The Underground World Home was an exhibit at the

1964 New York World's Fair The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions and 110 restaurants, representing 80 nations (hosted by 37), 24 US states, and over 45 corporations with the goal and the final result of building exhibits or ...

of a partially underground house which doubled as a

bomb shelter A bomb shelter is a structure designed to provide protection against the effects of a bomb. Types of shelter Different kinds of bomb shelters are configured to protect against different kinds of attack and strengths of hostile explosives. Air ...

. Designed by architect

Jay Swayze Julian Harvey "Jay" Swayze (27 October 1923 – 12 June 1981) was an architect from Plainview, Texas best known for his creation of Underground World Home at the 1964 New York World's Fair. During his career he was a promoter of underground l ...

, who made a specialty of underground homes, it was situated on the campus of the expo besides the Hall of Science and north of the expo's

heliport A heliport is a small airport suitable for use by helicopters and some other vertical lift aircraft. Designated heliports typically contain one or more touchdown and liftoff areas and may also have limited facilities such as fuel or hangars. I ...

Flushing Meadow Park Flushing may refer to: Places * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in the United Kingdom * Flushing, Queens, New York City ** Flushing Bay, a bay off the north shore of Queens ** Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠), a community in Queens ** Flushing ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

History

The home/bomb shelter was designed by architect Jay Swayze. Swayze, a proponent of underground living, constructed and lived in his own underground bunker-house in

Plainview, Texas Plainview is a city in and the county seat of Hale County, Texas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 22,194. Geography Plainview is located at (34.191204, –101.718806) and is located on the Llano Estacado. According ...

, which he named

Atomitat Atomitat (1962) was an underground bunker-home in Plainview, Texas, designed by architect Jay Swayze. The name of the home came from the combination of the words "atomic" and "habitat". It was the first home in the U.S. to meet civil defense spec ...

. Built during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

only two years after the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

, it was the promotion of the company "Underground World Homes", which was owned by Avon investor and

millionaire A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. In countries that use the short scal ...

Girard B. Henderson Girard B. Henderson (February 25, 1905 – November 16, 1983) was an American business man and philanthropist. He was a director of Avon Products and the founder of the Alexander Dawson Schools. The author Donald Porter described him ...

, who remained convinced that tensions between the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and the

U.S.S.R. The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

would escalate eventually escalate to

WWIII World War III or the Third World War, often abbreviated as WWIII or WW3, are names given to a hypothetical worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use since at ...

. (In addition to the prototypical underground home/bomb shelter, there was companion chthonic exhibit sponsored by Henderson: "Why Live Underground?") The brochure for the Underground World Home touted its comfort, luxury, interior design and safety. However, the $1.00 for adults and 50¢ on top of the expo's fee entry, plus the expo's numerous, much more glamorous exhibits, deterred many potential tourists. A May 1964

LIFE magazine ''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest ma ...

cover story on the exposition did not so much as mention the Underground World Home. Exhibits were contractually required to be dismantled and removed after the fair. Swayze eventually wrote a book, ''Underground Gardens & Homes: The Best of Two Worlds, Above and Below'', but the building's fate was not mentioned. The

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

held archives on the expo, however, and in 2017 it was found that the demolition of the home had been completed on 15 March 1966. Only its foundations, if anything, remain.

Design

The ten-room home featured backlit murals to create the illusion of outdoor space and preclude

claustrophobia Claustrophobia is the fear of confined spaces. It can be triggered by many situations or stimuli, including elevators, especially when crowded to capacity, windowless rooms, and hotel rooms with closed doors and sealed windows. Even bedrooms with ...

. The murals were painted by Texas-based artist Mrs. Glenn Smith. Swayze cited research to convince fairgoers that people did not look out their windows 80% of the time, and that and when people ''did'' look out their windows, half the time what they saw was undesirable. He stated that he could give people better views with selected murals. The home was touted as

peeping Tom Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. Today, she is mainly reme ...

proof, less expensive than normal homes, (''sic''), secure from intruders, and a way to save space above ground. The home was . The walls were of steel and concrete, and the roof supported by steel beams rated for a load of of soil (which provided the insulation). There were three bedrooms; the ceilings were of

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...

. There was a " snorkel-like system" for

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

— an apparatus which purportedly enabled the home to be dusted monthly. The

foyer A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer, reception area or an entrance hall, it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cinema, etc. ...

was , the kitchen/dining room , the

living room In Western architecture, a living room, also called a lounge room (Australian English), lounge (British English), sitting room (British English), or drawing room, is a room for relaxing and socializing in a residential house or apartment. Su ...

(with a

television set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...

and a wood-burning

fireplace A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the design. ...

) , and three bedrooms of , , and , respectively, connected by a hallway wide . The model home also had a terrace area simulating outdoor space next to the living room of .

Reception

In a 1964 ''New York Times'' piece

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

author

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...

speculated what the 2014 World's Fair would look like. He deemed the Underground World Home a "sign of the future" with controlled temperatures which allowed occupants to live free from the weather. The home was not a draw, however, and was scarcely to appear in popular memory. Priced at $80,000 (approximately four times the cost of an average home that year), none were commissioned.

Pop Culture

The

LP record The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and a ...

''The Best of the

Johnny Mann John Russell Mann (August 30, 1928June 18, 2014) was an American arranger, composer, conductor, entertainer, singer, and recording artist. Career Johnny Mann's began his music career in the late 1940s in his hometown of Baltimore before serving ...

Singers: Underground at the Fair'' played in background of the exhibit; it did not sell well. This was its only appearance in

pop culture Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * Pop (Gas al ...

(save in the niche mythos of

urban exploration Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inter ...

, and as one of the oddities of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

) until its interior was reproduced in the 2009

CSI: NY ''CSI: NY'' (''Crime Scene Investigation: New York'', stylized as ''CSI: NY/Crime Scene Investigation'') is an American police procedural television series that ran on CBS from September 22, 2004, to February 22, 2013, for a total of nine seaso ...

episode ''Manhattanhenge'' as the anachronistic lair of a mad killer, the structure supposedly simply having had soil layered on top of it and been abandoned. The set was complex and impressive.

References

External links

Underground Dream World

Underground World Home Brochure
{{DEFAULTSORT:Underground World Home 1964 introductions 1964 New York World's Fair Air raid shelters Cold War sites Cold War Nuclear fallout Radiation protection Subterranea (geography) Survivalism