Queens By Bike, and NYC From the Air

I rode out to the Queens Museum yesterday to see the second of the three Robert Moses exhibits (and folks, I know eyes tend to glaze over when urban planning comes up, but these are great). This one focuses on Moses’ good side, his early projects to build parks and pools and playgrounds, including the incredible summer of 1936 when he opened a new pool every week of the summer, all magnificent palaces that remain jewels of the city’s park system.

And with just a few minutes remaining, we visited the reopened New York City Panorama, the scale model of the city built by Moses for the second world’s fair.

Central Park

Midtown

Downtown Last time I saw the Panorama, it had not been updated to show the World Financial Center where I used to work. And it still has the Twin Towers and the rest of the World Trade Center.

Brooklyn The Manhattan Bridge, left, and the Brooklyn Bridge, right; follow Flatbush Avenue from the Manhattan Bridge straight up to Prospect Park.

My Neighborhood My building’s on the Panorama. There are three large apartment buildings to the left of Grand Army Plaza (the green oval just below the park). Below and to their right you’ll see a set of smaller brick apartment buildings. Mine is one of those.

Staten Island The North Shore of Staten Island, and the Verrazano Bridge connecting it to Brooklyn. At the top of the picture is Coney Island.

Bay Ridge Brooklyn again, with Fort Hamilton and Dyker Park in the foreground.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Almost exactly as old as I am, and my second favorite bridge in the city.