Queens Museum — Attraction in New York

I hadn't been to this museum since COVID, and it seems that in the meantime it has become extremely woke, which here means a misplaced obsession over far-left cultural themes that cloud otherwise good exhibits.

The star attraction is the panorama scale model of the entire city. It's still awesome and totally worth visiting for. But now there's some distorted mock police footage projected over it which seems to be some low-effort conceptual art making a race-based anti-police statement.

I came primarily for the Tiffany lamps exhibit after hearing a great podcast about them (The Gilded Gentleman). First of all the exhibit is tiny, and you're better off seeing the larger collection at NY Historical Society. The caption writer for this exhibit seems to be unable to get over the expense of these luxury items. Every label has a price tag and a comparison to wages. Yes, these are luxury products, obviously, let's move on. Instead of focusing on the craftsmanship, design, or cultural context one gets the sense they are trying to provoke class warfare.

Then we have the World's Fair memorabilia. Last time I was here I just remember it presented neutrally with some context about the Fair. Now it's presented with cultural commentary. It begins with a loathing statement about car-culture, framing the promotion of cars and the brand-new highway network as evil. Then it focuses on race riots outside the Fair. Through biased framing (complete with a content warning lol) they manage to make you think Disney's world-uniting classic "It's a Small World" was racist propaganda.

I left this museum wanting to leave...

Queens Museum is located in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The best way to visit this museum is to use train 7 to Mets Stadium and then walk about 15-20 minutes. No admissions for this museum ("pay-what-you-want"), but you can always leave a donation as much as you can, which I strongly recommend. Best known after The Panorama of the New York City, but it also has some contemporary art pieces. The Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum was created for the 1964-1965 World's Fair by architectural model makers Lester & Associates. It's a massive, detailed model of the city, built on a 1:1200 scale, with 895,000 buildings, streets, bridges, and parks. Over 100 people worked on this project. The panorama was restaurated in 1995 and 2003. It costed $850,000 back in time. Many elements were hand-crafted and painted. Bridges were made out of brass and then painted. There are a few other exibitions in the museum, one of them was dedicated to World Fair 1964, with numerous memorabilias. I liked most of all the Tiffany lamps exibition, a part of Neustadt Collection. A beautiful exibition of old fashioned lamps in amazing colors, masterpieces of art work. Restrooms onsite. Wheelchair accessible. Attentive staff. The museum itself is not too spacious, it will take you 1-1,5 h for walkthrough. I'm not great fan of contemporary art, but the museum is worth seeing for The Panorama of the NYC and Tiffany lamps exibition. A few steps from here are Hall of Science, Queens Theatre, Mets Life Stadium, US Opens tennis courts,...

Queens Museum is one of the hidden secrets of Queens. I was not aware of such a fascinating museum until I passed by it one day while walking by the vast globe in Flushing Meadows.

Upon entrance I noticed the suggested donation entrance fee which means FREE + tip. I would suggest you donate, even a small amount, because this museum offers an exclusive miniature display of NYC not seen anywhere else.

Forget the rest of the museum- prison bunk beds, stained glass lamps and furniture, and paintings and portraits which some are interesting to glace over. The highlight of the museum is the NYC panoramic display.

This display should be one of the must-see items for tourist next to the Empire State Building, High Line, and Central Park. In fact you can see the Empire State Building, High Line, and Central Park, and all of NYC famous sites all in one location. It's like viewing New York from an airplane. To note there are motorized airplanes that land in LaGuardia and JKF airports on the display. Every minuscule detail can be seen, the buildings, the parks, the rivers, for not only Manhattan, but Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, and west of the city.

The museum is worth visiting once. The 20 minute walk from the train station is...