Flushing Meadows Corona Park, located in Queens, New York City, is the second largest landscape park in New York.
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, queens, NY |
The first United Nations General Assembly of the United States of America was held here, and the 1964 New York World's Fair was also held here. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park's huge Unisphere is very eye-catching. It is a 140-foot-high stainless steel ball built specifically for the 1964 New York World's Fair. It is also a symbol of the United States showing the world that it has entered a new era of space!
See also: Queens, New York attractions
FLUSHING MEADOWS CORONA PARK
Flushing Meadows Corona Park is the largest park in Queens and one of the second largest parks in New York.
It was designed by the renowned New York urban planner Robert Moses as the site of the 1939 New York World's Fair.
In 1964 it would once again host another world fair, whose structures became the icons of the park: the Uniesphere and the New York Pavilion, which you will surely recognize as the spaceships from Men in Black (1997).
Park facilities
As a large public park in New York City, Flushing Meadows Corona Park has complete entertainment facilities and has become a well-known leisure and entertainment park.
There are Tennis Center, Citi Field, New York Museum of Science, Queens Museum of Art, Queens Theater, Queens Wildlife Center, etc. in the park. Complete sports facilities and a complete art system make it the most popular entertainment and cultural park in New York City, and it is very popular. Whether it is weekdays or weekends, the park is full of people enjoying the cool air. Many children from immigrant communities go to the park to play various ball games including football. The quality of amateur life makes more people feel the strong cultural atmosphere.
NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR
Corona Park, established for the New York World's Fair in 1939, was formerly known as the Corona Manor.
New york world's Fair 1964-1965 image source: PLCjr/Flickr |
Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, established in 1939, covers an area of 1,255 acres (about 5.1 square km.), and has two international-class stadiums, Shea Stadium and the National Tennis Center (USTA National Tennis Center). The first United Nations General Assembly of the United States of America was held here, and the 1964 World's Fair was also held here. There are many tourist attractions worth visiting in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The huge Unisphere is very eye-catching. It is a 140-foot-high stainless steel ball specially built for the 1964 World Fair. Enter the sign of a new era in space! The Queens Museum of Art next to the big globe model is a building left over from the 1939 World Fair. The New York Hall of Science, located in the southwest of the museum, is the only applied science museum in New York City, in addition to science exhibitions, there are often simple and interesting science games designed for children, entertaining and entertaining, and cultivating children's interest in science. The Queen's Theater, the Queens Wildlife Conservation Center, and Meadow Lake, the largest artificial lake in New York, are also in the park. You will never feel bored when you come to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. You can choose to go to the theater to enjoy a performance, you can explore the mysteries of science with your children, or you can take a small walk to see the friends playing football here. A treat!
See also: The Great Depression | Years, effects, causes & What happened in the great depression
WHAT TO SEE IN FLUSHING MEADOWS CORONA PARK
Inside Flushing Meadows Park you will find stadiums, museums, the Queens Botanical Garden and the renowned structures of the 1964 New York World's Fair. Read the details to visit these attractions.
1. The Unisphere
The park's icon is the Unisphere, the massive steel globe originally designed to welcome visitors to the 1964 World's Fair in New York.
This event, framed in the middle of the space race, worshiped the technological promises of the future.
This edition was a celebration with great faith in the progress of science, with futuristic pavilions, space and robotic fantasies, in the style of The Jetsons – the Jetsons – the animated series of the same period.
And the resemblance is serious, check out how the towers of the New York Pavilion look like the apartment buildings of the Jetsons 😉
2. New York state Pavilion
From the New York World's Fair, the New York Pavilion with its representative towers also remains in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
This was a structure designed by the renowned American architect Philip Johnson, inspired by the launch pads for space rockets.
The complex had a circular amphitheater and square, crowned by lookout towers.
I'm sure you'll recognize the towers from being turned into alien spaceships in Men in Black (1997).
Notice that on the sides of the towers there are some rails. These were the channels of the high-speed elevators that took visitors to the top of the pavilion, from where they could see the entire fair and part of New York.
Today it is in a terrible state, if restored, the pavilion would surely become one of the wonders of New York again. I wish!
3. Queens Museum
Another of the most visited attractions in this Flushing park is the Queens Museum.
There they will be able to walk around the Panorama: the scale model of New York made by Robert Moses - the same urban planner who designed the park- to plan the development of various areas of the city.
Queens Museum image source Wikimedia |
This is the huge model of New York that Fran Lebowitz walk through in the documentary directed by Martin Scorsese Pretend it's a City (2021).
4. New York Hall of Science
If you are traveling with children you might be interested in visiting the New York Hall of Science, the other museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Its interactive exhibits are dedicated to science and technology. It is also housed in one of the original buildings from the 1964 New York International Fair.
You will find the information to visit it on the museum page.
New York Hall of Science image source: Wikimedia |
5. Sports Stadiums
The park is home to important sports facilities such as Citi Field Stadium, the modern stadium of the New York Mets.
It is also home to the National Tennis Center, where the US Open is held in late summer in New York.
HISTORY OF FLUSHING MEADOWS CORONA PARK
Flushing Meadows Corona Park is a huge park in Queens south of LaGuardia Airport. In terms of size, it ranks fourth in New York and is filled to the limit with monuments with an amazing history.
In the twenties of the last century, here, in the area with the beautiful name of the Crown, there was a fetid dump of ash from coal furnaces. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby called this place the Valley of Ashes. In the midst of the Great Depression, a group of retired police officers decided that a World's Fair should be held in the United States to raise the spirit of the nation. The proposal to convert the landfill into a park for an exhibition was approved by New York City reformer Robert Moses.
At first, the new green island was named Flushing Meadows Park. Three decades later, "The Crown" was added to the name. They explained it this way: the name of the area was "appropriated" by the dump, and now that something beautiful has appeared here, it is fair to give the old name a new meaning.
The exhibition of 1939-1940 was visited by more than 44 million people. Here they saw the wonders of technology: an electronic voice synthesizer, an electric typewriter and a calculator on punched cards. After World War II, the exhibition building was used to house the UN - until it moved to Manhattan. This is the only building that has survived from that time and now houses the Queens Museum of Art.
A more voluminous legacy was left by the World Exhibition of 1964-1965, which was held under the sign of the beginning of the era of space. Since then, the park has been home to the Unisphere, a model of the Earth as high as a twelve-story building, surrounded by three orbits: Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn, and the first communications satellite. Nearby is Marshall Fredericks' sculpture "Freedom of the Human Spirit": a naked man and woman are floating in space. Nearby is the semi-abandoned New York State Pavilion, where vegetation is slowly eating away at a magnificent mosaic floor depicting the state's road map.
The event of the exhibition was the pavilion of the Vatican with the famous "Pieta" by Michelangelo. The original sculpture was delivered to New York on the Italian liner Christopher Columbus. The priceless work was packed in a sealed box filled with foam: the container would not sink even in a shipwreck. In 1965, the exhibition was visited by Pope Paul VI. Now the place where the pavilion was located and the Pope was present is marked by a marble bench.
The exhibition is reminiscent of the current "Hall of Science" - it tells about space flights, oceans, and the fight against diseases. In the style of the beginning of the space age, Donald De Lue’s sculpture “Rocket Thrower” standing among the greenery (a bronze figure from the palm of which a rocket starts) and a statue of the Polish sculptor Teodor Roszak (an aircraft of the future, reminiscent of the supersonic Concorde) are made in the style of the beginning of the space age.
What's near Flushing Meadows Corona Park?
Flushing Meadows Corona Park is within walking distance of the following attractions in the area. Due to the uneven location of world attractions, the relative proximity of objects should be taken into account.
Park Hours
The park is open 24 hours, visiting it at night is not a good idea. It is easy to get lost due to its enormous size and it does not have a good security system.
During the day to explore it quietly, it is a peaceful place, ideal for lying on the grass and watching the planes that take off from nearby JFK and La Guardia.
Address:
I recommend starting the tour from the Queens Museum of Art, Between Grand Central Pkwy and, Van Wyck Expy, 11354, United States
Transportation:
Line 7. Willets Point-Mets Station
Map:
Location of the Flushing Meadows Corona Park object on the interactive map.
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