Day 11 of Left Open, Club Leftist Tennis’ daily leftist coverage of the 2022 US Open.
By Vitruvius Grind
Spectators traveling to today’s Open will, more likely than not, arrive at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center from the north, bypassing the bulk of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Those who do make a southern approach, though, will encounter the Unisphere, a massive steel orb depicting the continents of the world crisscrossed, with intersecting paths suggesting international flight or low-Earth orbit.
The sphere was constructed for the 1964 World’s Fair, held in the park. Now six decades on, hollow and decaying, the Unisphere is a grim reminder of the empty promises of a neoliberal world order. (Students of geometry and semiotics might notice the Unisphere’s resemblance to a standard issue “pickleball,” an association from which this correspondent will let you draw your own conclusions.
Twenty-five years prior to the Unisphere’s debut, a very different sphere occupied the same space. Dubbed the Perisphere (and closely associated with its neighboring obelisk, the Trylon), this earlier orb was the centerpiece for the World’s Fair of 1939. The Trylon and Perisphere hosted an audiovisual presentation of a city of the future, experienced in the round from a set of elevated walkways.
Previous CLT dispatches have taken on the profoundly anti-revolutionary state of affairs regarding ticket prices and land use at the Open. Leftist tennis players may disagree over the best strategy for accomplishing these much needed transformations, but breaking out of the walled garden that is the National Tennis Center would certainly be a first step.
Simply put: We must scrap the hollow earth of a failing era. There is no future there. To recapture the world of tomorrow, we must reconstruct the Perisphere as a new center court for the people.
A better world is possible.
-THA