Word: franciscos
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Franciscans went indigenous and played Old West in the streets for days before their fair's official opening. They renamed Polk Street "Polk Gulch" and hung out signs like "Red eye, 15?. Black eye, free." In San Francisco they know how to give parties and this was one given by the whole city to the vanguard of 4,000,000 visitors from other States who they estimate will spend $400,000,000 in California this year, $240,000,000 of it right in San Francisco. For a tourist's map of that city...
Planners. A real estate man named Joe Dixon (who got a season pass to the fair for his pains) started the whole show exactly six years ago with a letter to the San Francisco News. Oilmen, steelmen and Mayor Angelo J. Rossi got behind Mr. Dixon's original idea, which was to celebrate completion of San Francisco's two great bridges. Chosen president of the fair corporation was Leland W. Cutler, who is no gardenia-fragrant showman like New York's Grover Aloysius Whalen,* yet is just as sound a financier and heady planner. An engineer named...
...into a glamorous fairyland motif with the slogan: "See All the West in '39." That brought in all California's neighbor States. It wowed the transportation companies. And it was based on the sound perception that, whereas whole families stayed in town for weeks to see San Francisco's marvelous 1915 exposition, the average stay of today's streamlined travelers is two and one half days...
...Fairs are usually remembered for 1) their effect on contemporary architecture, 2) their naughtiest exhibits, 3) their deficits. Unlikely to have either a notable influence on architecture (TIME, Jan. 2) or to admit a deficit, San Francisco's fair is still in the competition with its naughty-naughties. Handicappers' current No. 1 choice is Sally Rand's troupe of cowgirls, wearing boots but no saddles on a "Dnude* Ranch" behind plate glass (see cut p. 16). Instead of "Midway," the fair's fun section is called "Gayway," which, although it means red-light district down South...
History, however, is likely to remember San Francisco's 1939 fair for none of these things, recalling charm instead of wonders. For no fair in history has had so beautiful a site as Treasure Island, just inside California's breath-taking Golden Gate, with the world's most awe-inspiring bridges stretching over and away from it. And San Franciscans have wisely chosen to make their fair gemlike rather than gigantic, compact (400 acres*), serene and gay. With one of America's few charming cities for its sponsor, GGIE may make history by being really pleasant...