Flushing Meadows-Corona Park
The 1,255-acre park that contains the US Open — the Unisphere, the Queens Museum, and New York's August in full
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park covers 1,255 acres in the middle of Queens. It's the largest park in the borough, the fourth largest in New York City overall, and the venue for two World's Fairs (1939 and 1964). It also contains the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Citi Field (home of the New York Mets), the Queens Museum, and the New York Hall of Science. The US Open occupies a corner of it, but the park is significantly larger than the tournament footprint.
The Unisphere
The Unisphere is the 12-story steel globe that has been standing in the middle of the park since the 1964 World's Fair. It's the largest representation of the Earth ever built — 140 feet in diameter, 700,000 pounds of stainless steel — and visible from across the park and from the 7 train as it approaches the station. Up close, the scale of it is genuine: the rings represent satellites and orbital paths, and the continents are rendered in sufficient detail that you can trace coastlines.
It's free to walk around and photograph. In August, the fountains at its base run during park hours. It's the clearest piece of evidence that Flushing Meadows has a story independent of the tennis tournament happening in one corner of it.
Queens Museum
The Queens Museum (Queens Museum of Art until 2013) sits in the park and contains the Panorama of the City of New York — a 9,335-square-foot scale model of every building in all five boroughs, updated periodically, lit to show the time of day. It was built for the 1964 World's Fair and remains one of the stranger and more impressive things in any museum in the city.
The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday. Suggested admission is $10.
The park in August
On a warm August weekend afternoon, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is in full summer operation: families with coolers, cricket matches on the lawn, radio-controlled boats on the Meadow Lake, people taking photos of the Unisphere. The park population during US Open fortnight is genuinely mixed — tournament visitors, Queens families having a weekend in the park, Mets fans coming in early — and the atmosphere is unmistakably New York.
Why it's special
The park makes the tournament bigger than a tennis event. You can walk from the outer courts of the USTA grounds into Flushing Meadows proper, past the Unisphere and along the lake, and the transition from tournament to city is seamless and immediate. The 1964 World's Fair infrastructure that surrounds you — the Unisphere, the Queens Museum, the pavilion buildings that have been converted to other uses — is the residue of a New York that had a specific idea of what the future would look like. The tennis tournament is a more recent addition to that history.
Insider tips
- 1
The Unisphere fountains run during park hours in summer — the best time to be there is morning before the heat peaks. The scale of the structure is genuinely surprising up close.
- 2
The Queens Museum is closed Monday and Tuesday. Check before planning a rest-day visit that centres on it.
- 3
The walk from the USTA grounds exit to the Unisphere takes about 5 minutes. It's a genuine change of pace from the tournament — quiet, open, and immediately different in character.
- 4
Citi Field is at the north end of the park. If the Mets are playing during your US Open visit, the park has a dual-event atmosphere that's specific to this corner of Queens.
- 5
The Panorama of the City of New York in the Queens Museum — a 9,335-square-foot scale model of every building in the five boroughs — is one of the stranger and more impressive things in any museum in New York. Budget 30 minutes for it.
What to avoid
Don't underestimate the park's scale — it's 1,255 acres and the sections of interest are spread across it; pick a specific destination (Unisphere, Queens Museum, Meadow Lake) rather than wandering and ending up nowhere in particular. Don't plan a Queens Museum visit on Monday or Tuesday. And don't skip the park entirely because you came for the tennis; the World's Fair infrastructure around you — the Unisphere, the pavilion buildings, the views across the lake — is worth 30 minutes and costs nothing. The tournament is in one corner of it. The rest of it is free and mostly empty.
