Flushing Meadow is NYC at its best. Thousands of happy families from dozens of backgrounds sharing a public space. They play baseball, soccer, volleyball and cricket, are catered to by entrepreneurial vendors, and completely ignore the wealthy manhattanites and suburbanites with their limos or expensive cars who are there for the US Open. The heart of the park is the Unisphere. It was donated to the '64 World's Fair by US Steel. Even then the Gary works were still considered emblematic of American industrial power. In the Godfather Part II the Meyer Lansky character describes the wealth and power of the mafia by saying, "Gentlemen, we are bigger than US Steel." Now who isn't?
It took 50 years of deliberate policy and subversion by foreign agents to deindustrialize America. Maybe this November we will be able to start to climb back.
The Unisphere was just renovated and it shows the promise of a rainbow.
For now it is a reminder of what we can be if only we do what we are capable of.
If we let the memory slip away like a distant prospect then we shall be the poorer.
Posts
Your post takes me back....the weekend that Woodstock happened I went to Flushing Meadow instead and heard the Chambers Brothers who were playing in the Pavilion...definitely the better choice any way you look at it. Very happy to hear the park is still going strong
ReplyDeletemarymcl
Your post takes me back....the weekend that Woodstock happened I went to Flushing Meadow instead and heard the Chambers Brothers who were playing in the Pavilion...definitely the better choice any way you look at it. Very happy to hear the park is still going strong
ReplyDeletemarymcl