Whispering Column of Jerash
Queens, New York
There were 36 countries with pavilions at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. All traces of them are gone -- except for the oldest piece of all, a 30-foot-high marble "whispering column" erected in 120 AD by Romans in the Jordanian city of Jerash. It was part of the Temple of Artemis, and apparently a lot of its columns were just lying around. King Hussein of Jordan took one, brought it to the Fair, and set it up next to the Jordanian pavilion near the Court of the Astronauts. The "whispering" part probably refers to an acoustical anomaly back at the temple in Jordan (we have similar structures in the USA) but the column doesn't whisper in Queens.