Tomorrow-Land (41 page)

A special
mille grazie
also goes to Justin Rizzo—
il mio fratello da un'altra madre
—for cluing me in about Dave Brubeck's World's Fair–themed songs on
Time Changes,
as well as
The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization
by Diana West (St. Martin's; 2008), which recounts Benny Goodman's meeting with the Beatles and references his daughter Rachel Goodman's
Esquire
piece about that surreal moment. I based my account of Bob Dylan's recording and activities in the summer of 1964 on Robert Shelton's
No Direction Home
; Dylan's own
Chronicles Volume 1
(Simon & Schuster, 2004); and the pieces in
The Essential Interviews: Dylan on Dylan,
edited by Jonathan Cott (Hodder & Stoughton, 2006), particularly Nat Hentoff's piece from the October 24, 1964, issue of
The New Yorker,
“The Crackin', Shakin', Breakin', Sounds.”
Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads
by Greil Marcus (PublicAffairs, 2005) is essential reading for anyone trying to understand Dylan, his music, or its place in American culture, as is, of course, David Hadju's
Positively 4th Street
. For Dylan's meeting with the Beatles, I also consulted Bob Spitz's
The Beatles
and the above-mentioned books.

 

25.

I based my narrative on Ken Kesey from a number of sources: Tom Wolfe's
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
(Signet, 1969);
Can't Find My Way Home: America
in the Great Stoned Age, 1945–2000
by Martin Torgoff (Simon & Schuster, 2004);
On the Bus: The Complete Guide to the Legendary Trip of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and the Birth of the Counterculture
by Ken Babbs and Paul Perry (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990); and
Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties
by Robert Stone (Harper, 2007). I also consulted
The Holy Goof
(Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004), a biography of Neal Cassady by the late William Plummer, a gentleman and a scholar, whom I had the pleasure of knowing. Kesey is also mentioned in Margolis's
The Last Innocent Year
.

Magic Trip
was key to understanding the cross-country trip undertaken by Kesey and the Pranksters. Several quotes were drawn from that wonderful documentary. Also useful were
I Celebrate Myself,
Bill Morgan's Allen Ginsberg biography. John Tytell's incomparable
Naked Angels,
his literary biography of the Beat Generation, was as inspiring today as when I first read it more than twenty years ago as a young college student. I also consulted T. H. White's
The Making of the President 1964
and Rick Perlstein's
Before the Storm
.

 

Part Three: Bringing It All Back Home

26.

This chapter is largely based on the relevant documents found in the Robert Moses Papers and World's Fair Archives about the end of the Fair's first season. It is also based on Richard J. Whalen's September 1964 cover story for
Fortune,
“New York: A City Destroying Itself”; his book of the same name released the following year; and Moses' reaction not only to Whalen's piece but to all the stories then appearing in the New York papers about crime and the city's other ailments at the time. I also had the pleasure of speaking to Richard Whalen. A very special thanks to him.

Critical to understanding the saga of the Lower Manhattan Expressway was Anthony Flint's
Wrestling With Moses
and
Robert Moses and the Modern City
, as well as Ric Burns's amazing documentary
New York
, particularly Episode Seven: The City and The World.

 

27.

All the relevant newspaper articles noted in the text were found in the Robert Moses Papers at the New York Public Library, as were Moses' memos and letters about those articles and his exchange with Charles Grutzner of the
New York
Times
. The report by top executives of the Fair's biggest industrial pavilions and Moses' pointed reactions were also found in the archives.

 

28.

The Fair's post–Season One problems were detailed among the files in the Robert Moses Papers and World's Fair Archives. The whole affair played out in the New York daily papers, particularly the
New York Times
and the
New York Herald Tribune
, which by then had become the paper most likely to irritate Moses on a daily basis. Details of Moses' showdown with George Spargo appeared in
Life
. Bruce Nicholson recounts his trip to Madrid with Moses to meet General Franco in his book,
Hi Ho, Come to the Fair.

 

29.

Bob Dylan's experiments in the recording studio in early 1965 are recounted in Robert Shelton's
No Direction Home
; Greil Marcus's
Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads
; and David Hadju's
Positively 4th Street
, among other Dylan books. Al Kooper's memoir,
Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards
(Backbeat Books, 2008), was also helpful. Dylan's albums from this time,
Another Side of Bob Dylan
,
Bringing It All Back Home
,
Highway 61 Revisited
, and
The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1–3: 1961–1991
and
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964
, were all essential.

30.

I based the events of the early days of the Johnson administration on Jon Margolis's
The Last Innocent Year.
Also useful was Robert Caro's
Pathway to Power
. James Farmer's
Lay Bare the Heart
provided insights and details about meeting President Johnson. Rick Perlstein's
Nixonland
also gives a wonderful account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

 

31.

In the wake of the Kitty Genovese murder and race riots, the media took a long, hard look at New York City. Following Richard J. Whalen's lead, the
Herald Tribune
began a series titled “City in
Crisis” (later compiled into a book of the same name). Malcolm X's life and death are recounted in
Malcolm: A Life of Reinvention
. The story of Selma is recounted in
America Divided
and
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King,
among other places, including newspaper reports.

Details about the World's Fair's second season were found in the New York Public Library's archives,
The End of the Innocence
, and the New York newspapers. Details about the murders in Queens were found in
New York: A City Destroying Itself
(Morrow, 1965) and in newspaper accounts. The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was detailed in the aforementioned civil rights books.

 

32.

The details for this chapter about the Beatles and Bob Dylan in the summer of 1965 were pulled from more than a dozen sources, such as newspaper accounts, mostly from the
New York Times,
particularly Robert Shelton's report “The Beatles Will Make the Scene Here Again, but the Scene Has Changed” (August 11, 1965), an early serious attempt to rate the band's effect on pop culture and the culture at large; and “The Sky Glows Over Queens as the Beatles Take Over Shea Stadium” (August 16, 1965). Essential to my narrative were
Read the Beatles
, Jonathan Gould's
Can't Buy Me Love
, and
Anthology
by the Beatles. My account of Bob Dylan's Forest Hills concert is based on David Hadju's
Positively 4th Street
, Robert Shelton's
No Direction Home
, Al Kooper's
Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards
, and newspaper reports.

Joe Mannarino told me about the Beatles' arrival at the World's Fair, and Al Kooper told me about the Forest Hills experience from the stage. Robert Shelton filed many excellent stories on Dylan for the Paper of Record, while a December 12, 1965,
New York Times Magazine
piece, “Public Writer No. 1?” by Thomas Meehan examined the literary creditability that college students bestowed on Dylan. Critical to my assessment of Dylan at this time were D. A. Pennebaker's
Don't Look Back
and '
65 Revisited
, as was
The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963–65
, directed by Murray Lerner.
Dylan Speaks: The Legendary 1965 Press Conference in San Francisco
was also helpful. Martin Scorsese's
No Direction Home
is a brilliant and informative documentary by any barometer.

 

33.

Robert Moses' battles with Abraham Beame and other city officials were documented in the New York metropolitan papers of the day and in World's Fair documents found in both his papers and the Fair Archives at the New York Public Library. I based my narrative of Pope Paul VI's arrival in New York, his visit to the World's Fair, his trip to the United Nations, and his interactions with Cardinal Francis Spellman on a number of sources, including
The American Pope
by John Cooney;
The Pope's Journey to the United States
, written by staff members of the
New York Times
and edited by A. M. Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb (who produced the quickie paperback since the Paper of Record was on strike); and the
New York Times
' lengthy account, “Pope Paul's Visit to New York and Peace Appeal to U.N.” by A. M. Rosenthal (October 11, 1965). The historic trip was covered by all the major media. The accounts of the pope's trip in both
Life
and
Time
were also helpful. Moses had been angling to have the pope visit the World's Fair long before there was even a glimmer of hope. The relevant documents on the subject were found among his papers at the New York Public Library.

 

Epilogue: Tomorrow Never Knows

The June 3, 1967, ceremony in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park was covered in the
New York Times
. I also found an amusing Talk of the Town piece about it in
The New Yorker
. I got the figures on the Montreal Expo from
World's Fairs
by Erik Mattie. Information about the Human Be-In was gleaned from the Ginsberg biography
Song of Myself
; Martin Torgoff's
Can't Find My Way Home
and Charles Perry's wonderful
Haight-Ashbury: A History
(Wenner Books, 2005). The William Mann quote was found in
Read the Beatles.

SOURCES

Archives & Collections

Arnold Goldwag/Brooklyn CORE Collection, Brooklyn Historical Society

Charles Poletti interview, Columbia Center for Oral History

Charles Poletti Papers, Series 1, Box 7, Columbia University

Gilmore Clarke Papers, Box 2, Columbia University

Jane Jacobs, An Oral History Interview with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, 1997.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (www.jfklibrary.org)

Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library (www.lbjlibrary.org)

Robert F. Wagner Jr. interviews, Columbia Center for Oral History

Robert Moses Papers, Boxes 47–52, 119–132, Manuscript and Archive Division, New York Public Library

World's Fair Archive, Boxes 49; 141; 185; 262; 267; 281–282; 321–322; 337–338; Manuscript and Archive Division, New York Public Library

 

Newspapers & Magazines (Selected)

Amsterdam News

Long Island Star Journal

New York Daily News

New York Herald Tribune

New York Journal-American

New York Post

New York Times

New York World-Telegram

Village Voice

Wall Street Journal

Washington Post

 

Billboard

The Economist

Fortune

Harper's

Life

Newsweek

The New Yorker

Popular Mechanics

Reader's Digest

Rolling Stone

The Saturday Evening Post

Sports Illustrated

Time

 

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