NyCon II
The 14th Worldcon and second in New York, NyCon II was held August 31–September 3, 1956, on the 19th floor of the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. The GoH was Arthur C. Clarke. Robert Bloch was Toastmaster. Chairman: David A. Kyle.
Officially known as "NEWYORCON" but — in the words of a report at the time "The fans wouldn't have it" — and it has been NyCon II since.
This is the Worldcon of the mini-Exclusion Act, where "Dave Kyle Says You Can't Sit Here". (The banquet speaker was the very popular Li'l Abner cartoonist Al Capp. The banquet was too expensive — $7.10/person — for many fans who expected by tradition that they could listen to the speeches from the balcony. Chairman Kyle wanted the privilege only to be extended to people who paid for the banquet. A minor piece of fanhistory ensued. See Balcony Insurgents for the full details.)
This was also the year when the Worldcon banner was created by Dave Kyle and Jean Carrol -- The convention's hotel, the Biltmore, had a flag pole outside where it would fly a banner for conventions it was holding, and Kyle thought it would be a good idea for WSFS to have one.
Competing bids: New York in 1956. See 1956 Worldcon Site Selection.
1956 Hugos: This was just the third time the Hugos were awarded, and chairman Dave Kyle reported that Hugo voting was "done haphazardly at the convention." London was selected to hold Loncon; see 1957 Worldcon Site Selection.
- NyCon II publications and photos on fanac.org.
- Uncaptioned photos on Flickr.
- Dave Kyle's reminiscence of NyCon II (from the Noreascon Three Program Book).
- Forest J Ackerman's con report (from Fantastic Universe, January 1957).
- Fantasy Times #252, p. 1 (a rather positive piece anticipating the festivities).
- Fantasy Times #255, p. 1 (a long con report).
- Chapter Play #19: Bob Tucker on the Balcony Insurgents.
| From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959 |
| from Convention NYCon II (or NewYorkon, as some called it) was monstrously large, estimates around 2000 being offered since a large number of visitors were not con-society members. It was disfigured by a marked degree of unsociability, a Little Exclusion Act (the committee restricted the audience of some speakers to those who'd paid $7$7 [!!] for a banquet), the incorporation of WSFS by maneuvers which provoked much resentment, and a debt of hundreds of dollars due chiefly to some thefts of display material and an overestimate of the number of fans who'd be |
| Clevention | Worldcon - Bidding - Hugos | Loncon I |
| Nycon | New York Worldcons | NyCon3 |
| 1956 |
| This is a convention page. Please extend it by adding information about the convention, including dates, GoHs, convention chairman, locale, sponsoring organization, external links to convention pages, awards given, the program, notable events, anecdotes, pictures, scans of publications, pictures of T-shirts, con reports, etc. |
