Freshmen seek to bring World's Fair to New York City in 2012

Jonathan Bydlak '05 and Benjamin Kingsley '05 have big plans for the Big Apple.

Three weeks ago, the roommates became intrigued by the idea of New York City as the site for the 2012 World's Fair.

"It was a two o'clock in the morning-type-thing. Somehow it just came up in a conversation," Bydlak said. "I just said how I was always fascinated by the World's Fair and how it would be a cool thing to do after September 11th."

Kingsley, a New York resident, took to the thought immediately. Since that conversation, the two have been publicizing their idea and planning for the long road ahead to achieve their goal.

They created a website at GiantsFan4Life.tripod.com to drum up support.

On their website, Bydlak and Kingsley stressed the idea that New York embodies the spirit behind a World's Fair.

"The World's Fair is about entertainment, science, technology—basically where the world is headed," Bydlak said.

WorldFairs.com describes the event as "a gathering of people from many parts of the world, at which they demonstrate their products and their arts and brag about their homelands."

The last World's Fair in New York was held at Flushing Meadow in Queens in 1964. The fair coincided with the city's 300th anniversary of British forces gaining control of New Amsterdam.

The fair's theme, "Man in a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe," reflected the changing world order at the dawn of the space age.

"A whole generation has grown up not knowing what this experience is," said Bydlak.

Bydlak and Kingsley have passed out fliers on campus, sent press releases to newspapers and e-mailed students at other colleges. The word-of-mouth campaign has resulted in nearly 700 hits on their site, and 220 signatures of their petition.

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Once they collect 1,000 signatures, they plan to contact New York City politicians and officials about their idea. Their main obstacle is rallying enough support from New Yorkers and the rest of the country. "We need to show that we are a movement and not just two guys with a modem," Kingsley said.

Each supporter counts, Bydlak said. "Each signature we get is just one more step on the road to making this a formidable idea," he said.

For now, the campaign is at the grass-roots level. Next semester, they hope to plan a forum with guest speakers about the World's Fair, Sept. 11 and why the fair is important for New York.

However, they realize their role in planning the fair would be minimal.

"We are just college students," Kingsley said. "We can't actually plan the World's Fair, but what we can hope to do is to promote and maybe get the idea going."

The Bureau of International Expositions approves bids for the fair's locale. The next world fairs will take place in France in 2004 and Japan in 2005. New York City must bid before 2007 to hold a fair in 2012.

Though this date is still years away, a lot of planning must be done before a successful bid can be placed. Bydlak said the interest must be expressed now.

The feasibility of their plan, however, is contingent on whether New York becomes the site for the Olympics that same year.

"It is kind of like a waiting game to see what happens with the Olympics," Bydlak said. "Who knows what will happen in November?"

This summer Bydlak and Kingsley will continue to work toward gaining more national attention for their idea in academia, the general public, the media and, of course, New York.