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Queens, New York

Panorama of the City of New York

A 9,335 square foot architectural model of the entire city. 

Sunrise at the Queens panorama Allison Meier/Atlas Obscura (Allison Meier)
View to the south of the boroughs Allison Meier/Atlas Obscura (Allison Meier)
View to Green-Wood Cemetery in South Brooklyn Allison Meier/Atlas Obscura (Allison Meier)
All of the boroughs are accurately crafted and geographically placed working only with a 1% error margin josepha/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Midtown, Manhattan joeshlabotnik/Flickr (Creative Commons)
The model stretches across an entire room joeshlabotnik/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Downtown sdettling/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Avoiding Regret (Sandi Hemmerlein)
Looking east towards the East River, above Madison Square Park in Manhattan Avoiding Regret (Sandi Hemmerlein)

Constructed for the 1964 World’s Fair, the Panorama of the City of New York exhibit at the Queens Museum shows the entire sprawling city in miniature. 

The Panorama was built by a team of people working for the great architectural model makers Raymond Lester & Associates over the course of three years. Around 100 prolific architectural model makers built an incredibly realistic model of all five boroughs in New York City. 

Slight changes to this miniature city have been made over time in order to preserve its architectural integrity, and in 1992 the city was modified and brought up to date. The model now contains over 895,000 individual structures, including every building in the city as of 1992.

Visit New York with Atlas Obscura Trips

New York City's Best-Kept Secrets

May 30—June 3, 2018

Enjoy unique access, one-of-a-kind collections, and behind-the-scenes experiences usually off-limits to visitors as we explore the best-kept secrets of this magnificent city.

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