1:02:00
under the glass-enclosed dome
of Auto World...
1:02:02
to look like it used to
before the factory closings.
1:02:07
They predicted
a million tourists would come...
1:02:09
to ride the world's only
indoor Ferris wheel...
1:02:12
to gaze at the world's largest car engine...
1:02:15
and to meet the official sponsors
of the American dream.
1:02:19
My favorite was the exhibit sponsored
by General Motors.
1:02:22
A puppet auto worker...
1:02:23
singing a love song to the robot
replacing him on the assembly line.
1:02:27
The song was called Me and My Buddy.
1:02:35
Auto World will make
a major contribution...
1:02:38
to our important
tourism and travel industry.
1:02:42
It's not only a contribution to that,
but as the mayor said:
1:02:45
''To jobs for our people,
our children, our neighbors.''
1:02:50
The million tourists never came to Flint.
1:02:53
The Hyatt went bankrupt
and was put up for sale.
1:02:57
Water Street Pavilion saw
most of its stores go out of business.
1:03:02
And, only six months after opening...
1:03:04
Auto World closed due to a lack of visitors.
1:03:08
I guess it was like
expecting a million people a year...
1:03:10
to go to New Jersey to Chemical World,
or to Valdez, Alaska, to Exxon World.
1:03:16
Some people just don't like to celebrate
human tragedy while on vacation.
1:03:20
It started to get looking like Toronto...
1:03:23
upper middle-class
black and white people...
1:03:25
and everybody was dressed nice.
1:03:27
We thought it would be
the entertainment center of the county...
1:03:31
in all truth.
That may be naive, but that was my goal.
1:03:34
Let's make it the entertainment center...
1:03:36
so that everybody wants to be
in downtown Flint.
1:03:39
We're going to have
entertainment and art.
1:03:42
It's going to be very cultural,
it going to be very upbeat.
1:03:45
Somebody said something to me,
and maybe it's true.
1:03:48
They said, ''Look, Maxine...
1:03:52
''you can't make Palm Beach
out of the Bowery.
1:03:56
''You want to make Palm Beach,
you got to go there.''