Expo 67 - Closed

50 years ago today, Expo 67 closed. The site continued on for a few more years as the Man and His World exhibition, but by the mid-seventies portions of the site were falling into ruin and were being dismantled.

The  American pavilion is one of the few structures left, but it almost didn't survive. In 1976, it was almost destroyed by fire. Today, it's now known as the Montreal Biosphere, and has been turned into an environmental museum. I visited the Expo site in 1979. Here's my two shots of the burnt-out buckyball, before it was repaired.
In late 1978 or early 1979, a small second unit crew went to Montréal and filmed some scenes for the episode "Greetings From Earth" of the original Battlestar Galactica series. While many of the scenes were just establishing shots of a decayed futuristic landscape, series star Dirk Benedict and guest star Bobby Van did travel to Montréal to film a couple of scenes near the ruins of various pavilions. You can see the Man the Provider Pavilion in the background of this scene. By the time of my visit in 1979, Île Notre Dame was closed, and we could see the pavilions across the river being dismantled. I took two last pictures....

Expo 67 - Dad

Dad didn't take all the family pictures at Expo 67. Here's a shot of him on the site probably taken by mom.

Expo 67 - American Pavilion

The iconic American Pavilion, Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome. Or a Buckyball, if you prefer. This seems to be the only picture dad took of it.

Expo 67 - La Ronde 5

I might be cheating a bit here. These undated photos are the only colour photos of me that Dad took on the Expo grounds -- the La Ronde amusement park area, to be precise -- but I'm wondering if they really were taken during 1967. The grounds and pavilions at Expo 67 continued for a number of years after 1967 as an exhibition entitled Man and His World. I seem to be a year or two older than in the other Expo pictures I've found, so I suspect that these are technically not Expo 67 pictures, but perhaps taken in 1968 or 1969. Of course, the clincher is the hats -- the Montréal Expos didn't start playing until 1969. The franchise was not even awarded until 1968, so this picture must be from 1969, maybe even 1970. Interestingly, these were the only Expo (or Man and His World) pictures on the roll of film. My Dad took his camera, with colour(!) film in it on this particular trip, all the way to the Expo site and only took these two shots.

Expo 67 - French Pavilion

The French Pavilion.