You never know where you might find pieces of the fair... Take, for example, the rotating platform that was part of the Festival of Gas pavilion, sponsored by the U.S. gas industry. At the fair, the platform served as part of an exhibit aimed at showing all the wondrous appliances you could get in the near future. Oh, and they just happened to be gas powered. The large platform went into storage following the fair.
Meanwhile in Columbia, South Carolina, plans were being made for a new building at the University of South Carolina. According to the Spring 1967 edition of USC Magazine, the university decided a rotating restaurant was just the thing to top the new Capstone Building residence hall.
"South Carolina will soon have an attraction comparable to those of Seattle, London, an other major cities," the magazine proclaimed. But where to find the rotating platform required for such an ambitious project? As luck would have it, the answer was sitting in a storage facility outside of New York City: The turntable from the Festival of Gas exhibit.
As Helen Zeigler, the University of South Carolina's Vice President of Business and Facilities Management explained to us, the Festival of Gas turntable was within three inches of the clearance space of the rotating restaurant design. That sheer coincidence made the turntable a perfect candidate for the project.
Today, the space serves home to the Top of Carolina restaurant, and is open to the public on Sundays. The stunning vistas of the Columbia area make the space a popular meeting/event destination too.
It was a great visit, and we look forward to taking you there as part of the film.
