Curtains

With one on the East Coast, another on the West Coast, Americans have been fair-conscious for two years. But now it is all over. San Francisco's Golden Gate International Exposition closed Sept. 29, New York's this week. Neither made a success story.

The Golden Gate Exposition cost about $40,000,000 (combined total invested by the Government, State, City, exhibitors, bondholders). This year it ran 128 days (half the 1939 run) and claimed 6,544,612 visitors against 10,496,203 last year. Total 1940 income was $5,507,000, enough to cover expenses, leave $1,306,000 in the bank. Reorganized because of heavy losses in the first year, the Exposition has three types of creditors (excluding direct lenders, who got back their full stake). Together they sank $5,695,000 in the extravaganza; wound up with $2,516,000, 44% of their investment.

Some 630,000 out-of-staters eyed the Exposition's exhibits, spent roughly $17,200,000 in San Francisco. Salvage value of the buildings, thanks in part to high steel-scrap prices, will be at least $125,000. Already a nest for wide-winged transpacific clippers, Treasure Island may be turned into a huge airport. But last week no one knew who would foot the bill.

Greatest show of all time was the $155,000,000 New York World's Fair. On its last day, a record mob of 538,000 jammed the 1,216 1/2 acres to pay last-minute respects. Despite more publicity, more exhibits and better backing, it failed to match the record of its rival. Over 19,000,000 paying customers clicked through the shiny turnstiles this year, one-quarter less than in 1939, less than half original astronomic hopes. Fair Chairman Harvey Dow Gibson estimated that his 1940 gross was $10,450,000, his operating profit $5,020,000. When the final figures have been added, bondholders (who put $26,862,800 in Flushing Flats) will get back in aggregate, including past interest payments, about $11.225,000, or 38% of their investment.

Most New York businessmen agreed the Fair was a big help. The New York Convention and Visitors Bureau figured some 4,000,000 out-of-towners came to the Fair in 1939, spent about $36 each, including $9 spent in stores. This year's visitors were fewer (3,000,000) but richer, spent about $17 each in Manhattan shops. Other statistics prove many Fairgoers made pigs of themselves. In two years they gobbled 16,222,358 hot dogs, 8,328,688 square hamburgers, washed them down with 13.767,960 cups of coffee at Childs lunch bars, 2,755,000 mugs of beer, at Schaefer Center. Result: Fair drug counters sold 294,000 doses of bicarbonate, 2,073,600 headache tablets.

Full-scale wrecking of the Fair started when the turnstiles snapped behind the last customer. In 60 to 90 days most of the buildings will be gone; a few will remain for Flushing Meadow Park, newest and third biggest addition to the sprawling New York City park system.

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