Unisphere
“DEDICATED TO MAN’S
ASPIRATIONS toward Peace through mutual understanding and symbolizing the achievements in
an expanding universe.” So reads the
dedication plaque for the Unisphere, built by 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 23 ½o 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 Himalayas, 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.
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.
Earth Model
THE SHINIEST THING in the vicinity of
Columbus Circle is a three-ringed, sheet-metal model of Earth that stands in front of the
Trump International Hotel at the intersection of Central Park West, Central Park South,
and Broadway. One can’t help but think
of it as a knockoff of the Unisphere in Flushing Meadow, Queens—except that the
Unisphere is 5 times greater in diameter and 125 times the volume of the Trump model. Not only that, the rings encircling the Unisphere
serve to honor the three tipped orbits of John Glenn, who had been launched into space two
years before the fair opened. The rings of
Trump’s Earth, however, are angled every which way—evoking neither orbits of
anything in particular nor the pole-symetric rings sometimes found in armillary spheres. It’s fun to look at regardless, provided you
wear your shades.
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AMERICA HAD A SINGLE-MINDED
technopolitical goal for the 1960s: land men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs
became the means to that end. Displayed in
the backyard of the New York Hall of Science are the single-occupancy Mercury
(foreground) and the double-occupancy Gemini space capsules, atop their respective
rocket boosters. The red escape tower
attached to the nose of the Mercury capsule was designed to pull it (and its
occupant) to safety if the rocket malfunctioned on takeoff.
Mounted nearby is an imagined modern airplane that never came to be.
These craft are
what remain of the expansive outdoor display that was part of the 1964 New York World’s
Fair in Flushing Meadow. In the distant
background of this photograph, an ordinary airplane takes off from nearby LaGuardia
Airport.
