The ride was built in 1939 for the World's fair, and towered over the fair's "Amusement Zone".
While images of the 1939 New York World's Fair in Queens remain ingrained in the American collective memory, one attraction, relegated to the "Amusement Zone," was largely forgotten until now: Dalí's "Dream of Venus," a tacky Surrealist fun house with live, seminude women.
A STRANGE pairing of sensibilities took place in New York when the organizers of the 1939 World's Fair, in Queens, accepted a surrealist structure by Salvador Dalí for its so-called girlie shows in the Amusement Zone.
Valerie Smith, the show's curator, explained that Dalí's pavilion didn't stand in the main fairgrounds but was relegated to the Amusement Zone, which boasted carnival games and girlie acts like Billy Rose's Aquacade.
What few people remember is a curious sideshow relegated to the "Amusement Zone," an area reserved for earthier forms of entertainment.
The fair planners put a midway of pleasure rides just south of the main fairgrounds, and in May 1939 the "Amusement Zone" opened with attractions such as Laff-in-the-Dark, Nature's Mistakes, the Arctic Girl's Temple of Ice and the Parachute Jump, later moved to Coney Island.
Yet the Futurama's popularity never eclipsed the fair's Midway, in the "Amusement Zone," where most fairgoers' visits ended - to ride the parachute jump, see the midgets and bathing beauties and attend the Aquacade, Billy Rose's swim show.
Meanwhile, this park is designed to display two phylogenies - the Earth phylogeny and the stone culture phylogeny and build "4 zones and 1 avenue": Exchange Zone, Exhibition & Sale Zone, Popular Science Zone, Amusement Zone and China View Stone Avenue.