In this image Gene Achziger adjusts the doors on the 1962 Seattle World's Fair Bubbleator, converted to a greenhouse at his Redondo home in the 1980s.
The Bubbleator was a 19-foot wide, 3,000 pound, bubble-shaped transparent hydraulic elevator, built specifically for the fair's "World of Tomorrow" exhibit in the Washington State Coliseum (later Key Arena, and as of 2021 Climate Pledge Arena). After the fair ended, the Bubbleator was a fixture at the Center House at Seattle Center, moving people up and down two floors. Gene Achziger went looking for the Bubbleator, finding it in 1984 in a warehouse in South Lake Union. A contractor had donated it to the Children's Orthopedic Hospital who put it in the warehouse. The warehouse owner sold the Bubbleator to Achziger for $1000. He then put the dismembered machine on a flatbed truck and brought it to his house to begin the painstaking process of putting it back together and converting it to a greenhouse.
Caption information source: http://komonews.com/news/local/after-years-in-storage-worlds-fair-bubbleator-is-back-11-21-2015
Physical Description: 1 photographic print : b&w ; 8 x 10 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
Credit: MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 2000.107.002.14.01, photo by Kurt Smith
