Commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age, the Unisphere was conceived and constructed as the theme symbol of the World's Fair.

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation commissioner Robert Moses, who had already rejected two plans for iconic structures at the 1964 fair, approved Clarke's proposal in early 1961.

Over 51 million people visited the Unisphere during the World's Fair, after which it became a permanent attraction of Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.

Moses declined the proposal, calling it a "cross between a part of a brake engine and a bed spring, or should I say between a Malayan Tapir and a window shutter".

This plan called for a saucer measuring 300 feet (91 m) in diameter and tilted 18 degrees from the ground, with a restaurant, exhibits, educational and recreational facilities, and "planetary viewing stations".

[6][10][16] Further refinements were made by another of Clarke's architects, Peter Martecchini, who decided to place three columns at the globe's pedestal after playing with a rubber ball belonging to one of his sons.

[33] The Unisphere's popularity was also increased by the presence of fountainheads around the globe's base, which cooled down fair visitors on hot days.

[34] During the fair, dramatic lighting at night gave the effect of sunrise moving over the surface of the globe.

[42] Parts of the park were repaired or expanded for the tournament, including the fountains of the Unisphere, which were reactivated in 1978 for the first time in ten years.

[49] The restoration called for new mechanical systems, lighting, retaining walls, benches, paving, and trees to be installed in Unisphere Plaza at a cost of between $5.7 and $5.9 million.

[48] In 1989, a NYC Parks official observed that landmasses of countries like India and Vietnam would be lifted from their mountings on particularly windy days.

[53][55] Architectural critic Herbert Muschamp wrote that, while "nothing can compensate for the loss of context around this metallic centerpiece", the globe had started to gleam "with something like its former high spirits".

[62][63][64] Though the landmark status ensured the Unisphere's preservation, other relics of the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs had become dilapidated or were being demolished at the same time.

[65] The fountains at the Unisphere's base were shut off in 2001 due to citywide water restrictions; they were not reactivated until early 2003, seventeen months later.

[70] NYC Parks officials suspected that bird feces and an accumulation of leaves had contributed to an environment in which seeds could germinate.

[10][31] Including its 100-short-ton (91 t) inverted tripod base, which is made of sturdy low-alloy steel, the Unisphere weighs 900,000 pounds (408,233 kg).

As such, a stress transfer pattern was developed, and the meridians and parallels were varied in dimension, thereby making the Unisphere structurally stable as well as accurate in design.

[31] U.S. Steel's administrative vice president Austin J. Paddock said that some 670 mathematical equations needed to be solved simultaneously to determine the exact layout of the Unisphere.

[15] The surface area of the landmasses totals over 13,000 square feet (1,200 m2), effectively acting as a large sail.

[80] The Unisphere is built on a concrete foundation, which includes the piling ring that supported the Perisphere of the 1939 World's Fair.

The entrance to the Queens Museum is directly west of the Unisphere, while the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is to the north and the New York State Pavilion is to the south.

The Village Voice quoted people who called it "probably one of the most uninspired designs we have ever seen",[29] while Newsday opined that the globe was "deathly dull" and "looks like an ad for Western Union".

[85] Oculus magazine criticized the design as "a heavy, literal version of the ancient armillary sphere, with decoration by Rand McNally".

[86] Ralph Caplan wrote for Industrial Design that Moses's defense of the Unisphere was motivated by animosity toward the older structure.

[19][20] Walter McQuade wrote for The Nation that the Unisphere was a "bit of roadside inspirational decoration, a trite cartoon in iron" that portended badly for the 1964 World's Fair, while Bruno Zevi for Italian magazine L'Architettura cronache e storia called it a "silly idea" and petitioned U.S. President John F. Kennedy to prevent the Unisphere from being installed.

[20] Only one positive criticism emerged when the globe was announced when the National Arts Club called it "one of the outstanding achievements in structural sculpture of this decade.

[89] The Unisphere has been used as a setting or backdrop for several films and TV episodes, notably the American sitcom The King of Queens; the television show CSI: NY; the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Iron Man 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Spider-Man: Homecoming; and the movie Men in Black.

[88][90] The Unisphere has been shown frequently in music videos, in particular those from the New York hip-hop scene, such as A Tribe Called Quest's "Award Tour" and Craig Mack's "Flava in Ya Ear".

In 1976, George Willig and Jerry Hewitt scaled the structure for a short documentary made by New York University student Paul Hornstein, who had wanted "to prove that we can do a full-scale, high-quality movie production on our own".

[92] A member of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion also climbed the Unisphere in September 2019 to hang a banner protesting the 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires.