The enlarged Queens Museum, which will open to the public in October, brings new technology and renewed purpose to a 100,000-square-foot building that has seen a hodgepodge of uses over the years. Back in 1939, as the New York City Pavilion, it stood alongside the famous Trylon and the Perisphere. When the fair closed, it alone remained in what is now Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. It briefly housed the United Nations General Assembly. And later, for the 1964 World’s Fair, it sported a new attraction: a huge scale model of the city.
Still a compelling sight, the Panorama of the City of New York was originally viewed from amusement park-like “helicopters.” They were replaced by cantilevered viewing platforms in a 1990s renovation by Rafael Viñoly. Since its founding in 1972, the museum, which now administers that panorama, has shared the remainder of the building with an ice rink.
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