Queens Museum

The Panorama of the City of New York

The Panorama of the City of New York was supposed to be a celebration of the city’s complex infrastructure. The design and construction of the entire Panorama approximately cost $5 million and was built by more than 100 people over the course of three years. To get a design of the panorama the builders referred mostly to aerial photographs of the city. The panorama is made out of Formica panels and Urethane foam mounted on wood and the buildings are made out of wood, plastic, and hand-painted paper, and the bridges are made out of brass. The Panorama’s was able to switch from daytime to nighttime on its own and was covered with about 3,172 automated colored lights highlighting the City’s public buildings, such as firehouses, schools, and libraries. The Panorama also included moving airplanes that took off and landed at LaGuardia Airport. The panorama opened in 1964 and was the largest attraction during the World Fair. A lot of the attraction was due to the indoor helicopter tour of New York City that was available. The helicopter was a nine-minute-ride only cost 10 cents per person and provided an aerial view of the City. In 1992, the entire model was closed down to be brought up to date. To make updates they used 5,000 maps, 109 aerial photographs, and on-site visits to determine current conditions. About 60,000 buildings were replaced or removed and the helicopter had reached its lifetime and was removed and replaced with a glass balcony before the reopening in 1994. In 2009, the Museum launched its Adopt-a-Building program. This program allows someone to purchase real estate on the Panorama for $100 and receive a deed in exchange for their donation.

The panorama was built for the 1964 World’s Fair. It later became a permanent exhibit in the Queens Museum when the museum opened in 1972. The model has been updated since, but it’s not fully up to date with the new architecture that has been built passed 2000. Something I never knew is that the panorama is known as the world’s largest architectural model of a city in the world. The model was able to actually display New York architecture, but it lacks people, traffic, trash, and other real-life elements of New York. Even though it lacked these details the design really helped me picture how 8 million people can live in a crowded city. The city is filled with eight hundred and fifty public schools, eleven city colleges, dozens of museums, over two hundred libraries, and 6 bridges where over 160 million people annually travel between the boroughs by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. There are also multiple free spaces where people can enjoy themselves than to stay home. This really showed me how the city is actually made to connect people together and to get them to find new friends, learn new skills, try arts and crafts, or just enjoy a night out.

The World Fair

Both World Fair held in 1939-40 and 1964-65 was held in the Queens Museum. The first World Fair that was held in New York City, helped to create a new major park in Queens and helped revitalize New York’s economy. The second World Fair was held in New York City in 1964-65. This World Fair was held on the 25th anniversary of the 1939-40 World’s Fair. During this fair, Robert Moses was the president of the Fair Corporation and he was known for helping the city rebuilding public spaces for public use. Some of the items during this fair was the giant globe and panorama. Both of these items can still be seen in the museum today. The Museum also owns more than 900 items connected to these World Fairs. Some of these items are on display and it gives an opportunity for people who have never been to a World Fair to see some of the artwork and items that would have been shown during the time.

The Neustadt

The Neustadt is a collection of artwork made of glass, dedicated to giving a better understanding and appreciation of the artwork by Louis C. Tiffany. One thing I really enjoyed about The Neustadt was the videos they provided on how the glass was made and how they were able to have the glass morphed into shapes so it can be made into items, such as a lamp. There are many different colored and shaped lamps in the museum that used Tiffany glass. The glass was also used to create stained-glass windows that are popular today.

“Fade into black: sit, chill, look, talk, roll, play, listen, give, take, dance, share”

Pia Camil’s “Fade into black: sit, chill, look, talk, roll, play, listen, give, take, dance, share” is a 341-foot long curtain of graphic t-shirts sewed together, that were purchased from thrift shops in Mexico City. Most of these shirts include logos that have some kind of political cause or message that don’t always correlate to the culture in which they are being made. These t-shirts have been designed in the United States but manufactured in Latin America or Southeast Asia. These shirts are then bought and worn, then discarded in the United States. Then these shirts are sent back into Latin America to be sold again in thrift shops. This represents the cycle of consumerism in the United States. The work also includes lower halves of bodies on the ground where people can relax.

The Watershed Model

The Department of Water Supply, Gas, and Electricity created The Watershed Model for the 1939-1940 World Fair, which you can see in the photo below. The model was built to educate New Yorkers about the water supply system that they use every day. The Model has tiny lights that trace the flow of water from different places in New Yor state that goes through New York City. Over a billion gallons of water travel into the city every day. The Watershed Model also shows people how complex New York City is. Even though it’s a big city filled with many complexities, everything in and out of the city is closely tied to one another. This includes the ecosystem and its limited resources.

Recognize My Sign

Recognize My Sign is an exhibition that is a collection of Moufarrege’s artwork. He draws his inspiration from his own life as a gay man and his world around him. His artwork also includes many references to many things such as comic book characters, Europen paintings and sculptures, Islamic designs and art, and Pop art. I was able to identify many of the characters in his work because I either see them in today’s entertainment or learned about it in school. Moufarrege’s artwork mostly looks like some type of tapestry people would have in their home if there were into a unique style of art. To me, I sometimes can’t identify what some of his work is trying to say, but I like how different it is from other work I have seen. I like how he mixes different cultures together like how he mixed Europen paintings and Islamic writing and put them into one painting.