2. The 1964 World’s Fair Underground Home

1964-worlds-fair-underground-home-bomb-shelter-flushing-meadows-corona-park-nycImage via nywf64.com

One of the more famous displays at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park was an Underground Home designed in in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fifteen feet below ground, a concrete shell enclosed a 12,000-square-foot home with ten rooms – this was no simple bomb shelter. Designed by Texas builderJay Swazye, the bunker included a Steinway piano in the living room, an air filtering system, adjustable lighting to simulate time of day and season, and a fake garden.. Although the majority of the temporary structures from the fair were meant to be torn down, a theory posits that the Underground Home is still there beneath the park. As Narratively writes, “Some…believe that Swayze, wanting to avoid high demolition costs, removed furnishings from the Underground Home but left its shell intact, hidden beneath several feet of dirt.”