I took a trip to Flushing Meadows on Sunday. I decided to go there after lunch at the taco garage. Anyways I biked to Flushing Meadows which was pretty ridiculous, on the way there. Of course I got lost as soon as I got into Queens. Nothing makes sense there, 60th Street is next to 60th Place is next to 60th Ave is next to 60th Lane, and all the numbers to that. Some streets with the same number run perpendicular to one another.
Flushing Meadows/Corona Park is the this huge park in Queens. Shea Stadium, the US Open thing, Queens Museum of Art, some science thing, and remnants of the former worlds fair – which I was especially interested in, are all there. Good ‘ol Karl brought up the topic of ghosts recently, and Flushing Meadows definitely has the aspects of a ghost world. The former worlds fair is littered with these really huge megabuildings, which are in a fairly abandoned and dilapidated state. While around it hundreds of thousands of people are playing in the park, around these hulking monoliths. They seemed strange to me, very ghostlike in that they are urban voids, you can’t enter them but they consume a really large amount of space, are very sculptural in a 3 dimensional sense, and activity happens everywhere until you reach the threshold of the void. The structure above commanded most of my attention, there’s some new building attached next to it, but it was closed, maybe if I got there earlier I could have gone in, but all in all the thing is now a birdhouse. The Mount Olympus for the bird gods of Queens.
A few more pics and thoughts after the cut.
Pretty whacky, kind of like a circus for the mooninites, in the afterfuture of 2021. I liked that it was ovular in shape but it’s somewhat subtle, so unless you start going around it you don’t realize it’s an oval, or at least I didn’t. It looked like a circle to me in the distance. Lots of birds hang out in the suspended center ring.
This globe, while somewhat cheezy in concept is pretty rad because it’s so huge. I don’t know if you can tell by the picture but there are tons of kids playing in the place that would be a fountain, when the thing is on. The globe is really big, and awkwardly big, it’s not like a super mega structure like the eiffel tower or something where it’s hugeness is sort of lost because it’s so big, but definitely as big as a big building, and in the context of its icon/symbol I don’t think it’s something you would expect to be that big. Definitely beyond the scale of “sculpture”.
And found this thing at the end.
Bike ride wasn’t bad, although I’m pretty out of shape, my legs feel like jelly. But I’ll be going back before it gets hot.
ummm, rad. i’ve never been there, but a Mount Olympus for the bird gods of Queens has got to be good. hit any potholes?
The first picture is of the New York State pavilion from the 1964-65 World’s Fair consisting of the large oval Tent of Tomorrow, 3 observation towers and the Queens Theater in the Park. The globe as you put it is called the Unisphere also from the World’s Fair is widely used as a symbol of Queens. Cheesy? Yeah ok, I’m guessing you’re from out of town, fer shure bragh.
The last pic is of the Hall of Science, a museum mostly geared towards elementary school kids.
If anyone’s interested, more information can be found on http://www.nywf64.com
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