The 1964/65 World’s Fair was considered a flop. Many believed it failed because there was no midway.

Do you know about the midway? It’s a kind of honky-tonky coney island with fast rides, cheap games, and other titillating low brow pleasures that would be adjacent to the fairgrounds. A carnival where different classes and races could promiscuously mingle and wet their appetites for fun and amusement.

The organizers of the World’s Fair didn’t allow a midway to be set up because the low-class, undiginified element midways attracted. 

“New York is decaying,” Don says to his British cohort. Indeed, the boisterous, heterogeneous  culture of the midway was smothered beneath New York’s decrepit aristocracy.

And on a personal note, I live in the midway of the country: Los Angeles. Hooray!