Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum parking – free or cheap lots, garages and street meter spots.

Parking. There is no parking available on-site at Socrates with the exception of one handicap designated spot outside the main gate at the intersection of Vernon Blvd and Broadway. School buses and tour buses are permitted to pull into the Park through our main gate with advance approval. Please call 718.956.

five acres
OVERVIEW. Socrates Sculpture Park, located at 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, spans five acres (about the size of one New York City block) on the East River waterfront in Long Island City, Queens.

Socrates is an outdoor sculpture by artist W. V. Casey created c. 1950.

He studied music, gymnastics, and grammar in his youth (the common subjects of study for a young Greek) and followed his father’s profession as a sculptor. Tradition holds that he was an exceptional artist, and his statue of the Graces, on the road to the Acropolis, is said to have been admired into the 2nd century CE.

He was notoriously ugly, having a flat turned-up nose, bulging eyes and a large belly; his friends joked about his appearance. Socrates was indifferent to material pleasures, including his own appearance and personal comfort.

The Thinker
The Thinker, bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, cast in 1904; in the Rodin Museum, Paris. The Thinker was originally called The Poet and was conceived as part of The Gates of Hell, initially a commission (1880) for a pair of bronze doors to a planned museum of decorative arts in Paris..

Short and stocky, with a snub nose and bulging eyes, Socrates always seemed to appear to be staring. However, Plato pointed out that in the eyes of his students, Socrates possessed a different kind of attractiveness, not based on a physical ideal but on his brilliant debates and penetrating thought.

Classical Athens
Socrates/Places lived

Admission is always free for members, reciprocal museum members, visitors with disabilities, active duty military and their families, CulturePass, and SNAP benefits recipients with a EBT or WIC card. If you qualify for one of these, please make reservations by contacting [email protected] or 718.204. 7088 ext 216.

entrance to the field
Japanese: ‘entrance to the field’, found mostly along the southeastern coast of Japan and in the Ryukyu Islands.