Flushing Meadows–Corona Park

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park
View of the New York State Pavilion and the Unisphere in July 2006.
Type	Public park
Location	Queens, New York City, NY, USA
Coordinates	40°44′45″N 73°50′41″W / 40.74583°N 73.84472°W / 40.74583; -73.84472Coordinates: 40°44′45″N 73°50′41″W / 40.74583°N 73.84472°W / 40.74583; -73.84472
Area	897 acres (363 ha)
Created	1939
Operated by	New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
Status	Open all year

Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, often referred to as Flushing Meadow Park, Flushing Meadows Park or Flushing Meadows, is a public park in New York City. It contains the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the current venue for the U.S. Open tennis tournament; Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets baseball team; the New York Hall of Science, the Queens Museum of Art, the Queens Theatre in the Park, the Queens Wildlife Center, and the New York State Pavilion. It formerly contained Shea Stadium, demolished in 2009.

It is located in the borough of Queens, between the Van Wyck Expressway and Grand Central Parkway and stretches from Flushing Bay, at the southern edge of LaGuardia Airport, to Union Turnpike.

The fourth largest public park in the city of New York (see List of New York City parks), it was created as the site of the 1939/1940 New York World's Fair and also hosted the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair. It was long believed to be 1,255 acres (5.08 km²) in size, but a survey concluded in 2013 found its actual size to be 897 acres (3.63 km²) when accounting for major roads and other exclusions within the park's perimeter.^[1]

It is maintained and operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The park is at the eastern edge of the area is encompassed by Queens Community Board 4.^[2]

Two World's Fairs

Aerial view of the Corona Ash Dumps, circa the early 1920s

The park was created from the former dumping ground characterized as "a valley of ashes" in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The site, known at the time as the Corona Ash Dumps, which was being filled with ashes from coal-burning furnaces as well as with horse manure and garbage, was cleared by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, in preparation for the 1939-1940 World's Fair. The original name for the new parkland was "Flushing Meadow Park."^[3] Faced with having to dispose of the mountains of ashes, Moses strategically incorporated a significant portion of the refuse into the bases of the Van Wyck Expressway running along the eastern side of the park, the nearby Interboro Parkway (now Jackie Robinson Parkway), and the Long Island Expressway that divides the park into north and south halves. The Grand Central Parkway separates a western lobe from the main part of the northern half, while the east-west Jewel Avenue bisects the southern half.

Some of the buildings from the 1939 Fair were used for the first temporary headquarters of the United Nations from 1946 until it moved in 1951 to its permanent headquarters in Manhattan. The former New York City building was used for the UN General Assembly during that time.^[4] This building was later refurbished for the 1964 Fair as the New York City Pavilion, featuring the Panorama of the City of New York, an enormous scale model of the entire city.^[5] It is one of two buildings that survive from the 1939-40 Fair, and the only one that remains in its original location. (The other is the Belgium exhibition building, disassembled and moved to the campus of Virginia Union University in 1941.) It is the home of the Queens Museum of Art, which still houses, and occasionally updates, the Panorama. The Unisphere, built as the theme symbol for the 1964/1965 World's Fair, is the main sculptural feature of the park. It stands on the site occupied by the Perisphere during the earlier Fair.

In early 1964, the New York City Council added "Corona" to the park's name, now "Flushing Meadows-Corona Park" in preparation for the World's Fair. Councilman Edward Sadowsky explained that this was intended to correct an injustice: "The people of Corona have long lived in the aroma of a junkyard or a dump named for their community. Now, when there is something beautiful to be seen, there is no mention of the name Corona."^[6]

1965–present

One of the sculptures at the park - "Free Form" by Jose De Rivera, cast in 1964.

Another sculpture - "Freedom of the Human Spirit" by Marshall Fredericks, cast ca. 1964.

"The Rocket Thrower" by Donald De Lue, commissioned for the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair

Since 1978 the US Open tennis tournament has taken place in Flushing Meadows Park. After "Flushing Meadows" became the (secondary) name of the tennis tournament itself, that portion of the park was subsequently named USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Its center court is Arthur Ashe Stadium, and its secondary stadium court is Louis Armstrong Stadium. Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets since 2009, sits at the north end of the park. Shea Stadium, the Mets' previous home, once stood adjacent to Citi Field.

Rental boats are available for rowing and paddleboating on the park's Meadow Lake, which feeds northward into the Flushing River and thence into Flushing Bay. Meadow Lake is the site of rowing activities for non-profit Row New York, with teams practicing on the lake for much of the year.^[7] Meadow Lake also hosts the annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in New York, and teams from New York practice in Meadow Lake during the summer months. The American Small Craft Association^[8] (TASCA) also houses a fleet of over a dozen 14.5' sloop-rigged sailboats which are used for teaching, racing and recreation by the club's members. Bicycling paths extend around Meadow Lake and connect to the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway. Paths around Willow Lake, the smaller and higher of the two lakes, in a natural wetlands area in the little-used far southern section of the park, are currently closed to the public.^[9] The many recreational playing fields and playgrounds in the park are used for activities that reflect the vast ethnic mix of Queens; soccer and cricket are especially popular.^{[citation needed]}

The park is also the home of Queens Theatre in the Park^[10][11] the New York Hall of Science, the Queens Museum of Art, and Terrace on the Park (a banquet and catering facility, the Fair's former helipad).

Closer view of the Unisphere

Shadow of a commercial jetliner crossing the pavilion in 1981. Photo by George Garrigues.

The New York State Pavilion, constructed as the state's exhibit hall for the 1964/1965 World's Fair, is also a feature of the park. However, no new use for the building was found after the Fair, and the structure sits derelict and decaying. The other buildings left for a while after the Fair's conclusion to see if a new use for them could be found, such as the United States Pavilion, have subsequently been demolished. One such parcel became the site of the Playground for All Children, one of the first playgrounds designed to include handicapped-accessible activities. The design competition was won by architect Hisham N. Ashkouri and the facility was completed in 1981. It was refurbished and reopened in 1997.^{[citation needed]}

By the early 2000s, the park had become the residence of a number of homeless people,^[12] who received attention after five abducted, raped and threatened to kill a woman who had been sitting with her partner at a nearby subway station.^[13]

Since the early 90's, the pavilion's ledges, steps, and fountain grates have been utilized by skateboarders and featured in famous east coast skateboarding videos. In 2010 a skate plaza was built nearby to host the Maloof Money Cup, a skateboarding competition.

On June 24, 2005, the park hosted the Reverend Billy Graham on what he stated was his last tour in North America.^{[citation needed]}

A $66.3 million aquatic center, encompassing an Olympic-sized indoor pool and an NHL regulation-sized skating rink, opened in 2008. The facility, utilized by schools, leagues and community members of all ages, is the largest recreation complex in any New York City park, at 110,000 square feet (10,000 m²). The complex incorporates features for the physically disabled.^[14]

The Flushing Meadows Carousel operates in the northwestern part of the park.

Major League Soccer plans to establish a second team in the New York metropolitan area, New York City FC, and proposed to build a 25,000-seat stadium in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park by 2016.^[15] After heavy community opposition, the team changed its plans and is currently considering other locations within the metropolitan area.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

• Official website
• The Playground For All Children
• New York World's Fair 1964/1965
• Flushing Meadows Speedskating Club
• Saving the New York State Pavilion
• Tent of Tomorrow - New York State Pavilion
• World's Fair Carousels
• New York State Pavilion Project