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Feathered hats were not the only thing that didn't make it. Photo: Dave Pickoff/AP

Fifty years ago today, the 1964 World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadows. It was a sometimes-charming, sometimes-crass showcase at which hundreds of countries and corporations each showed off their next big thing, usually with a product introduction or cultural demonstration. Some were future game-changers. The others … were not. See ten that didn't quite work out, and five that did, below. (The quotes in the descriptions come from promotional material for the Fair.)

PART I: THE FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS

1. Road-Building Robots

General Motors showed a machine that would plow through the South American jungle, “sawing off the age-old trees at their base,” grading and leveling the ground, and laying down a ribbon of asphalt behind itself, creating a multi-lane superhighway. Terrifyingly.

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Photo: Bill Cotter

2. Thermonuclear Fusion Power Plants

At the General Electric Progressland, “a man-made sun” demonstrated the production of fusion energy — the clean, safe alternative to fission power that has been under development since the 1950s and still hasn’t made its way out of the lab. (Though it may someday: A very large test reactor, called ITER, is being built in France now, and will be completed in 2019.)

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Photo: Bill Cotter

3. Disappearing Appliances

A pavilion built to promote the natural-gas industry — it was called “The Festival of Gas,” delighting every wiseass kid at the Fair — incorporated a kitchen whose “dramatically new Gas appliances automatically emerge from bare walls, floors, ceilings as they are needed by the housewife, and disappear when no longer in use.”

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Photo: Bill Cotter

4. The Undersea Hotel

“Guests enjoy submarine views and trips in aquascooters” at the GM Futurama. Why didn’t it catch on? Maybe because the same display also showed an underwater oil-drilling rig right next to the hotel, and a submarine train hauling away freshly mined minerals. (Another idea called the "Underground Home," a prototype of which could be toured nearby, didn't take off either — though there's a rumor that it's still under the grass, waiting.)

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Photo: AP/Corbis

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