Family-Friendly Guide to Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Long before its current incarnation as one of New York City’s top destinations for family fun, Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens welcomed nearly 100 million visitors from all over the globe as the site of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs. That legacy endures in the form of the park’s most recognizable feature—the magnificent and extremely Instagrammable steel globe known as the Unisphere—and a slew of repurposed buildings that house some of the borough’s most cherished institutions.
Overlapping two of the City’s most diverse and vibrant neighborhoods, Flushing and Corona, and easily accessible from Manhattan via the 7 subway line, this 898-acre park, the fourth-largest in New York City, continues to draw people for all kinds of activities. The green space provides opportunities for skating, hiking, fishing and barbecuing, as well as enough cultural attractions to fill a day and then some. It is also a premier destination for spectator sports: Citi Field, home to the New York Mets, is located within the park, as is the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, site of the prestigious US Open.
Meadow Lake Road West, Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Flushing Meadows Corona Park’s many amenities include New York City’s largest lake, the man-made Meadow Lake, which spans 93 acres and is open for fishing. Wheel Fun Rentals, on the north side of the lake, has paddleboats and double and single kayaks for rent by the hour, allowing you to enjoy views of the Unisphere from the water.