Fairs: To the Bitter End

The beginning, it has often been said, augurs the end. Certainly the axiom proved true of the New York World's Fair. It opened to disappointing crowds on a cold, rainy day in April 1964, with militant CORE picket lines all but blocking major avenues and hecklers disrupting President Johnson's send-off speech. Last week it closed with a frightening scene straight out of a Federico Fellini film fantasy.

While thousands of revelers swayed to the strains of Auld Lang Syne and The Star-Spangled Banner, prim ladies in tweed suits feverishly uprooted all the chrysanthemums...