Flushing Meadows-Corona Park
The site of two World's Fairs, still holding the Unisphere and the ruins of the New York State Pavilion, plus a museum with a 9,335-square-foot scale model of the entire city.
- What it costs
- The park is free. The Queens Museum, the zoo and the science hall charge separately.
- Best in
- Spring, Summer, Fall
- Where
- Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, NY 11368
- Official site
- nycgovparks.org
The World's Fair remains
The park hosted the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs, and unusually, a fair amount survived.
- The Unisphere — a 12-storey stainless steel globe, the symbol of the 1964 fair, still standing in a fountain plaza and still startling in person.
- The New York State Pavilion — the "Tent of Tomorrow" and its three observation towers, designed by Philip Johnson. It is a ruin, open to the sky, fenced and slowly being stabilised. It is the most atmospheric thing in Queens and it appears in Men in Black.
- The Rocket Thrower and other surviving fair sculpture scattered through the park.
The Panorama
The Queens Museum, in the 1939 fair's New York City Building, holds the Panorama of the City of New York — a 9,335-square-foot architectural model of all five boroughs, built for the 1964 fair, with every building in the city at 1:1200 scale.
It is 895,000 individual structures. You walk around it on a ramp. There is nothing else like it anywhere and it alone justifies the trip.
The same building was the first home of the United Nations General Assembly.
Everything else in the park
- The US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, with Fan Week in late August before the main draw. Fan Week is far cheaper than the tournament and gets you onto the grounds.
- Citi Field, home of the Mets.
- The New York Hall of Science, a hands-on science museum that's excellent with children.
- The Queens Zoo, small and good.
- Meadow Lake, with boating, and cricket and soccer pitches busy every weekend.
The Queens Night Market runs Saturday evenings here in season — around a hundred vendors with a deliberately low price ceiling.
Getting there
The 7 to Mets–Willets Point for the northern end and the stadium, or to 111th Street for the Unisphere and the museum. About 30 minutes from Grand Central.
LIRR runs to Mets–Willets Point on event days.
The park is large and spread out — pick your station based on what you're going for rather than defaulting to the first one.
Getting around once you're there
Flat and paved throughout with wide step-free paths — one of the easier large parks to get around. Mets–Willets Point is accessible; 111th Street is not.