That big office building that says "Motors" makes me think it might be Detroit.

1933-34 Chicago World's Fair, the Century of Progress? Check on some pictures online on this--there are some (ie. the building that says Motors on it) that seem to match your photos.

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/chicago/cwf.html

That's exactly what I was going to say Marita. The White City.

Jodi-

The White City was actually the nickname for the famous 1893 Chicago Exhibition, but it looks like the 1933-34 event tried to recapture the "whiteness" as well. (Alisande, my mom, dad, and both sets of grandparents were no doubt rubbing elbows with your dad in this crowd!)
--Mary, a now-displaced ex-Chicagoan

Mary, you nailed it! The "Motor" lettering was on the Chrysler Building at the Fair. The last picture shows the Federal Building. I'll see if I can find more pictures online so I can identify all the other structures. Thanks so much!!

Mary, have you read The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson?

Fascinating book. Kind of a historical fiction with more facts than fiction. Well written. It weaves the building of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the inventions that came to life there, with a serial killer who brought death to many young girls who had come to town to work at the fair (also true).

Jodi-

Jodi, yes, I read it and was fascinated by it! The story of the killer was bone chilling. . .I couldn't put the book down.

My mother and a girlfriend came from Providence to attend this fair. A few years later she met and married my father, and they moved to a Chicago suburb.

You'd have to add 50 - 100 pounds to the people in these photos to have them look like today's fair-goers. There must be a happy medium between Depression Thin and 21st Century Obese.

I agree about the notable thinness of the people in these photos versus today! It is quite striking.
By the way, Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the film rights to "Devil" last year and a film is evidently in progress.

"Depression Thin"......I doubt they were hungry, do you? In a way it's remarkable they weren't heavier, considering their reliance on inexpensive, high-carb foods. But they also ate a lot of vegetables, soups, etc. And they didn't have fast foods, full supermarket aisles of chips, etc.

See the "erector set" structure to the right of the Federal Building in the last picture? I assumed it was a radio tower, and asked my son to verify. He replied with this:

The Towering Skyride
Two towers stand 1,850 apart--support of the spectacular Skyride, great thrill feature of A Century of Progress. They are higher than any building in Chicago. Six hundred and twenty-eight feet they rise into the skies, with observation floors atop them. On a 200-foot level the rocket cars offer you a beautifrul and thrilling ride across the lagoon, suspended from a cableway.

Wow...what an amazing photo and idea. I will be looking for the book too. Thanks for the photo's and the comments that were exactly as I was thinking.

Awesome Mary! Can't wait to see DiCaprio does with it. Thanks for the heads up.

Jodi-

I wouldn't have known...but what caught me was how modern the buildings looked and how back in time the dress of the people were. Kind of an oxymoron.

patti

I have an old clipping someplace of a ferris wheel that ws at the 1893 Fair. My mother was the youngest person to go up in the ferris wheel She was born that year

Minnie...I have one of those old glass paper weights from that worlds fair and it has a pic of the ferris wheel in it.