Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, now New York City's second largest park, was once a 1,255-acre ash disposal heap in the early 20th century, a landscape F. Scott Fitzgerald portrayed in The Great Gatsby. In the 1930s, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses began transforming the site into green space by converting it into the grounds for the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, intending to use fair profits to create a grand park, but the fair lost money and the area remained unfinished despite landscaping that formed Flushing Meadows Park. Aside from the United Nations' use of the New York City building as the General Assembly chamber from 1946 to 1950, the site stood idle and neglected. In 1960, Moses proposed a second exposition there, and the 1964-65 World's Fair brought plans for an ice skating rink, a marina on Flushing Bay, the Hall of Science, the New York State Pavilion, Shea Stadium, and the 120-foot-tall Unisphere, while local law renamed the park Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Although that fair also produced no profits, it advanced Moses' vision because some fair buildings remained as park features. By 1968, the park had gained athletic fields, playgrounds, a boat rental concession in Meadow Lake, a model airplane field, a bicycle path, and the Queens Zoo. In 1978, Louis Armstrong Stadium, formerly the Singer Bowl, became the USTA National Tennis Center. During the 1980s, the Hall of Science and Queens Museum of Art were expanded. In the 1990s, the Queens Zoo was rebuilt and opened by the New York Zoological Society in 1992, the Queens Theatre in the Park was rebuilt in 1993, the Unisphere was refurbished in 1994-1995, and Arthur Ashe tennis stadium was ready for the US Open in 1997. The park is owned by the City of New York and managed by Parks and Recreation.
