The rent at the Queens Museum of Art is cheap.
The cultural institution has been documenting the personal stories of guests who have been dazzled by paying just $100 to “rent” a small plot (9,335 square feet) of “New York City Panorama.” A scale model of the Big Apple.
Through the museum’s “Adopt-A-Building” program, hundreds of so-called deeds to small buildings have been donated so New Yorkers can commemorate special moments in their lives or those of loved ones.
They include a woman who bought a miniature of the house her mother grew up in in the 1930s, and a couple who celebrated their anniversary with the “deed” to their first apartment as a couple.
“When you ask people about this, they immediately become very vulnerable and intimate,” Lynn Malyszewski, deputy director of Collections and Archives, told the Post in an interview Thursday at the museum. Told.
For more than a decade, the Queens Museum has collected stories from visitors of life-changing memories of the city that never sleeps, but last summer it expanded the project into the digital realm.
A “digital mapping system” has been installed on the walkway surrounding the panorama directly above Staten Island, inviting thoughtful visitors to drop a pin on a special spot, overlooking the miniature city, and enjoy the free You can share your memories.
“In 2009, I was walking down 86th Street with a friend in high school. We often went shopping and ate at the buffet near Marshalls. I will cherish those memories,” Elaine C. wrote next to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn’s pin badge.
Steven Yang
Near Fifth Avenue, Jared wrote, “Spent the day in Central Park. We just came out of the pandemic. It was a special moment to be around our loved ones and get some fresh air.” .”
Because the interactive screen is open to the public, it contains a lot of ridiculous writing likely written by teenagers, and Maliszewski says it reflects “how we experience our cities. ” is said to reflect this.
“Everyone who grew up here, who goes to school here, who comes here after school, we all realize at some point that we are connected and that we influence each other here. We are here, whether we notice it or not,” she thought.
The idea of recording the thousands (if not millions) of stories whispered among visitors came easily to the museum’s staff.
According to a 2021 study, about 80% of museum visitors come to take a look at this tiny behemoth.
Visitors are a mix of locals and tourists from around the world, but almost all have the same reaction when they see the world’s largest architectural model, conceived as an attraction for the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. I showed it.
“Even if you find your apartment, it’s a rectangle of color, you can’t see the stoop, you don’t even know how many floors it is, and you still kind of need to find it.” said Maliszewski. .
“Everyone has this urge to point out things like, ‘I worked there when I was 21,’ or ‘That’s like the first restaurant I went to after I graduated from college,'” she noted. .
“There are a lot of moments like that. And it just opens the book where people really talk about their experiences and talk about why they feel these things are personally important. That’s really special.”
Sentimental souls participating in the museum’s Adopt-A-Build program are looking for a specific address where they will be handed the deeds to miniature possessions (such as their childhood home, favorite restaurant, or neighborhood church). You will be asked to share your reason.
Although not open to the public, the museum has collected answers over the years, documenting people from all walks of life sharing the space in the Big Apple.
- “This purchase was made in honor of our mother, who grew up in this apartment in the 1930s and 1940s. Our family drove across the country to attend the 1964 World’s Fair. , we saw a panoramic exhibit. Our mother, now 87 years old, has dementia, but still remembers her former home and the city she loved in her adult life. As children, we thank her for opening our eyes to the wider world and bringing us, among other adventures, to the wonderful city of New York and all it has to offer. , we wanted to find a unique way to express our immense gratitude.”
- “As far as we know, this apartment building has never been home to a future president or Oscar winner. No event of political or cultural significance has ever taken place there. Hidden Architecture I don’t have the treasure above, but it’s where we first lived together, where we had our first fight over whether we could leave our pants on the floor overnight, where our friends met once a week for dinner. It’s where we drank and watched Project Runway, where he proposed, and where we met, with three different landlords, graduate student neighbors. This is where we learned to be New Yorkers, through a revolving door of New Yorkers, block parties, election lines, construction, and an incursion by a rat who refused to respect human authority. ”
- “This apartment is our first home as a couple. I surprised him with a trip to Panorama (he had never heard of such a thing and was surprised). We both We spent hours looking at the incredibly detailed creations of this city we love. This marks our first anniversary as husband and wife, and there are many more to come for both us and Panorama. I hope so!”
As with any real city, costs vary greatly depending on which area you focus on.
“Of course, the Empire State Building is going to be more expensive than a corner of Forest Hills. But that’s how rents go,” Maliszewski joked.
The Panorama has undergone several renovations over the decades, but most additions have been made since 1992, when the museum spent $2 million to add 30,000 buildings to the model, bringing the total to 895,000. There was no.
This model, which blends old and new, includes Citi Field and Brooklyn Bridge Park. Twin Towers is still included, although both were introduced in his late 2000s.
And while museum staff added the Newtown Creek wastewater resource recovery facility in Greenpoint, they chose not to shore up recent congestion in neighboring Dumbo.
According to Malyszewski, the payoff from updating the panorama does not outweigh the opportunity to put money toward more important projects at the museum, especially the high cost of maintaining the complex and highly sensitive panorama itself.
That means the space where Hudson Yards has stood for the past five years may remain vacant for several more years, and the next Major League Soccer team, New York City FC, may not be built at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. That means, she said.
“Sleepy objects like this capture a place that is constantly changing. Cities are constantly being built. People are constantly redefining the way buildings exist, as well as the way neighborhoods are organized. ,” Maliszewski said.
The time capsule effect has completely changed the purpose of panoramas since its first iteration.
Robert Moses, then president of the World’s Fair, recommended that city planners remove each of the 273 pieces of the panorama and transport them to city planning public hearings so they could be displayed with gaping holes in parts of the miniature city. I conceived it.
Maliszewski theorized that the idea probably didn’t work because it would have taken away from the panorama’s alluring appeal.
“Could you please take a section in the middle of Staten Island and take it to Staten Island City Hall so I can look at that section?” What do you do with the rest of the model? On top of Staten Island Could you please put a sheet down and pretend nothing happened? ”
“If you remove any of the parts, it loses its meaning. You see that scale is lost, so in a sense you lose its mythical quality. Then it becomes a little bit more real.” You can go back.”
The failure of the plan indirectly put the Panorama into the hands of visitors, who wholeheartedly embraced the Little Apple as a symbol of their love for New York City.
Every weekend, a bunch of guests come and we show you a small-scale version of their lives.
Of course, there is always a “traffic jam” in front of Manhattan Island.
“They love to sit and point and I look at the streets they were walking down. It’s really immersive,” Maliszewski said.
