March 2000 mysterydate by Heidi Pollock |
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No one in New York City goes to Queens. Except of course to take the
airplane from JFK to get out of there. Being one-stop from midtown's
Bloomingdale's, somehow Queens is "too far away" to visit. Being the
largest boro of the bunch and the single most ethnically diverse county
in the United States somehow there is "nothing to do" there. People who live on the island of Manhattan can be so small-minded
sometimes. They may very well be living in one of the largest, greatest
cities on the planet but the minor subsection of the city (and the
world) that they occupy is staggeringly slight. To understand how tiny
the area that they, we and all of Hollywood generally thinks of as the
totality of New York City is to understand a lot more than just
geography. Sadly this understanding is lost to many people because the
one tool capable of their enlightenment is housed in the aforementioned
far off land of Queens. The
Panorama of the City of New York is a full scale model of the entire
City of New York. It is a permanent attraction at the Queens Museum of
Modern Art in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. And it is mind boggling.
Awesome. Unparalleled. It's a real, honest-to-goodness
f u l l s c a l e
model. Little buildings, parks, roads, schools, housing developments
and national monuments are there in all their glorious, teensy, freakish
accuracy. To quote the brochure, it's a "9335 square foot 800,000-building
model of the 320 square miles of New York City." The Panorama was built
for a World's Fair, the raison d'être for all manner of architectural
oddities it would seem. It's original specs called for less than one
per cent margin of error between model and reality and this was
frequently checked against aerial photographs and updated as needed. In
the 1990s a major overhaul brought the model in sync with the havoc
wreaked by the 80s real estate craze. In short, if you look closely you
will probably be able to spot all the buildings you've ever been
inside. Around near the southwest edge of Flushing the Plexiglas walkway is
close enough and the lighting is bright enough so that you can get down
on your hands and knees and look through the floor and really make out
the frightening level of detail which makes up the Panorama. At first
the pieces seem fairly standard. The pastel houses are all pretty
similar and the ant-sized cars all seem to be the exact same model.
There aren't any weeds in the lawns or potholes in the roads. But just
as your inner critic is beginning to get bored with the Panorama you
look up and see hundreds and hundreds of feet of model covered with the
same houses and cars and boats and roads, all positioned according to
some maniacal scheme and you realize, "My god, this is insane." I love the Panorama. I visit it all the time. It makes for a great
day trip: walk through the desolate Corona Meadows Park, marvel at the
enormous stainless steel Unisphere which graces so many television
commercials, stop for some Indian food in Jackson Heights. A jaunt out
to the Panorama is the perfect date not because it is exotic and strange
and vaguely educational but because there is inevitably one point during
your visit while you stare speechlessly at the immense creation that you
will become really and truly scared and find you and your companion
clinging together for comfort. First is the fright that comes as you are faced with a product of
magnificent stupidity. There is a certain fear which accompanies the
sinking feeling that perhaps the human race is just too dumb to survive,
that our priorities are clearly skewed as evidenced by such a monument
to our unproductive impulses. It's while you're weak with your fear for
humanity the Panorama hits hard. Suddenly you imagine all the millions
of people milling about throughout the model's real life urban
counterpart. You can feel each and every one of them sharing that
special bond of idiocy which so characterizes our species. Your eyes
search in vain for the model's own replica of the Queens Museum of
Modern Art so that you can find yourself and find your bearings within
the melee but woe to those who do spot the Museum building at this
point. Nothing sends chills to the pit of your stomach like having to
confront how teeny, tiny and insignificant you might be in the context
of such a vast throng carrying out incomprehensible, redundant and
ridiculous activities. You grab your date and hang on for dear
life. Pretty soon the overwhelming dread dissipates and are once again able
to mock the dorky airplanes "flying" in and out of the cartoon
airports. You start to argue about where SoHo is hiding amongst the
crush of structures grouped together on one end of an admittedly
impressive island. Fake nighttime falls and miniature street lights
turn on and phosphorescent paint glows in the dark and the Panorama is
fun again. Big, weird, ungainly and surreal it's easy to laugh at and
admire and utterly impossible to forget.
in the junk drawer
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