Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of references (at least there have been if you follow a selection of Disney-themed social media feeds) to the fact that the "It's a Small World" attraction is 50 years old.
This is certainly the case, but actually the ride didn't open in Disneyland until 48 years ago in 1966, and obviously couldn't have opened in WDW half a century ago given that the whole park didn't open until 1971.
The reason that the attraction is 50 years old is because it made its debut at the New York World's Fair that took place in 1964, and which opened exactly half a century ago today. The fair took place on a site now known as the Flushing Meadows Corona Park (yes, the same Flushing Meadows as of the tennis tournament), and there are a couple of excellent posts done by Imagineering Disney which show both what remains of the World's Fair, and also some then and now photo comparisons.
As can be seen from the photos, the park seems like a rather sad place to visit today, something of a shadow of its former glory, and I'm sure that if you showed the "now" photos to a selection of people, they are far more likely to respond with recognition from a Men in Black movie rather than a World's Fair.
It's a Small World wasn't the only Disney attraction at the World's Fair - there were three others as well: Great Moments with Mr Lincoln; the Magic Skyway; and then, a particular favourite of mine, The Carousel of Progress ("There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, Shining at the end of every day ...").
As my family know to their cost, I am always extremely keen to take a spin around the Carousel of Progress should we find ourselves in Tomorrowland and the attraction is open (as, sadly, it seems to only be open at peak times these days). It paints a great picture of how things have moved on over the last hundred or more years (as well as a sometimes welcome air-conditioned 20 minute sit down part way through a busy Magic Kingdom day), and I think it would be wonderful if the Imagineers got their hands on the final scene and updated it. It's fun to see what the future looked like 20 years ago, but it would be even more fun to see what the future looks like today.
Speaking of what the future looks like, one of my favourite authors when I was growing up was Isaac Asimov, and whilst I wasn't bowled over when I finally read Foundation a little while ago, I still thoroughly enjoyed revisiting The Positronic Man, and will definitely be dipping back into the 50 or so books of his that I have on my bookshelves. As well as being the father of robotics, he was a great fan of predicting the future, both in fiction and in fact.
And, in fact, Isaac Asimov visited the 1964 World's Fair (I suppose it was pretty much on his doorstep after all), and after a visit to the Carousel of Progress, he was inspired to write an article, speculating about what life might be like in the year 2014 (note that the article refers to his visit to the General Electric pavilion, and doesn't mention Disney at all, but the Carousel of Progress was created by Disney for the GE pavilion). As is often the case with these things, some of his predictions seem a little bit laughable and wide of the mark, but equally there were some things that were pretty accurate as well.
You can find a copy of Asimov's article here.
(Note that I would have liked to include a photo of the Carousel of Progress to accompany this post. However, when I do a trawl through the "Magic Kingdom"-tagged photos in my Flickr archive, whilst there are hundreds of the Castle (!!), I can only see a couple which include CoP, and in both of those cases, the ride is in the background. Given that the foreground includes a certain young man sporting a spiky red hairdo, I thought it was probably best not to include them here!)