Quite Interesting Queens

Waking up this morning I was excited that my fellow classmates will be able to experience my borough. I figured since I lived in Queens I would know all the places we would explore. To my surprise I was pleasantly wrong. The day started on the 7 train to Citi Field being on this train brings back memories of my high school softball days. As we arrived at the Willets Point Station I could feel the heat consuming the platform, and I knew this was going to be a very long day. Walking on the ramp I prayed that we will be visiting places with air conditioning. The first place visited was the Unisphere. I would pass the Unisphere often driving on the Grand Central.  The Unisphere is housed in Queens Flushing Meadow Park for the 1964-1965 World's Fair. The US Steel Corporation built it as a symbol of world peace. While walking to the Unisphere we learned about Flushing Meadows Park history and the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. Flushing Meadow Corona Park has become a recreation and cultural meeting area for many different cultures in Queens. The 1939 and 1964 World's Fair was held in this park, these fairs put this park on the world's stage, and it has stayed there, hosting the United Nations General Assembly for five years before it moved to Manhattan. Before all these events occurred in Flushing Meadow Park was once a dusty wasteland full of ashes. Parks Commissioner Robert Moses and other city planners laid out an elaborate scheme to replace these ashes with beauty and excitement.http://www.unisphereinc.org/unisphere/about_the_park.html

Our next stop on our journey was the Queens Museum. I remember as a little girl it housed an ice skating rink and a roller rink, to my surprise they were gone, replaced by a beautiful and more spaced out museum.  When entering the museum I was so happy for the air conditioning, outside was sweltering. The first exhibit visited in the museum was the watershed. I actually liked the watershed exhibit; it is enlightening to know where our water source comes from. I thought our water came from the Ocean and purified and then to our faucets through some tunnels. It wonderful how Mother Nature has a system for everything and how science has evolved to explain that the water moves from a higher gradient to a lower gradient just to supply New York State and Connecticut.

Next was the Panorama, it was so cool to see NYC on such a small scale. I was surprised that I knew a lot of the locations on the model, but when I am driving around the area I always seem to get lost. Built by Robert Moses for the 1964 World’s Fair, this 9,335 square foot architectural model includes every single building constructed before 1992 in all five boroughs, a total of 895,000 individual structures. Although they cut off a small portion of Far Rockaway the model is very accurate. It was actually nice to see the Twin Towers still standing strong in the NY skyline, the skyline I remember as a child looking out my elementary school window.

http://www.queensmuseum.org/exhibitions/visitpanorama

Jackson Heights was next on the agenda we dined for lunch at the Jackson Diner for authentic Indian food. The food was good it was nice to see my classmates trying new foods. Hearing them speak about all the flavors and spices was interesting. I have previously eaten Indian Food so this was nothing new to me, but just the excitement on their faces made me feel like I was eating this cuisine for the first time. Jackson Heights was once populated by the Greek in the earlier years now is populated with many different cultures.

My favorite part of the day didn’t come until we entered the Museum of the Moving Images on Steinway Street in Astoria. Steinway Street houses the Astoria Studio which Sesame Street, CSI and other television productions were taped, it was like a little Hollywood. Inside the museum were many television exhibits and games from my childhood. I especially liked the Super Mario Brothers game on the first Nintendo; I remembered the days when I would play that game for hours with my cousins and sister.

Next was my all time favorite place of the whole day was 5 Pointz: The Institute of Higher Burnin’” in LIC. 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, Inc. is an outdoor art exhibit space in Long Island City, New York, considered being the world’s premiere “graffiti Mecca,” where aerosol artists from around the globe paint colorful pieces on the walls of a 200,000-square-foot factory building. This had to be the highlight of my day, loving Long Island City and always here I never knew this existed. The art on the walls here is so grungy and reminds me of old school hip hop. The era of door knockers, bamboo earrings, beat boxing, and scratching, with the new transition that hip hop is going I wouldn’t be surprised if 5 Pointz was used I a upcoming music video.

Ending our day in Gantry Plaza State Park was very relaxing and comforting to the feet. The park offers picnic tables, a playground, fishing pier, playing fields and a waterfront promenade with a view of the United Nations Headquarters and the Midtown Manhattan skyline. After a quick quiz on our NY skyline and architecture we were able to point out my favorite Manhattan building the Chrysler building with Gothic influenced architecture and the current UN headquarters.

Overall the day was long and hot, but I was able to experience new places in my own borough that I knew nothing about until this class, and I will definitely be returning to some of the places.