Queens Museum
52-01 Grand Central Parkway | also 126 Meridian Road, 56-01 Grand Central Parkway | Flushing Meadows-Corona Park | built 1939
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1938
Mayor La Guardia works from the unfinished city pavilion as his summer City Hall
Aymar Embury II designed the New York City Building for the 1939 World's Fair, and its cornerstone was laid in January 1938. While parts of the structure were still being finished, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia used it as his "summer City Hall" in mid-1938, with temporary mechanical equipment fitted to his office. La Guardia said he wanted the pavilion to show off modern city government in every aspect.
“La Guardia used the building as his "summer City Hall" during mid-1938, and his office there was fitted with temporary mechanical equipment…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1939
La Guardia dedicates the New York City Pavilion as the 1939 World's Fair opens
La Guardia dedicated the building on the fair's opening day. Built for $1.645 million, the pavilion was the fair's second-largest structure after the United States building and one of the few meant to be permanent. Inside were 63 exhibits, among them dioramas, murals and displays on WNYC radio, the courts and the Independent Subway System, plus stage shows and a voting demonstration. Malvina Hoffman's bas-relief Dances of the Races stood to its east and William Zorach's Builders of the Future to its west.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1941
The old fair pavilion reopens as ice and roller skating rinks
Within days of the fair's close in October 1940, the Parks Department sought $25,000 to turn the building into a rink. A roller rink filled the northern half and an ice rink the southern half, and the park's first sports facility opened on January 12, 1941. Some 150,000 skaters and visitors came in the first three months and 1.4 million over five years; skating resumed in 1952 after the United Nations left.
“The rinks opened on January 12, 1941, as the park's first sporting facility.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1946
The United Nations General Assembly moves into the pavilion as its temporary home
In April 1946 Secretary-General Trygve Lie chose the building as the General Assembly's meeting hall, and a $2.27 million renovation paid for by the city and UN put an auditorium in its northern half. A formal ceremony was held on October 18, 1946. During the assembly's stay, which lasted until October 20, 1951, it created UNICEF and approved the partition plan for Palestine. A 1958 UN stamp later pictured the building.
“Once the renovations were completed, the UN took over the building that September, and a formal ceremony was hosted on October 18, 1946.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1964
The city pavilion is rededicated for the 1964 fair around its new Panorama of New York
Robert Moses reused the building as the city's exhibit hall for the 1964 World's Fair, and it was rededicated on April 25, 1964. Its main draw was a new scale model of all five boroughs, the Panorama of the City of New York, that cost $600,000 and took two years to build; a simulated helicopter ride over it cost 10 cents. The building also held an ice show, Dick Button's Ice-Travaganza, which flopped, while the Panorama eventually averaged 1,400 visitors a day.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1972
Queens' first art museum opens in the northern half of the old pavilion
Parks commissioner August Heckscher II announced in 1971 that part of the building would become an art museum for Queens. The Queens County Art and Cultural Center opened on November 12, 1972, with Clare Fisher as director, while the ice rink kept running in the southern half. With the Panorama taking two-fifths of its 50,000 square feet, the museum had only about 10,000 square feet for displays. It became the Queens Museum in late 1973.
“The museum opened on November 12, 1972, with Clare Fisher as the museum's first director.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1975
Met director Thomas Hoving steps in as the Queens Museum's interim director after a fight with the board
The trustees had fired the first director, Clare Fisher, in 1973, and her successor Kenneth Kahn accused them of being a closed group representing a narrow slice of the community. After the board fired Kahn in February 1975 and several trustees quit, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's director, Thomas Hoving, was brought in as interim director that March, and the turmoil eased. A permanent director, Janet Schneider, was not hired until 1978.
“Thomas Hoving, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's director, was hired as the museum's interim director in March 1975…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1992
The Panorama is taken out and brought up to date with more than 60,000 new buildings
In 1992 the room-sized model was removed from the museum and updated over two years. Workers checked each of its 273 sections against maps, aerial photographs and site visits, replacing more than 60,000 buildings; newer pieces were made of plastic or plexiglass rather than painted by hand. The model now shows 895,000 structures at one inch to 100 feet, so its Empire State Building stands almost 15 inches tall.
Source: atlasobscura.com
- 2013
A $69 million expansion replaces the old ice rink and gives the museum a glass front
Grimshaw Architects and Ammann & Whitney designed an expansion begun in 2009 on the site of the building's ice rink, which moved to a new facility elsewhere in the park. The project added exhibition, education and office space and eight artist studios. The museum reopened in November 2013 with an entrance on Grand Central Parkway behind a 200-foot-wide glass wall lit by LEDs at night, and it then shortened its name to Queens Museum.
“The project ultimately ended up costing $69 million. The expanded museum reopened in November 2013 with a new entrance at Grand Central Parkway.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Queens MuseumWikipedia
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All 12 buildings with stories in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park