text: Contemporary Before the fair opened, The Washington Post called the fair a "mixed boon" to New York City because BIE members had boycotted the fair. In late 1963, just before the fair opened, an Associated Press reporter wrote that the 1964 fair was "a big city cousin to the familiar county fair" but that it was also becoming one of the United States' most comprehensive exhibits of industries and businesses. A British newspaper called the fair "a great big grown-up Disneyland".
  After the fair's opening, Life and Ebony magazines called it one of mankind's largest expositions, and Newsweek wrote that the attractions and pavilions were "hard to resist". Several writers criticized the large number of industrial exhibits at the fair, and observers also complained about the wastefulness of the pavilions' temporary nature. During the second season, Time magazine wrote that the fair was unsuccessful because of the long queues, meager exhibits, high prices, and overwhelmingly large number of attractions for visitors. When the fair closed, a Wall Street Journal reporter wrote that the fair had failed because it "lacked coordination, a common purpose that could be transmitted to the community". Russell Lynes said the concept of the fair was flawed because instant communication between various countries was already possible.