The Zone
The Bizarre Decorations
There is something naive about the Zone. It presents its colossal grotesques—its gargantuan Uncle Sam, its monstrous elephants—rather with an air of acknowledging that it cannot compete with the beauty one leaves behind when one turns in under its gay flags ad lanterns. Here is frankly the spirit of abandon. To the right and left the bawling barkers shout their enticements, begging one's patronage. Up and down the street the endless patter of the feet of men and women, the wheeze of the little electrics and the blare of brassy music ebb and flow. Here and there is the dominant note of the Exposition, its pastel shades of burnt orange and red, and its indefinable blue. They flutter forth, hooped about the flagpoles with Oriental effect. Those wonderful lanterns, that delightful medieval touch which one finds through the grounds, are here employed with great effect.
When one is tired of gigantic horses with ever-impending hoofs, tired of large plaster ladies whose complete poise does not entirely atone for a rather excess of buxomness, one can always turn to these reminders of the beauty that is the essential characteristic of the Exposition itself.
The Fireworks
Star Shells and Steam Battery
Notwithstanding the excellence attained by the Exposition in the beauty of its coloring, the poetry in its courts and architecture, the mystery and glamour of its illuminations, the spectacular element could not be overlooked. This finds expression in the fireworks that are let loose on the Marina several evenings each week. Here, however, a distinct advance has been made upon the familiar pyrotechnic display of former events. The use of powerful scintillators with their colored rays playing upon smoke clouds and flying devices from exploded bombs high in the air, or upon weird shapes of steam sent out by the engine on the border of the yacht harbor, lends infinite variety and beauty. In several of the numbers the scintillators secure the effects unaided, their lights making strange figures in the heavens. "Spooks' Parade," "Aurora Borealis," "Devil's Fan," are some of the ideas suggested.
Zone Salvo
The Final "Big Noise"
The Exposition Fireworks are under the direction of William D'A. Ryan, Chief of Illumination. On each occasion a set program is followed consisting of twenty-four numbers. At the opening, a salute of ten detonating bombs and a large rocket announce the event. This is followed by features of the scintillator lights, combinations of these with steam, with smoke bombs and with orange showers and Japanese daylight shells, and by fancy star shells, festoon rockets and candle fountains. The climax is reached in the Zone Salvo when a tremendous explosion of hundreds of detonating devices occurs, with rockets and star shells exploding in the air, the rays of the scintillator coloring the smoke clouds in brilliant hues; and amidst it all, high above, suddenly appears a beautiful American flag caught and followed by the ray of a powerful white searchlight as it floats away from sight.
Here ends The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition, with an introduction by Louis Christian Mullgardt. The descriptive titles have been written by Maud Wotring Raymond and John Hamlin. Edited by Paul Elder. Published by Paul Elder and Company and seen through their Tomoye Press under the typographical direction of H. A. Funke in the city of San Francisco during the month of September, Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen.