queens museum of art

March 3 2012, 1:49 pm

see the ruins of futurism and a miniature city at the queen's museum of art!

the queen's museum of art is a pretty spectacular place. it's located in flushing meadows corona park (queens), at the site of the 1964 world's fair. i've always wanted to check it out- my parent's honeymoon was here! this is what it looked like when they saw it:

and this is what it looks like now:

glad to know the unisphere has held up.

the towers have seen better days. don't get me started on the new york state pavilion:

hard to believe that this was the "tent of tomorrow".

but we didn't go there to look at the sad remains of the future. we went to see the panarama!

and we weren't disappointed. the panarama is an enormous architectural model of all 5 boroughs of new york city. also built for the fair, it's so massive that it takes your breath away. here are a few shots:

lil' midtown and lower manhattan (still has the world trade center)

coney island (no wonder wheel, but the lil' cyclone is cute) and governor's island

greenpoint! and jfk airport

having built many an architecture model, i can say from the heart that this blew my mind. you can see more photos in the museum's flickr sets, including close ups, and archival photos of it being built. and here are some amazing shots of it at night!