Emerging from a long winter's nap, the UNISPHERE - greatest show of the world ever made by man - thrills visitors to the New York World's Fair.

Glistening in the sunlight - or bathed in moonlight - it stands as the focal point of the Fair. The gigantic stainless steel replica of the Earth, built and presented by United States Steel, will be one of the very few edifices to remain standing long after the Fair has faded into memory.

Twenty-six million visitors to the New

York World's Fair saw Unisphere and as many more may be viewing it in 1965 before it continues as a permanent landmark at its Flushing Meadow site. The most talked-about, read-about, photographed globe ever made, this stainless steel structure -- 12 stores high, measuring 120 feet in diameter and weighing more than 700 thousand pounds -- will be a constant reminder as the years go by of the engineering, fabrication and construction skill of U. S. Steel's American Bridge Division.

A Permanent Gift

And so it stands today. Gleaming stainless steel. Looming over the Meadow long after the Fair is a distant memory. A monument to the time America celebrated the Space Age. The flights represented by its orbitals forgotten achievements. Was that Sheppard? Or Telstar? It's fountains restored. It's reflecting pool empty to prevent waders and vandalism. The capitols of nations no longer represented by electric lights. Disconnected. The capitols of nations that have not outlived Unisphere.

 

Times have changed.

 

Symbol now of a borough. A community. Its new admirers unmindful of the time the world stood at its pedestal. Yet knowing that it must stand for something grand. "Built to remain as a permanent feature of the park, reminding succeeding generations of a pageant of surpassing interest and significance." So spoke Moses.

 

Man's Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe. Symbolized in stainless steel. A permanent Gift.