Where-To-Go Wednesday - The Panorama of the City of New York

What: The Panorama of the City of New York 

Where: Queens Museum 

             100-01 Northern Blvd. 

             Corona Queens 

Who: All ages

The Panorama of the City of New York is a full-scale model of all five boroughs of New York City. It was initially built for the 1964 World's Fair but was updated several times since then most recently in 1992. Some structures which were built after that time have been added to the model including Citi Field and the new Yankee Stadium. The Twins Towers remain a part of the model as a memorial to those who lost their lives in the tragedy.

The model was originally conceived by famous (or infamous depending on how you look at it) urban planner, Robert Moses. Moses wanted to show off all the major city projects he had spearheaded. The model was built to be the central exhibit of the New York Pavilion of the World's Fair and then later serve as an urban planning tool. Although it was in fact exhibited at the World's Fair, it never really did serve the latter purpose. 

The Panorama can be found in what is now the Queens Museum which is located on the grounds where the World's Fair took place. It has, in fact, been there since the World's Fair during which time the building was the location of the New York City Pavilion. The building itself was actually built for the 1939 World's Fair which also took place in the vicinity. Between the two World's Fairs and after the 1964  World's Fair, the building went through several different incarnations, and it did not become the Queens Museum until 1972.

Although initially, there was a ride that went around the perimeter of the exhibit, today there is a ramp that you can walk around. There is an audio tour available to download and listen to as you walk around that makes the exhibit much more interesting by providing information about it as well as other related fascinating facts. A segment of the audio tour includes the original audio tour that was available at the time the model was originally introduced at the World's Fair. It is voiced by a famous broadcaster of the time, Lowell Thomas. There are also a couple of segments at the end of the audio tour specifically geared toward young children so if you are traveling with young kids, you might want to skip to those sections which are located at numbers 11 and 12 of the audio tour.

And that's our view. For more information about the Panorama of the City of New York, visit queensmuseum.org/exhibition/panorama-of-the-city-of-new-york. For more information about the Queens Museum in general, visit queensmuseum.org.

Tune in tomorrow for Theater Thursday.