In reply to Kim Tremblay.

Kim,

I'll promise to stay right on top of these issues, and continue blogging about them here on this page.

One historical note: The public fascination with the futuristic city was stimulated some time before the Jetsons showed up on our TVs. During the World's Fairs of the 1930s the public-at-large started to imagine (with a lot of coaxing and pushing from GM and others) the "city of the future." Not surprisingly, perhaps, cars were at the center of that vision.

To keep our historical memories fresh, the Museum of the City of New York just opened "Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s," an exhibition celebrating the six fairs, including New York’s 1939 World’s Fair, which was the largest and one of the last of the six, masterminded and built by then Parks Commissioner Robert Moses.

On a personal note: I grew up a few miles from that Fair's site, now Flushing Meadows Park in Queens NYC. And, we all know that site — it's featured in every one of the "Men In Black" films. Usually a creature from another planet is fighting it out with the MIB, right there, at the globe or another part of the Park.