New York Closed Its 1940 World's Fair With A Grand Prix, Back When Fairs Were Great

President Donald Trump's festivities for the 250th anniversary of American independence have been a dollar-burning boondoggle so far this year. The Great American State Fair, the latest debacle, features a barely functional Ferris wheel and poorly built pavilions on the National Mall that make Hoovervilles look like Beverly Hills. The event is so appealing that bottom-of-the-bucket music acts are playing sets for over a million blades of grass. Truly great fairs of the past provide a summer of entertainment for the masses, but linger in the popular imagination for decades.

Despite being in the Great Depression's latter stages, the 1939 New York World's Fair asked society to envision a technologically advanced future. The Big Three used the occasion in Flushing Meadows, Queens to showcase their version of a prosperous tomorrow. Chrysler, Ford and General Motors constructed expansive pavilions on the fairgrounds. GM's Futurama exhibit was particularly predictive, with monumental highways linking sprawling suburbs and skyscraper-filled metropolises.

The fair's "World of Tomorrow" theme helped popularize the use of Art Deco styling in works of science fiction, and later in depictions of a retro-future. In recent-ish media, the animated sci-fi comedy Futurama or the World's Fair's fictionalized depiction as the Stark Expo in "Captain America" immediately come to mind.

This lasting legacy might lead you to believe this fair was well attended, but that was far from the case. According to the New York Herald Tribune, the World's Fair had a paid attendance of 25.8 million visitors for its 1939 season. Organizers projected an attendance of 60 million people. It's surprising that the fair had a second season in 1940, especially with the war in Europe.

As the 1940 season for the World's Fair was coming to a close, organizers planned to dismantle everything in late October and wanted to end on a bang. There were fireworks, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. The Automobile Racing Club of America organized a one-off car race, its final event. I should note that this ARCA was a forerunner to the Sports Car Club of America and not related to today's stock car racing body.

The Grand Prix at the World's Fair was held on a short three-quarter-mile circuit on the fairground's public roads. The temporary track twisted between the pavilion columns with its longest straight being 450 yards. The event's biggest draw was its pace car driver, Ralph DePalma. The Italian-born Brooklynite was arguably the most famous racing driver alive as a two-time Vanderbilt Cup winner and the 1915 Indianapolis 500 champion..

The 55-lap race was held on the morning of October 6 for a crowd of 10,000 people. The New York Times noted that the biggest crowds were by Boy Scout encampment near the circuit's two most dangerous corners. Nothing's more timeless than the naive bravery of a Boy Scout. Thankfully, none of the drivers smashed through the hay bale-lined guard rails.

The race's entrants were largely wealthy amateurs driving imported European machinery. The most interesting car in the Grand Prix was Miles Collier's Bu-Merc. The car built by Briggs Cunningham had a Mercedes-Benz SSK body draped over a Buick Century chassis. However, the race was won by Frank Griswold, a Harvard-educated aristocrat, driving a 1934 Alfa Romeo Tipo B Monoposto. He would later win the inaugural Watkins Glen Grand Prix in 1948.

While notable in the history of the automotive industry, the 1939-40 New York World's Fair was largely a footnote in racing's past. ARCA folded in December 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into World War II. The organization's former members would establish the Sports Car Club of America in 1944 with the public road race in Watkins Glen, New York as its first major event. SCCA continues to organize all FIA-sanctioned international events in the United States.

Trump's Great American State Fair is set to end on July 10, but there will be a race on the National Mall later this summer. The IndyCar Series is scheduled to run the Freedom 250 Grand Prix in late August. The last-minute temporary circuit in the Capitol Dome's shadow will run down Pennsylvania Avenue, looping around the National Archives and the National Air and Space Museum. We have no idea what the circuit will look like once the barriers are installed because the White House has exclusively posted AI slop to promote the race.