Arts journalist Richard Selden continues his series of overnight trips to New York City’s outer boroughs with this visit to the largest of all, Queens—home of the Mets, the U.S. Open, and two of the metropolitan area’s three major airports.
Site of the fictional Astoria residence of TV’s Archie and Edith Bunker and the actual Corona residence of Louis and Lucille Armstrong from 1943 to 1971, Queens in recent decades has transformed into the most ethnically diverse of the five boroughs. The Number 7 train on the Flushing Line is now nicknamed the International Express.
Among the jewels of Queens on the itinerary are Flushing Meadows Corona Park, site of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs; the Museum of the Moving Image, a movie and television museum located in the historic (and reborn) Astoria Studio complex; the Noguchi Museum, where the full range of the Modernist sculptor’s work is displayed; and the Louis Armstrong House Museum. To sample the borough’s international cuisine, an Asian lunch in Flushing and a Greek dinner in Astoria are included.
The overnight accommodations spotlight another of the borough’s standouts: the TWA Hotel. Eero Saarinen’s landmark 1962 TWA Flight Center at Idlewild (now JFK) airport was restored and reimagined as a first-class hotel that celebrates the Jet-Age glamour of the 1960s.
Know Before You Go
- Cost includes bus transportation, lodging, all activities, and the following meals: one breakfast, two lunches, and Sunday dinner.
- Overnight accommodations are at the TWA Hotel.
- Tour departs by bus from the Mayflower Hotel, Connecticut Ave. and DeSales St., NW., with a pick-up stop at I-495, Exit 27 carpool lot at about 7:25 a.m.
- Single-room supplement $140 (factored into the Single Room Member and Single Room Nonmember pricing).
- This tour uses Whisper audio devices.
- Singles registering at the double-room rate are paired (on a nonsmoking basis) if possible, but must pay the single-room supplement otherwise.
- Detailed information is emailed to registrants about four weeks prior to departure.
- Participants are advised to purchase travel insurance for overnight and multi-day tours from a provider of your choice. Travel insurance provides additional coverage against unforeseen incidents that require last-minute cancellations.
General Information
- The tour departs by motorcoach from downtown Washington, DC with a designated secondary pick-up outside the city. Content delivered by the study leader on the way to the destination, after the secondary pick-up, is an integral part of the study tour experience. Meeting the group once the tour is en route is discouraged.
- Smithsonian Associates is a mask-friendly environment. Please feel free to bring and wear a mask at any time during a tour, both for your safety or the safety of others.
- As we aim to move away from single use water bottles, guests are strongly encouraged to get in the habit of bringing their own reusable water bottle on tour.
- For additional tour information:
