The Unisphere

Location:   Queens
 Year:   1964

A New York City icon, the Unisphere is a 12-story high, spherical stainless steel representation of the Earth. It is located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the borough of Queens (Queens County), in New York City.

Commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age, the Unisphere was conceived and constructed as the theme symbol of the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair. The theme of the World's Fair was "Peace Through Understanding" and the Unisphere represented the theme of global interdependence. It is meant to represent Earth as seen from 6000 miles in space.  The three concentric rings surrounding our planet are symbolic representations of the orbits of manmade satellites (of which there were twelve in 1963, when construction began).

The Unisphere was donated to the Fair by U.S. Steel. It is the world's largest globe, standing 140 feet high (including its base) and weighing 900,000 pounds (including its base). It was built on the concrete foundations of the Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939-1940 World's Fair, and is surrounded by fountains.