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Thank you for the thorough explanation. Based on your photographs, the place certainly didn’t draw in the crowds. The whole concept strikes me as ill conceived at best and downright dumb at worst. It’s about as appropriate as a Man and Festering Contagious Disease pavilion might have been.

New York City unveiled a new fleet of subway cars in time for the world's fair. Here's just some of the new cars seen on the walkway from the subway station over to the main gate of the Fair. Newly restored 35mm slide from July 1964.

Some usual, some unusual. I will be showing this set on newt Saturday's Zoom session, along with others. Right now I'm doing a nice set from Latvian Day, 9/27/64, shot in the New York State Pavilion.

Jim, I agree that naming this pavilion "Man and Weapons" is very disgraceful. Even worse: the 1968 Man and His World guidebook names it "Man the Distroyer" (although in French it's simply called Le "Pavillon des Armes" ("The Arms Pavilion"). This shows how the City of Montréal, at the time, lacked the educated personnel to present an annual international exhibition. Fortunately, in later years, they got rid of the 1967 theme symbol "Man and..." and changed the pavilion's name to simply "Les Armes" / "Weapons". As for the object and content of the pavilion, it displayed through the years items of private and institutional collections of ancient offensive, defensive and decorative weapons, from Antiquity and Mediaeval times to early XIXth Century. Many of them were prestige objects for pump and show in olden days. I have found a few interior pictures of the pavilion from the City of Mentréal Archives (the black-and-white pictures are from 1968, the colored ones from 1969): In 1968, many objects shown were objets d'art collections including dueling pistols, mid-XVIIIth century french muskets and Japanese samourai armor. In 1969, displays came from Italy (Turin), Belgium (Liège) and France (Paris, Musée de l'Armée). A special section commemorated the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of Napoleon Buonaparte.

I can certainly imagine the excitement. I felt it myself when I first entered. What I can’t imagine is arriving at the fair in a shirt and tie especially on a warm day. And the dress shoes probably weren’t the best choice those guys made that day.

I still have a set of commemorative Expo stamps issued by the UN that I bought at that pavilion. And in the pavilion theatre, the film, To Be Alive, was shown.

i'm sure it's someone with a sense of dad humor.

I take it other shots in the set are more ordinary?

Just this. Same batch as the "Ahoy" sign at Maryland.

Makes it even more curious if there's no picture of the flag in the set.

Trying to carve out a reason for this shot.

with film being expensive, i wonder if they were going to use the snapshot for Thanksgiving 🙂

is that a guy wearing house slippers with no socks?

As I recall I think "The Yule Log" disappeared all through the 90s before coming back after 9/11. I still have an audio recording of the radio simulcast they would do all through the 80s on WPIX-FM.

Newly restored 35mm slide.

The story of the Yule Log on WPIX is pretty interesting. Started as a "Christmas Gift" to New Yorkers who had no fireplace in their apartments, its showtime shrank through the 90s and nearly disappeared in 2000. But after the attacks on 9/11/2001, people's need for a bit of reassurance led PIX to increase the broadcast time and viewership was enormous.

The funny thing was that they briefly had the best selling digital cameras with their Easy Share line. Nobody's really held a durable lead in digital cameras (remember the Flip video cameras?) unless you count the iPhone.

I know it was different in the 60s, but the thought of a weapons exhibit in Canada seems totally alien now.

Newly restored 35mm slide. (This was near the base of a flagpole on the Court of Nations)

Man and Weapons? Not exactly a theme exhibit I’d attend any fair to experience.

Newly restored 35mm slide.

Very interesting!

I also zoomed in on the builder's sign for my fellow Van Roll fans. Newly restored 35mm slide.

Today's Gorilla's Don't Blog (Vintage Disneyland pics, but occasional diversions into WF photos) has some pictures of the giant DuPont signs being built: https://gorillasdontblog.blogspot.com/2026/01/new-york-worlds-fair-dupont-sign.html This is a part 1. I'll add a comment when Major Pepperidge posts the rest.

What wonders await! Newly restored 35mm slide from July 1964.