A man exploring the 1893 World’s Fair in July conveyed this story about an unimpressed visitor from New York:

I met a friend on the plaisance yesterday who has just returned from New York. While there he met a New Yorker, whom he asked if he had visited the fair. The New Yorkers said

“Yes, in May. I was roasted brown.”

“Didn’t you like the exposition?”

“Like it? I should think not. I wouldn’t go across the street to see it. There was nothing finished, and you had to put up with all sorts of inconveniences.”

“It’s different now. Come again and you will enjoy it.”

“I’ll never go again to see the fair. There’s only one thing in the whole exposition worth looking at.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a pretty girl in the electricity building. She is with the Edison phonographic exhibit. She is the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life. If I go again it will be to get one more glimpse of her period the fair is no good.”

Thomas Edison’s phonograph exhibit in the Electricity Building was popular with visitors. A pretty woman staffing the booth, perhaps the one depicted here, caught the eye of one New Yorker. [Image from Bancroft, Hubert Howe The Book of the Fair. The Bancroft Company, 1893.]

SOURCE

“At the Great Exposition” Savannah (GA) Morning News Jul. 15, 1893, p. 2.