A Very American Story

A Very American Story takes a look at the career of a boy from Brooklyn with dreams of organizing a world's fair. Sixty years ago, the 1964 New York World's Fair at Flushing Meadow Park attracted 51 million fairgoers and showcased American life at mid-century.

Thomas J. Deegan Jr brought his vision of a fair to the table...while his fellow dreamer, master builder, Robert Moses, brought the executive talent.

The unlikely story line is how a fair for New York evolved from a wing and a prayer, to a lunch of bankers and businessmen at the upstairs room of the 21 Club, to a visit with Nikita Khrushchev at his dacha outside of Moscow, a private audience with Pope John 23d in his Vatican quarters and a pitch to John F Kennedy in the Oval Office.