us, but the poetic effect of its assonance resonated with me: ‘Ya-ma-sa-ki.”
Of course we capped our day by whooshing up to the top of the Space Needle in its windowed, stainless steel elevator from which our view of Queen Anne Hill receded quickly beneath us. Unlike the Bubbleator, the Space Needle’s elevator rose to its lofty height so quickly, and I should say so silently, that I felt my ears pop. When the doors opened at the top, I ran to the continuous, outward-slanted window wall that ringed the needle’s shaft like a 45 rpm record on a turntable. Elliott Bay gleamed in the distance, its ferries gliding majestically across the water to Bainbridge Island. However, when I looked directly down, the fairgrounds appeared small and insignificant beneath me. What really stood out was the gigantic belt of parking lots that circled the fair like Saturn’s rings. How disappointing, I thought. Even from our position in a near orbit of planet Earth, they looked dull and boring to my child’s eyes. Little did I know that in my lifetime they would be replaced, one by one, by a cityscape of blocky buildings that would amount to a full-size replica of the cubic topography in the World of Tomorrow’s cloud.
When I fell exhausted into bed that night, I dreamed of colored turtles, soaring Gothic arches, and flying saucers. Most of all I dreamed about the Jetsons with their robot maid, Rosie, and their flying cars. But when I got up the next morning to check on my beloved turtle in its makeshift terrarium I was shocked to see that it had died. Bliss’s turtle was as dead as mine. This was shocking for nine-year-old me, but with my current power of hindsight, I can only conclude that the paint on the turtles’ shells was toxic. ‘What were they thinking,’ one might say today. Wasn’t it fairly obvious that if you painted a turtle’s shell you were filling its pores with a poisonous substance? It turned out that the future was destined to be as shiny and bright as brand new paint, and every bit as treacherous.
Author’s note: Yamasaki’s Pacific Science Center pools have recently leaked so badly that the north pool has been drained. Meanwhile, PSC’s director and board have proposed filling the north pool with a meadow. If you believe, like I do, that the courtyard and pools should be restored and preserved in their original glory, please visit and sign up as a Friend of Yamasaki. There is no cost to join: https://friendsofyamasaki.org
Brooks Kolb
Brooks Kolb is a Seattle writer, artist, and a landscape architect.
Century 21: Jet City
Home » Century 21: Jet City
Century 21: Jet City
I was an excited nine-year-old boy when my parents led my brother and me up to one of the carefully guarded entry gates at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. Stamping my foot as we bumped along, slowly advancing up the long line to the ticket booths, I stood on tiptoes and strained to see around the flank of tall, bulky adults who blocked my sightline into what promised to be a tantalizing vision of America’s space-age future. When we finally arrived at the gate, Dad pulled out his wallet and forked over whatever enormous sum the fair charged for our entry fee.
It was at then that I received one of the biggest surprises of my young life. A smiling woman ticket agent told me and my brother, Bliss, to hold out our hands. Then, reaching into a bag by her side, she pulled out two live turtles, placing one in my palm and the other in Bliss’s. The little green creature, only two and a half inches long, felt cool and damp as it wriggled tentatively in my outstretched hand. But the most curious thing was that the turtle’s shell was not green. Instead, it had been painted a vivid cadmium yellow, offset by the black logo of the Fair’s theme, a squashed oval with a fat arrow pointing to the upper right, inscribed with the phrase “Century 21.”
I looked over at Bliss, who was struggling to get his turtle under control. To my surprise, his was not yellow. Instead, it had been painted red. Then, quickly gazing around me as we proceeded into the magical grounds of the “Century 21 World’s Fair,” I noticed that other children were handling blue turtles or purple ones. I don’t remember how we managed to hold on to our turtles during our fun-filled day in the festival, or whether or not we found a way to feed and water them, but of course I loved my very own amphibian.
Our first day at the fair was filled with many wonders. Chief among these, of course, was the brand-new Space Needle towering over the grounds. Staring up at its flying-saucer top, so vertiginously high in the sky above us, I couldn’t help imagining George and Judy Jetson buzzing around it in their flying cars. I smiled, knowing that the Jetsons were a family of four just like we were. (At the time, I was mainly informed by three animated cartoons. “The Flintstones” gave me a view into man’s distant stone age past, and “Rocky and Bullwinkle” taught me about the Cold War via its comic Russian villains, Boris and Natasha, but “The Jetsons” thrilled me with what surely promised to be America’s aerodynamic and supersonic future in the Jet Age. Of course, a year or two later, I was old enough to grasp an intriguing paradox: the Flintstones and the Jetsons were essentially the same family. The only difference between them was that Fred Flintstone carried a club that resembled a giant turkey drumstick and drove a car with stone wheels, whereas George Jetson had a robot named Rosie and flew around in what looked like a personal flying saucer.)
Oh, how sophisticated the World’s Fair was: for lunch, we hurried over to an outdoor food court with tents featuring the cuisine of all the nations of the world. In the French tent, a woman flipped omelets and exclaimed “Ooh-la-la!” However, I reserved my biggest wonder for the German booth, where a curious sausage called “bratwurst” was served. At the time, I had no idea that the world had ever produced any other type of sausage than a hot dog and it seemed to me that a bratwurst was the most sophisticated foodstuff ever invented. In this, I displayed my kinship with Cathy in “The Patty Duke Show,” who “adores the minuet, the Ballet Russes and Crepe Suzette, while Patty loves to rock-n-roll, the hot dog makes her lose control!” I had memorized the entire song. “What a Wild Duet” they were indeed! Clearly, my preference for Cathy, with her inward-curled hairdo—so much more refined than Patty’s outward flip–demonstrated that the incipient gay man inside me was already forming.
After lunching on bratwurst on a hot dog bun, we proceeded to an exhibit called “World of Tomorrow.” This was held in a swoopy-roofed new building called the Colosseum (today’s Climate Pledge Arena.) Entering its cavernous interior, we ascended to the World of Tomorrow in a large, transparent sphere of an elevator called, appropriately enough, “The Bubbleator.” As we stood in line to enter the slow-moving giant space helmet of a Bubbleator, I gazed up at the shiny, mirrored ceiling high above. It was composed of thousands of cubes that jutted downwards and receded upwards like abstract stalagmites. The ceiling resembled an inverted topographic model composed entirely of shiny cubes, each one about three feet square. My body tingled with excitement. How wondrous it was going to be to penetrate this mysterious space-age cloud to view whatever was displayed above. I was Jack and the Bubbleator was the Beanstalk!
Unfortunately, the World of Tomorrow failed to live up to the full promise of its dramatic elevated entry. While the Bubblelator rose at its stately pace, my fertile imagination had every opportunity to conjure a world as exciting as Narnia, but once we ascended through the topmost cube in the ceiling’s cubist cloudscape, we found ourselves on a disappointingly flat floor. Exhibits of this, that, and the other thing clung to normal vertical walls as we proceeded through the exhibit.
Eventually, we arrived at “The House of Tomorrow.” My memory of this so-called house has almost entirely disappeared, but I believe it had undulating walls that were concave like those of a jet fuselage. Large oval windows pierced the walls, looking onto brightly lit light shafts that didn’t even attempt to render the futuristic cityscape that undoubtedly would have surrounded the home. But at least the house came equipped with some sort of phone that allowed you to modulate the heating system or order a computer around like Captain Kirk would memorably do four years later, when “Star Trek” premiered on TV. (Years later, I distinctly remember Captain Jean Luc Picard in “Star Trek: Next Generation” standing in his captain’s quarters and commanding, “Computer: Tea, Earl Grey, hot.”)
If the World of Tomorrow did not rise to the occasion of the mirrored cloud through which one reached it, the United States Science Pavilion was an entirely different story. As we climbed the stairs which separated it from one of the fair’s main thoroughfares, five lofty free-standing Gothic arches rose into view, piercing the sky. Then, when we reached the top of the stairs, I eagerly looked down at a gigantic rectangular reflecting pool interrupted here and there by discreet fountain jets that rocketed up from low concrete bowls shaped like water lilies. There was that flying saucer theme again! The lovely scene was framed and enclosed by a series of pristine white walls imprinted with a delicate pattern of arches, forming a sort of Gothic exoskeleton over the entire building. The overall effect pointed confidently toward a utopian future while simultaneously absorbing an idealized architectural past.
As we continued along the white terrazzo walkway toward the Science Pavilion’s entrance, I noticed that we were on the upper tier of a double-tiered system of walks punctuated by square terraces. The thin slab of the lower tier appeared to float magically above its lake, and I was transported by this shimmering vision of white concrete, white pebbles, and sparkling water. Now, for the first time, my active imagination assured me that I would be witnessing all the marvels of the amazing century to come, Century 21!“This was designed by Minoru Yamasaki,” my architect father informed my brother and me in his usual pedantic tone. “He’s one of the most important architects of our time.” To me, Yamasaki was just another name in the long catalog of architect’s names Dad had conferred upon us, but the poetic effect of its assonance resonated with me: ‘Ya-ma-sa-ki.”
Of course we capped our day by whooshing up to the top of the Space Needle in its windowed, stainless steel elevator from which our view of Queen Anne Hill receded quickly beneath us. Unlike the Bubbleator, the Space Needle’s elevator rose to its lofty height so quickly, and I should say so silently, that I felt my ears pop. When the doors opened at the top, I ran to the continuous, outward-slanted window wall that ringed the needle’s shaft like a 45 rpm record on a turntable. Elliott Bay gleamed in the distance, its ferries gliding majestically across the water to Bainbridge Island. However, when I looked directly down, the fairgrounds appeared small and insignificant beneath me. What really stood out was the gigantic belt of parking lots that circled the fair like Saturn’s rings. How disappointing, I thought. Even from our position in a near orbit of planet Earth, they looked dull and boring to my child’s eyes. Little did I know that in my lifetime they would be replaced, one by one, by a cityscape of blocky buildings that would amount to a full-size replica of the cubic topography in the World of Tomorrow’s cloud.
When I fell exhausted into bed that night, I dreamed of colored turtles, soaring Gothic arches, and flying saucers. Most of all I dreamed about the Jetsons with their robot maid, Rosie, and their flying cars. But when I got up the next morning to check on my beloved turtle in its makeshift terrarium I was shocked to see that it had died. Bliss’s turtle was as dead as mine. This was shocking for nine-year-old me, but with my current power of hindsight, I can only conclude that the paint on the turtles’ shells was toxic. ‘What were they thinking,’ one might say today. Wasn’t it fairly obvious that if you painted a turtle’s shell you were filling its pores with a poisonous substance? It turned out that the future was destined to be as shiny and bright as brand new paint, and every bit as treacherous.
Author’s note: Yamasaki’s Pacific Science Center pools have recently leaked so badly that the north pool has been drained. Meanwhile, PSC’s director and board have proposed filling the north pool with a meadow. If you believe, like I do, that the courtyard and pools should be restored and preserved in their original glory, please visit and sign up as a Friend of Yamasaki. There is no cost to join: https://friendsofyamasaki.org
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