Victor Chu, of Sky Tech One Aerial Photography, piloted a drone over all 5 boroughs to assemble this interesting video of New York City from a bird’s eye view. I don’t usually go for this sort of thing but I was especially taken by the drone’s entry into the Unisphere, at about the 4:00 point.

Last year I explored the possibility of doing exactly this: obtaining a high quality drone and flying it into the hollows and over the top of the Unisphere, that enormous steel globe which has been a fascination of mine since I first encountered it at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park many years ago.

The more I looked into it the more I understood the enormous amount of skill needed to maneuver a drone through an opening which is actually quite small considering the unpredictable flatulence of winds up there. The time expense — not to mention the financial cost of a high quality copter and camera — rendered the idea amusing but out of reach.

I also did not relish the prospect of owning an expensive device when using it could soon be essentially illegal anywhere in the 5 boroughs.

I guess you can’t keep a good idea down. A number of videos shot from drones flying over and around the Unisphere are to be found out there on that World Wide Web people keep talking about.

However unless it is lost on me (which is entirely possible) it appears that none of these drones actually penetrate the invisible crust of this steely earth, as Victor Chu so skillfully did in his flight. Mr. Chu’s video in its entirety is tremendously impressive just on the basis of how much concentration and work went into it.

The Unisphere served as a focal point of my disdain for a certain online encyclopedia. For over a year the opening sentence in that source’s article about the Unisphere claimed that the massive steel globe was also known as the “Globitron”. In the time that this patently bogus bit of vandalism lingered it was picked up by countless web site creators who simply scooped information in good faith from what a surprising number of people consider to be a reliable source. A search today for “Unisphere Globitron” turns up over 800 web pages claiming the Unisphere is also known as the Globitron.

I checked in on that encyclopedia entry every once in a while, amazed at how long the vandalism lasted. The word “Globitron” sounds laughable to anyone familiar with the Unisphere, but I have to give the vandal credit for coining such an innocuously believable term.

I imagined this insertion of the word “Globitron” and its subsequent travels to hundreds of other web sites was a preëmptive form of publicity, such that a rock band or television show was getting its name out there any which way possible before going public.

It seems not to have been any such well-planned chicanery.

Other Unisphere-focused drone videos:

See my pictures of the Unisphere, and of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

Unisphere, n.a.k.a. the "Globitron"

Unisphere, n.a.k.a. the “Globitron”