souveniers

 When Hemisfair ’68 closed, the fair itself began to disappear. Temporary buildings were dismantled, exhibits were removed, and millions of visitors went home. But they took pieces of Hemisfair with them.

Postcards, pennants, guidebooks, maps, tickets, brochures, buttons, drinking glasses, ashtrays, plates, figurines, and other souvenirs had been produced to commemorate the six-month event. More than half a century later, this ephemera remains surprisingly easy to find. Hemisfair survives not only in archives and museums, but in flea markets, antique stores, online auctions, closets, attics, and family collections.

The neighborhood that preceded it left behind a very different material record.

Hundreds of buildings were demolished as the 92-acre Hemisfair site was cleared. Houses that had accumulated generations of ordinary domestic life disappeared from the landscape, leaving much of what we know about them to property records, maps, archival photographs, and the memories of former residents and their descendants.