I realized it was leap year when I saw the 29 days of February on my calendar, so I decided it was time for something special. I went over to the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park to make a new video. This is a great area for several reasons, but the standout highlight is the incredible and extremely detailed micro scale model Panorama of the City of New York. It’s literally one of the coolest things in all of New York State, let alone just the five boroughs of NYC! It is the worlds largest architectural model. The first time I saw this I was there over two hours looking at it and picking out tons of different locations. It’s so accurate it’s unbelievable. They replicated every street, building, train line, highway, airport, dock, waterway, bridge, landmark, etc. Panorama by definition mean “an unobstructed or complete view of an area in every direction”. This lives up to it tenfold. It was originally made for the 1964-65 World's Fair and it was to remain in use for city planning afterwards. This was the brainchild of Fair President Robert Moses The Panorama was built by a team of more than 100 people working for the great architectural model makers Raymond Lester & Associates over the course of three years. It has had several updates since back then, as you’ll notice things like the Twin Towers, AT&T and Citicorp buildings among others. It was a favorite attraction at the fair and remained open for a few years after. In 1972 when the museum first opened, it was relocated there and put on permanent display. This was originally viewed from a small helicopter that people could ride in that flew over the model for a nine minute ride! Now that it's in the museum, there is a walkway ramp around the entire 5 boroughs offering birds eye views similar to the original concept. Some areas of the walkway are a glass floor that allow you to look through at areas it might cover. A few cool features you'll notice are planes taking off and landing at LaGuardia Airport and the lighting goes from day to sunset to night and then back to day on a timer which is a great effect and concept. This is truly a masterpiece hidden gem of New York and very impressive!
As for the rest of the museum, on display currently are works by various artists. First there's a room with a show by Aki Sasamoto called "Point Reflection" which is a installation of stainless steel sinks that send airflow upwards through pinholes that push around snail shells, styrofoam cubes, coffee lids and other objects. It's a combination of visuals, sounds and somewhat of an illusion. Then there were two other rooms. One with a sculpture statue installation of walking dogs holding leashes by Emilie L Gossiaux called "Other Worlding" and the next one was an interesting collection of sort of shag fabric canvases, metal objects and neon lights by Sonia Louise Davis called "To Reverberate Tenderly". These will be on exhibit until mid April of 2024.
As for permanent collections that are always viewable, there was the amazing room full of Tiffany lamps, handcrafted with vibrant colored glass. They are shockingly beautiful and superb works of art. The information on the walls, the building materials in cases and the videos you can watch on the process are very insightful. Right next to that room is a model of the Relief Map of the NYC Water Supply System. It was originally made for the 1939 World's Fair and taken out of storage in 2008. The map then went through a restoration process, returning it to its original brilliance. The green lights indicate water source routes. Another permanent collection is the impressive World's Fair Collection. This room is packed full of memorabilia from the two fairs. It's a total time capsule. The Queens Museum used to be the New York City Building, which was the City’s official pavilion during the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World’s Fairs. From 1946 until 1950, the New York City Building was also used as headquarters of the United Nations General Assembly.
Right outside and a short walk away, you'll see the colossal Unisphere, funded and built by US Steel for the 1964-65 fair. This stainless steel structure is the world's largest globe. The Unisphere illustrates, symbolizes and embodies man's achievements on a shrinking globe in an expanding universe. Adjacent to the globe, another short walk away is where the US Open takes place in the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center stadium complex.
So as you can see, there's alot going on in this area. Citi Field, home of the Mets, is on the other side of the LIRR train tracks from here and right over Grand Central Parkway (another short walk) is the Queens Zoo. Hope you like the new video and you're equally as impressed as I am with the Panorama. It's literally one of the coolest things ever!
FEATURES:
Museum: 0:00
Sasamoto 0:12
Louise Davis 3:34
Gossiaux 4:33
Panorama 5:29
World's Fair Collection 18:06
Tiffany Lamps 22:07
Relief Map 27:38
Unisphere 29:10
US Open 30:38