No, the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is hardly “forgotten,” but at heart Forgotten NY is an infrastructure website and I thought I’d mention it on the 60th anniversary of its dedication as the centerpiece of the Second World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, held in two springs and summers in 1964 and 1965. The 50th anniversary, when I captured this shot, was a day of fun and frolic in the fairgounds as thousands lined up to inspect what remained of the Fair, which, sadly, isn’t very much, but the New York Pavilion grounds were opened up, and numerous exhibits, albeit temporary, were on view, adn thwre was even a Belgian waffle truck — many fairgoers remembered the treat. In1964-1965, my parents and I were in the thick of things with a number of visits, and I published a page with some of my father’s photographs in brilliant Kodachrome. One of my World’s Fair remnants tours in April 1964 was my best-attended FNY tour, with 65 participants.
Designed by landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke, the Unisphere was donated by the United States Steel Corporation and constructed by the American Bridge Company. It is the world’s largest global structure, rising 140 feet and weighing 700,000 pounds. Some sources say the Unisphere weighs 900,000 pounds, a figure which includes the additional weight of its 100-ton inverted tripod base. The diameter of the sphere itself is 120 feet, or 36.57 meters. It is constructed of Type 304L stainless steel. wikipedia
The sphere’s rings represent the orbits of the first American astronaut, the first Russian cosmonaut and the first communications satellite (Telstar) to orbit the Earth. It was quite an engineering feat to make the Unisphere stay in place, because the sphere’s Pacific Ocean is much lighter than the section showing Africa, Asia and Europe. The Unisphere tilts at the same approximate 23.5-degree angle the Earth does as it orbits the sun.
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5/3/24
4 comments
In ’64 the St. Ignatius school in Manhattan took our youth group out to the fair and
all we did was go to a minor league ball game.All the way out to the Worlds Fair for
a ball game.We should have taken some nuns with us and made them sit through it.
See how they liked it..
The World’s Far was in existence when I was 12 and 13 years old. While still a resident of New Bern, NC, I had the opportunity to visit the the fair both years. I was able to visit it four times because I vacationed up here in NYC during the summers of both years.
With the pavillions, as the exhibits were called, the one I have the most vivid memory of is the NYC Panorama. I remember riding in one those cars that circled the “city”. Unfortunately, the cars are not inoperable now. Amazingly, the Panarama is one of the few things that still exist from the fair.
The Unisphere occupies the same location as the Trylon and Perisphere that were built (and then dismantled afterward) for the 1939-40 World’s Fair. Those two structures are shown in the attached Wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trylon_and_Perisphere
I never knew that about the rings! Always wondered what they were all about.