If you’re in Manhattan, you have dozens of amazing museums at your disposal — so why would you make a trip out to Queens to see a lesser-known museum, with lesser known artwork? One word: PANORAMA. The Queens Museum of Art, located just behind the unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, home to the New York World’s Fairs of old, has a mixed bag of exhibits, but the Panorama of New York City really steals the show.
The panorama is a giant, 3D, scale, changing (the buildings aren’t glued down, so when the city changes, the panorama changes) map of all boroughs of New York City. (Yes, if you live anywhere in NYC and have a sense of direction, you can find your house!)
Check out the picture above carefully and you can see people on the platform in the background — that should help give you a sense of scale. The entire panorama is bigger than the average Manhattan apartment (according to CNN, the average Manhattan apartment is about 1300 square feet, in which case the panorama seven times larger at 9,335 square feet)! It was created for the 1964 World’s Fair and contains over 895,000 individual structures. The panorama is to scale, 1 inch equaling 100 feet.
Museum Info: Hour long tours of the panorama are offered at 4pm Saturdays and Sundays, but you can visit the Panorama during any museum hours without a tour. Although the museum web-page suggests that museum entry costs about $5, I got in for $2 with a student ID. As for travel, you can get there by bus, train, subway, or car (free parking), all modes of transport are described on the museum’s web-site. You can make a day of it and visit the World’s Fair grounds, right outside the museum’s front door, at the same time.
If you want more info on the panorama, or you want to see a person standing in the middle of it, check out this NY Times article from last year.
Remember to check out all of my articles on Flushing here — more will be added throughout the week!
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7 Responses for "Giant Panorama of NYC"
that’s actually a diorama. but really cool stuff though.
Josh — The Queens Museum of Art calls it a panorama, although it is technically also a diorama. Why do they call it a panorama? Because a panorama is defined as “an unbroken view of the whole region surrounding an observer” and this exhibit shows every borough in New York City, something they’re very proud of. So, I guess it’s a panoramic diorama, eh?
What’s a diorama?
haha. very good. i stand corrected!
a diorama is “a model representing a scene with three dimension figures” — so it’s definitely also a diorama
[...] is arguably the most prominent symbol of Queens itself. The Queens Museum of Art (with its awesome panorama of NYC) is located directly behind the Unisphere, and its little gift shop contains lots of specially [...]
[...] Check out this NY Times article from last year to find out more. This exhibit is a must see. [via StickersAndDonuts] [...]
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