Word: fairgrounds
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Some 2,500 construction workers are rushing to cover the fairground's red clay with sod, lay the roads and put the finishing touches on structures like the enormous Chinese-Egyptian-Peruvian pavilion before opening day. Most Knoxvillians are steeling themselves for a six-month influx of 11 million tourists. But for all that, the fair, named the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, will be modest by international standards. Montreal's Expo '67, for example, was ten times as costly, and included twice as many foreign participants...
...bank loaned $1 million to the fair; the bank's former chief executive officer and current counsel is a developer of a nearby parking garage financed with $6.3 million in federal money. Butcher's brother-in-law is an owner of a new hotel overlooking the fairground - built with Government-backed bonds - and his investment bank served as the fair's financial adviser...
Sandwiched between Interstate 84 and Route 7, the lifelines of Connecticut's suburban sprawl, the 142-acre fairground was gobbled up by Wilmorite Inc., a Rochester, N.Y. , development firm. Wilmorite plans to construct one of New England's largest shopping malls, with more than a million square feet of commercial space. It will be called the Danbury Fair Mall, and the developers anticipate that it will draw nearly 35,000 customers a day, generate between $200 million and $300 million in sales annually, and stand in blacktop splendor as a testimonial to the properous future of Danbury...
...inevitability does not make the transition any easier, especially for those Danburyites who have seen their city shift from farming to hatmaking to light industry without its essential character changing. And one emblem of constancy had always been the fair. Back in 1946, the fairground was taken over by a local man, John W. Leahy, who in the early 1920s transformed his machine shop into one of the largest oil and gas distributorships in the area. Leahy journeyed as far as London to buy some stock from a shareholder in the society that had run the fair since its founding...
Outside the simple sheep barn, a few visitors take their last look at Leahy's New England village, set behind a large pond. Others crane at the 40-ft.-tall plastic man or gaze fondly over the fairground. Some vendors wear black armbands, but it is a futile gesture of mourning. Buying their last baked potato with sour cream and bacon, taking their last aim at ducks in the gallery shoot, or sizing up a young heifer, most visitors seem oblivious or indifferent to the fact that they are among the last to attend the Great Danbury State Fair...