Special Feature—City of Stars

Unisphere

UNISPHERE Flushing Meadow Corona Park Queens

“Dedicated to man’s aspirations toward Peace through mutual understanding and symbolizing his achievements in an expanding universe.” So reads the dedication plaque for the Unisphere, built by the United States Steel Corporation and presented to the New York World’s Fair on April 22, 1964. This 700-ton, stainless steel Earth sculpture looks much bigger in person than its vital statistics might suggest. You do not normally encounter nonrectangular structures this large—140 feet high and 120 feet in diameter—especially when the largest things nearby are the two-story-tall Queens Museum of Art and the lampposts situated along the walkways.

As does our planet in space, this Earth tips 231/2° on its axis. The continents are clad with topological features that indicate the world’s most prominent mountain ranges, such as the Alps, the Andes, the Himalaya, and the Rockies. The tallest mountains rise three or four feet above sea level on this globe, which gives the badly misleading impression that Earth has a bumpy surface. If the real Earth were shrunk down to the size of the Unisphere, then Mount Everest, for example, plus the entire Himalayan range surrounding it, would stick out only about an inch.

View from beneath the Unisphere

Two years before the Unisphere was dedicated, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth first, but only once, a year earlier. John Glenn circled Earth three times before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. The three tilted rings are as much a symbol of his orbits as they are of our future as a space-faring people. The bit about the "expanding universe" from the dedication plaque, however, has no relation to anything. It probably just sounded good to the authors.

This site was used as the backdrop to the final battle scenes between humans and alien insects in the campy 1997 film Men in Black. And it shows up as a regional icon in every commercial break during the annual U.S. Open Tennis Tournament matches, held about half a mile away at the National Tennis Center.

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