Above: plaque at entrance, grand Entrance, map at entrance (I’d bring my own, too!)
This week, I’ve been highlighting all kinds of things Flushing, Queens, especially the World’s Fair grounds at Flushing Meadows Park. You can find all of my Flushing/Fair post here, or navigate to specific posts using this list:
You can find lots of information about the fair grounds and all that they have at nycgovparks.org, this page includes a little map that you might want to use in conjunction with google maps. There are also a number of about.com articles about the park if you want help planning a visit.
To end my fair grounds posts, I’ll just highlight a few additional places I stopped by briefly at the grounds — you can’t quite do everything in a single day!
Above: I want to point out “The Fountain of the Planet of the Grapes of Wrath” (actual fountain at center, title at right) from the Flushing Park map at the entrance to the fair grounds. Do you think the word “planet” is a typo from “The Fountain of the Planet of the Apes?’
Above: The New York Hall of Science is also at the fair grounds. Although it’s more expensive than the art museum, it looks like a fabulous place to take kids — there is a crazy looking playground out back!
Above: There is a carousel right next to the zoo! I couldn’t resist the cotton candy.
This weekend I visited the dilapidated version of the pavilion at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York, home of the 1964 World’s Fair (all my other Flushing & fair related posts can be found here).
Technically, all of the fencing and “Do Not Enter” signs currently surrounding the large structure should have kept me out, but it was one of the main reasons why I wanted to visit the fair grounds in the first place.
The pavilion was a colorful hot spot in the days of old (pictures above from jetsetmodern.com, which has tons more old pictures, and a detailed history of the pavilion), but is now falling apart.
It’s now, actually, quite beautiful in all of its misery, and it is the inspiration for lots of photographs (two at left my own, beautiful photo at right from a New York Times photography project).
Creative photographers love it, including Tod Seelie, who took photos of a dinner party inside the pavilion remains. You can read a bit about the party here (and see a gymnast hanging off the unisphere!), and view lots of great of it photographs here.
As for my friend (left) and me (right), we just like to stand around it, and imagine what it was like back in the 60s, before the internet, to see all of the cool things the World’s Fair had to offer. In our imaginations, the World’s Fair was a spectacular event. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s fun to pretend.
We sneaked peeks instead the center of the pavilion, which was locked off.
The pavilion and two observation towers (of Men and Black fame), as seen from the unisphere.
The Unisphere, leftover from the 1964 New York World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Flushing, Queens (that’s a mouthful), is a stainless steal model of the earth that extends twelve stories high!
The fountain below the sphere, like many others in the park, is now empty, and is often filled with a handful of skateboarders or rollerbladers. The empty fountain also means you can stand right under the Unisphere to take pictures or just admire its massiveness.
The Unisphere is the highlight of the Flushing Park and 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 collected old World’s Fair memorabilia, like the Unisphere salt and pepper shakers (for some reason, these just really crack me up).
Side Note: The Unisphere, along with other Flushing hot spots, like Shea Stadium and the Observatory Towers (right), are featured in the movie Men in Black.
(Two more pictures after the jump.)
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!
I was so excited about last week’s NY Times article called Finding Beijing in Flushing (which includes an interactive map and a printable “best food in flushing” cheatsheet) that I myself went over to Flushing, Queens (…which happens to be only 3 miles away) to try some of the food myself. For those of you who are Manhattanites, I wouldn’t poo-poo hiking out to Queens for what some consider the true Chinatown of NYC (take the 7 train out to Flushing or hop on the Port Washington line of the LIRR from Penn Station).
So, since the Olympics are in Beijing, and I got such pretty pictures of the food, I figured I’d give you my own (albeit, brief) food-tour of Flushing. Yum!
I had to start with my favorite drink. Bubble Tea can be made wrong, but they do it to perfection at Quickly (40-41 Kissena Blvd, pretty close to the train station). The taro (my favorite flavor — tastes a little like the milk at the bottom of your cereal bowl after Lucky Charms) milk tea with tapioca pearls cost only $2.50 (a good price for bubble tea)!
If you haven’t had Bubble Tea, those black balls above are the Boba, my favorite part of Bubble Tea. These little balls of tapioca are chewy, gummy-like, and nearly tasteless. They come up through a fat straw as you drink your tea and should be soft but not mushy.
Also near the train station is a little cart with meat on a stick. This stuff is seasoned to perfection and only $1 (cart on 41st near Kissena). The NY Times article recommends the lamb, and I agree!
These pork buns are everywhere in Flushing, mostly at bakeries. The sweet bread is steamed (there is also a baked version) with a BBQ-tasting pork mixture inside. Sounds weird? Tastes great!
While you’re in Flushing be sure to stop by some grocery or fruit stands. Not only do they have more eccentric fruits than are often available at your local grocery (lychee on left — don’t eat the shell, just the jelly-like stuff inside, and figs on right), but everything is much cheaper than the regular NYC prices (if you go a bit further from the train, they get cheaper)!
Finally, try some Asian desserts! (For this and other groceries, I went to the Hong Kong Supermarket on 37-11 Main St in Flushing, about a half of a dozen blocks from the train). I love the Milk Candies (right)!
I’ll be doing a short series of posts on Flushing this week, from food to the World’s Fair, and they will all be tagged with the label Flushing, reachable by clicking here!
