Futurama at 1939 NY World's Fair

A look at pre-World War II futuristic utopian thinking, as envisioned by Norman Bel Geddes for General Motors. This was designer Bel Geddes masterpiece -- the "Futurama" exhibit in GM's "Highways and Horizons" pavilion at the World's Fair, that imagined the distant future of a faraway time 1960.
This future of skyways aka freeways and sprawling suburbs was put on hold because of World War Two but it came roaring back after the War. This compelling vision became synonymous with the American Dream.
It's still compelling developing countries like China to urbanize and hit the road in automobiles. We don't see any smog in Bel Geddes utopia but LA discovered and now China is finding out that translating World's Fair ride into reality has some drawbacks.
For a quick read about this famous exhibit -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama...)
QT - On to New Horizons
Producer: Handy (Jam) Organization
Sponsor: General Motors Corporation, Department of Public Relations

[@domeatown]

Honestly, a lot of this DID happen. It just turned out suckier than we thought

[@donnysarian]

True.

[@atompunk5575]

And plastic

[@lukehauser1182]

Traffic jams of the future!

[@tutacat]

This was actually an advert to help build massive highways going through cities, etc.

[@concorde2003]

Well put.

[@arthdenton]

The future world of 1960 looks cool. I wish I could live long enough to experience it.

[@ernesthill2681]

The future ain't what it used to be 🙃

[@thevisorsusa]

Where's my hover car?

[@dogpawcarrillo6281]

"The future is old." - Ridley Scott, when asked about the world of "Blade Runner".

[@GenericUrbanism]

We did get to experience it. Just look at Houston Texas.

[@docjoe86]

I have good news!

[@craigtorso]

19:26 There it is-intentionally using highway construction as a means to displace “slums,” spelled out in as clear of language as you’d ever want.

[@thomasgangemi7259]

Slums are lame

[@ilikegrapes5769]

Right, it should be the responsibility of the "slumers" to change it.

[@jg-tz4fn]

Slums are by definition informal settlements, displacing slums is not a bad thing.

[@FutureProp]

​@@jg-tz4fn Right? People should have to fill out forms and have a legally documented place of residence in order to be allowed to live. If not, they should be displaced to somewhere else, idk where they went, totally not the next town over don't worry.

[@domeatown]

For sure. It says in so many words so many things. ...A whole lot of gross things Detroit was a major metro area at the time, tho Good reminder that we dont know what the future holds. Very sobering.

[@jpolar394]

The future looked better in the past.

[@Tora-Tora-Tora-]

名言

[@bettyschneider5268]

I know i want to go back! Lol 😂 at least to 1970s i was a teenager then! More fun then now in 2022! 🎭🇺🇸🚵🚴🚲🌈🌎🌍🌏🌐

[@concorde2003]

As Dan Quayle once said, "The future will be better tomorrow."

[@jacobberton3199]

Drinking game: drink every time “new horizons” is spoken

[@rogueshadowunit4964]

“In a restless search for new opportunities and new ways of living The mystery and the promise of distant horizons Always have called men forward.” This quote is in a Starset song but I could’ve sworn it was in a movie. Anyone else know?

[@mselbit]

a fine line between growth and progress and reaching a point where consumption and gross overindulgence in pleasure kicks in. At some point, the world crossed the line.

[@tpw9099]

Yes in a very sinful overindulgent scary way….. ? Is GOD PLEASED that’s what we need to ask? Maybe I’m wrong but…. I don’t think he is and we will see his reaction eventually

[@bettyschneider5268]

@@tpw9099 Amen!💒⛪⛪⛪🌈

[@jayherzog7683]

The Robert Moses view of the future. His ideas were wrong on almost every account. More roads and more cars. Now we are melting.

[@here_we_go_again2571]

@jayherzog7683 Robert Moses was a man of his time. He didn't see beyond the immediate future (Goodbye horses, cars didn't pollute like horses. From the 1920's onward, almost all Americans wanted their own cars and a little house in a suburb with a nice yard for their children.

[@otakunthevegan4206]

Good news everyone!

[@SamWesting]

Something this Futurama model was missing: No parking lots. No parking garages. No thought given to where all these cars would be when they weren’t driven?

[@onyxtay7246]

It's because showing something that looks like our modern urban hellscape might have made people wary of car-dependence. Plus, massive parking lots contribute to heat islands - "a city rich in sunlight" is less positive when that means it's several degrees hotter than the countryside nearby. They may not have known everything that these ideas would do to ruin our future, but they did know that it would make GM a lot of money.

[@SamWesting]

@@onyxtay7246 “Ruin our future?” OK. So I presume you don’t own/ride any motorized vehicle. Because if do, you’re part of the problem.

[@onyxtay7246]

​@@SamWesting I see you take the purity test approach to giving a shit about the world we live in, instead of actually caring about what life is actually like. First, car dependent urban planning means that it is nigh impossible to exist within American cities without having a car. Second, I live in the urban center and walk when possible to minimize waste (and because it's healthier). But this is irrelevant because making systemic issues like urban planning & climate change an individual problem which must be solved by making sure the peasants are really particular about their carbon footprint is FUCKING STUPID. The oil & car industries are a massive source of pollution, and it's on a level that individual people cannot challenge. Unfortunately we live in a country owned by people whose only motivation is short-term profit.

[@onyxtay7246]

@@SamWesting Also, chief dumbass, I suggest you look outside and notice that most public transportation will use engines which burn fossil fuels. This works thanks to economies of scale, because if a bus burns twice as much gas while transporting 60 times as many people it is still far more efficient than driving an F150 (with optional baby-masher addon to prevent you from seeing children below the massive front end) to pick up a jug of milk.

[@mselbit]

I have a souvenir ring of this fair that I bought on Ebay fifteen years ago. Authentic.

[@PrinceStreet]

This vision leaves me chilled. Gosh, I hope we do something less of a highway of fast movements through our lives and more of a stride of our own scale.

[@Ragnar6000]

Little did they realize the world was about to be thrust into a world war!

[@ernesthill2681]

The Estonia pavilion was still open when Stalin seized it in 1940. It lived on when country it represented ceased to exist

[@bigred606]

Why Dustin decided to put this into the song we will never know

[@vvubbihikngidhdhhd]

Maybe because the next starset novel have something to do with it, I mean, this made me think of the book the prox transmissions

[@GoldfaceOfficial]

I have a theory about why he chose this. This entire video is about optimism for the future and how great things will be in the future with new developments. However, these developments either never come or are more sinister than originally portrayed. I think it links to the BMI from starset lore. The BMI was advertised as a machine that will change the future for the better, as the future is displayed in this video. However, in both circumstances, new technology was used for sinister purposes than was originally touted.

[@mesofius]

we still don't have highways where you can travel at a speed of 100 mph without being arrested and charged a fortune by cops

[@UneducatedGeologist]

Out west some have slowed us from 70 to 60mph UGH

[@mesofius]

@@UneducatedGeologist It's all about revenue

[@duncanblack7359]

1:04 for those that came from STARSET.

[@birch8109]

Thank you I was looking for it

[@starsetaddict9566]

YEEEEEEEESSSSSSS

[@vancepomerening4794]

23:01 Ah! The true colors are revealed, right out of the Robert Moses' infernal playbook.

[@mathew21686]

We’re living in the future we all thought about and couldn’t wait to be apart of and witness it unfold. I’m watching the past in the palm of my hand. People from the past couldn’t wait for the future and all the technological advancements that were to come. Yet I sit here with the amazing technology and advancements we have now wishing for the past. It’s funny. We couldn’t wait for this to happen. The past wanted the future. The future wants the past.

[@josephdragan7734]

Same announcer did the 1964 world's fair

[@GmanMilli]

13:04 A good idea never implemented, maybe some day. 14:28 Some vehicles look like airfoils. 14:45 Safe distance maintained by automatic radio control, well many many decades later perhaps

[@10uRization]

agaaa beee

[@TrainerCTZ]

14:45 and the Tesla....

[@stanpolchinski8956]

starting a world - @ - war

[@stanpolchinski8956]

b.s. ignored foney war, of un imaginative killing, ending in Aug 1945 , with atomic bombs. omg! no body believes in god or prays enough do that 80 yrs later war is again in the Ukraine - in 2022.

[@evanharrison4054]

This is more depressing than The Twilight Zone.

[@fairfaxcat1312]

Elevated sidewalks . . . actually double the available width for traffic in the street.

[@clayton_games]

Dang, we should've gotten those!

[@copypaste3526]

wish this was better quality

[@steven2212]

WWII just around the corner, still innocent America about to grow up and dominate the world. Great post.

[@philipshisbey581]

So actually this depicts mass-transit. All the moving cars are on rails. No wonder everyone loved it.

[@brockoneill7377]

Who came here from Starset?

[@FOXMULDERFBI]

Up

[@sharkish0]

WE WON'T JUST FALL AWAY

[@mariapekler3417]

Our stories are past the horizons

[@mariapekler3417]

Goodbye to what we made

[@mariapekler3417]

We're climbing until we transcend

[@mariapekler3417]

These aren't the dreams of our fathers

[@mariapekler3417]

We are the sons and the daughters

[@douglasgreene923]

And I honestly agree for sure

[@tonnythedrummer]

Starset - Where The Skies End

[@vvubbihikngidhdhhd]

Yup

[@JustMiaMakingStuff]

so that's where the tv show got it's name from

[@Ranman242]

Is nobody in this comment section here from Starset?

[@lilTryhard]

Featuring 14khz background noise. NICE

[@joeylewis8615]

Good god, people were very optimistic back then. I would take the parks please. The freeway thing sure worked out ;) 1960, what a time!

[@vancepomerening4794]

15:40 Religious Retreat" Gotta be some weird futurist cult.

[@10uRization]

Who came here from the Futurama opening screen? :D

[@10uRization]

Season 7 episode 18 for the curious ones xd

[@jackmcdonald8355]

For me its season 10 episode 5. I'm watching on Hulu lol

[@drabberfrog]

@@jackmcdonald8355 same im from Hulu too

[@JustMiaMakingStuff]

in color me

[@carringtonpageiv6210]

The part where they showed the elevated sidewalks, had they stuck to their guns with that you probably would’ve been in a much better place right now

[@MrPGC137]

I know this is a nitpicky detail-oriented question, but does anyone know the name of the electronic instrument used on the soundtrack from about the 9:00 mark onward? It sounds a little like a Hammond organ but it isn't one. I used to know the name of this instrument, but I've since forgotten. If anyone knows the answer please tell me. Thanks.

[@arnechino]

A Hammond Novachord built in 1939

[@pacz8114]

@@arnechino Point to ArneChino!

[@greglivo]

Is it just me or is the background organ music creepy AF?

[@billkarmetsky4003]

I found that music to be wonderous, apropos to the entire film and narration. I found the sounds to be that of looking deep into the stars in total wonderment. But I am an artist myself, so I hear and see art in those kinds of terms.

[@eurouc]

The music is rather dramatic 😱

[@stoley_]

Starset brought me here

[@concorde2003]

Wow, this really creeps me out.

[@billkarmetsky4003]

In hindsight, if men of wealth and power didn't become so completely psychopathic and adhered to the sustainable ideas put forth, I believe every aspect to this kind of a future, well, past now, might have been achieved. It's been written a culture is as great as its dreams, and those dreams are dreamed by artists. These artists and engineers had free reign to design and construct the pavilions and I think there was no costs spared to make it timeless. What happened? Cheapness. Financialization. Money Power and serious hidden agendas to where all these hopes and aspirations crumbled away into a world wide horror show of de-investment and a New World Order run by central banks just for them and to mankind's demise across the boards with very few exceptions.

[@CommanderLongJohn]

We also would've had to maintain the racial demographics of America, which in 1939 was about 90% white and 9% black, as well as the immigration quotas that heavily restricted immigration from outside of Europe and had a finite number of people that could immigrate to the US every year in general, as one of the final nails in our coffin was the 1965 Immigration Act (that caused millions of third world aliens to pour over the border between the early 1970's and early 2000's). Another thing, we would've HAD to of allied with Germany in WW2 and *rightfully* defeat the Soviet Union, if you'll notice it didn't take long for our society/culture to start degrading after the 40's, the USSR and Marxism in general would've had to of been squashed entirely for the old vision of the future to become a reality-one of the MAIN reasons for the cultural/societal decline was the introduction of cultural marxism in the early to late 1960's, largely pushed via academic circles within colleges and universities . . .

[@billkarmetsky4003]

@@CommanderLongJohn You said it all. An excellent post. Thank you very much. Every word is demonstrably factual as well as the ensuing sick results to where we are as something.

[@duartey8241]

Bold of you to assume that the ideas weren't rotten and ill-intentioned from the start. This is nothing but one possible future being presented as THE future. It plays with people's imaginations and the idea of progress to repackage the same ideas in a way that they are more acceptable. Not to say that all ideas presented completely suck, but the money that was being put forth to think them up and presented them was concerned with nothing but creating more money. A current parallel is the idiotic regulations, incentives and virtue signaling around green technologies - most of them are just rich people figuring out how to become even richer.

[@billkarmetsky4003]

@@duartey8241 Point taken,

[@DeeRuss]

After 1957 most big American cities were stripped away from their past beautiful buildings were replaced with parking lots highways stretched through neighborhoods and ugly boring buildings filled the skyline, street cars were removed and passenger rail was forgotten cities were destroyed greater than bombed cities during ww2

[@superguy199]

So, where are Fry and Leela?

[@toymagmadon07]

And Bender

[@l.a.crenshaw5952]

new new new new new new new

[@antimemeticsdivision0055]

0:14 this part sounds really similar to Al Bowlly's Heartaches

[@tekxpert1708]

1939 pipe dream

[@wesleywright8063]

indeed

[@Dalton_Boardman2000]

Where's the beer powered robots?

[@juanalmzn2263]

20:25 here from lemmino (formerly known as top10memes)

[@lukehauser1182]

Just like today, the future is out of focus

[@wishmaster7438]

If your imagination is out of focus then you won't see things clearly.

[@DeeRuss]

Honestly this is better and worse notice how there’s a country side outside the city like most European cities well after the housing act all of the country land outside big cities became houses and cities became very spread out which displaces wildlife and forces people to drive

[@jakemichael8586]

the growth promised is only for the 1%. we need to move from growth.

[@michaelreilly6874]

Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

[@spd_bird]

They predicted the Katy Freeway but not induced demand :/

[@jessonlee1453]

3 ♡ 2

[@clouddrizzle]

1:04

[@KlubPenguin]

1:04 ifykyk

[@Ken15643]

Skip to 9:03 to get past the repetitive introduction.

[@actic555]

20:26

[@jessonlee1453]

9''3

[@pedro55845]

Wow they announced pesticides and freeway's lol

[@jessonlee1453]

93

[@philipbanks2462]

Who else caught Oakland city hall!

[@lukehauser1182]

Hey, I was just protesting there!

[@larryboysen5911]

I'd tell the narrator to stay where he is and forget those "New Horizons"!!! Little things like constant wars and greed smash those tomorrows! I truly wonder how those folks of 1939 would react if projected into the world of 2020!...Note "Futurama" is a "vision"...not true reality, like all of man's predictions! I like that Novachord sound tract. Hope all those residential areas are affordable housing!

[@mesofius]

you sound like a dirty communist

[@larryboysen5911]

@@mesofius So be it! In 2020 GREED is the ruler!

[@mesofius]

@@larryboysen5911 I bet you live in some rich capitalist country and have never suffered from communism

[@onyxtay7246]

@@mesofius Ah yes, because suffering from capitalism is far superior to that dirty communism where the free public housing isn't as nice as the mansions, and you have to share it with _the_ _poors_ who would otherwise be living on the street. I mean, if you can afford a mansion and aren't just giving half your income to a landlord because they bought all the land before you were born.

[@karlceballos3635]

They predicted it halfway correctly.

[@jessonlee1453]

Lee JESSON

[@1tastiger1]

4:07 did he just say "with the growing appreciation of using taxes for a program they were actually designed for we are surprisingly doing things"? I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or if tax programs were really that bad back then that that deserves praise xD

[@KingRoseArchives]

He's saying that because of taxes we were able to build out the interstate highway system. He's not being sarcastic. It was true. They weren't "bad" they gave us the ability to build highways, schools, libraries etc and make real progress.

[@MrBrinowski]

Electricity is still the future.

[@denniscook1422]

Yeah, using the atom to boil water. Great frickin idea.

[@jayh9529]

Worlds first mobile phone 1922

[@onlythewise1]

my dad saved his world fair ticket i got it

[@MrRobertbyers]

Wrought by God! That description was to change eh. sad.

[@vancepomerening4794]

2:11 even of course it didnt already belong to someone else.

[@johnclarke5459]

Adolph was there first with the Autobahnen!!!

[@johnclarke5459]

@Joseph Lomeo and Jews to the Crematoria!

[@bettyschneider5268]

Where was the 1939 World's Fair? Lol 😂 I feel cheated! 😏🇺🇸🎭 Well now it's after 2020 and nothing is good! I want to go back! 😱

[@here_we_go_again2571]

Are you aware of what was happening in 1939? and happened in 1940 - 1945?

[@bettyschneider5268]

@@here_we_go_again2571 No because I was born in 1956 I probably was a child then! Thanks for your reply! 🌈

[@here_we_go_again2571]

@@bettyschneider5268 You never took a history class?

[@TheGbeecher]

Yeah...nevermind Hitler and Emporer Hirihito...😢😮

[@tracyjones3013]

Wow blatant occult symbols even then. We have been sooo deceived.😢🙏🏽

[@holgerhn6244]

Let's keep insects out and switch to artificial pollination! They kept their promise on that one... And appreciate those seven-lane-one-way-highways - going to where? You can't travel back (and you can't change lanes), maybe you just have to take the autogyro form the floating airport for that. Gotta buy a new car after you make it home again. Just ask your local General Motors-Dealer.

[@seanwatson2556]

20:00 Dubia

[@kingjeremysircornwell7847]

I'm from the future 2017. These don't jive Monsanto, nature you are not

[@mesofius]

I'm from further in the future, 2020 here, we are far more developed than you are back in 2017.

[@ubroc]

What a total load of crap!

[@tekxpert1708]

this is wishful thinking. not too much of this analysis came true except the city architecture. lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@marin4311]

People always need to be told some fairy Tales.

[@bettyschneider5268]

He said the cars in 1960s could go up to 50 miles per hour! Lol 😂 now they go up to 150? 🛣🛣🛣🛣🛣🛣🛣🛤🏎🏎🏎🏎🚙🚗🚕🚓🚐🚑🚒🚜🚍🚌🚵🚴🚲🛣🛣

[@docjoe86]

Good news everyone!

[@jessonlee1453]

9''3