great worlds fair photography tour

this is a pretty cool project.

http://jadedoskowworldfair.blogspot.com/

a friend of a friend left on a plane today for Barcelona, where they’ll start to photograph sites of past World Fairs around the world.

I mentioned they best be sure to swing by my hometown, St. Louis – the host of the 1904 World’s Fair. That fair took place during a time of high prosperity in St. Louis, when it was the fourth largest US city, and also host to the first US-held Olympic games (due to the hype of the fair, it actually stole this claim from Chicago). Notable structures at the 1904 expo included the Observation Wheel, a ferris wheel, which has an almost mythical presence among people (St. Louisans that is) when they talk about the expo.

Best of luck to Jade on their photography tour. Looking at the Wikipedia list of ‘registered expositions’, I realize I’ve only visited or lived in seven cities that have held world fairs (London, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle – however this year I hope to add Budapest and Brussels to that list!) whereas the artist has a good 30+ cities to get to! (that is, unless they’re following this list – and I hope they’re not because that list is comprehensive!)

Anybody else interested in the St. Louis fair site, I recommend you visit the Missouri Historical Museum on Lindell on the northern edge of Forest Park. they also have a great resource online about the fair – click here.