The U.S. Open crowds at Flushing Meadows have come and gone, but the area of Queens is getting more attention as a structure familiar to generations of New Yorkers enters a new chapter.
Helen Day remembers butterflies in her stomach as a girl stepping into the World’s Fair.
“You walked down the roads, and everything was wide and beautifully constructed and just a magical place,” she said.
In 1964 and 1965, the international expo opened a portal to the future, showcasing inventions from a video phone to a monorail. The fair is recognized as an influential predecessor to modern theme parks.
“And we got to see ‘It’s a Small World,'” she said. “That’s where it first opened, and Disney took it later on to Disney World.”
This 1964 file photo shows the New York State Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Queens. As the fair’s 50th anniversary approaches, the remains of the New York State Pavilion are getting renewed attention, from preservationists who believe they should be restored, and from critics who see them as hulking eyesores that should be torn down. Neither option would come cheap: an estimated $14 million for demolition and $32 million to $72 million for renovation.
Uncredited / AP
Now president of the Richmond Hill Historical Society, Day has held onto a keepsake from her visit all those decades ago, a bright blue engraved medallion surrounding a dime.
Her token is not the fair’s only surviving relic. Something much larger remains — the monumental steel and concrete structure called the New York State Pavilion, wrapped in scaffolding with a look that’s part cyborg and part circus.
Its towers loom over Queens.
“It’s the last full-size pavilion left over from the ’64 World’s Fair,” Queens Historical Society Executive Director Jason Antos said. “There were two groups of people, those who remembered it and those who had never experienced it, who would drive past it on the expressway and wonder what it was.”
“The little brother to the Unisphere”
After the fair, New York State Pavilion briefly served as a roller rink and concert venue. Later, its towers made a memorable appearance as alien spaceships in the 1997 movie “Men in Black.”
The pavilion sat largely dormant for decades. As it decayed, its future grew ever more uncertain.
The New York State Pavilion, a rusting remnant of the 1964 World’s Fair near LaGuardia Airport in Queens , is seen in New York, Wednesday, June 6, 2007. The pavilion was named on the World Monuments Fund’s 2007 list of the 100 most endangered sites. This year’s list is the first to add global warming to a roster of forces the organization says are threatening humanity’s architectural and cultural heritage.
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
“It’s a Philip Johnson-designed structure. That’s a rarity in New York City,” urban planner Salmaan Khan said.
In 2013, Khan co-founded People for the Pavilion, a non-profit devoted to raising awareness and pushing for funding to preserve the pavilion.
“So many people identify it instinctively. It’s almost like, I would say, the little brother to the Unisphere as something that people really visually connect with Flushing Meadows,” he said.
Spherical towers from the New York State Pavilion, far right, rusting remnants of the 1964 World’s Fair near LaGuardia Airport in Queens, are shown behind the well-known Unisphere, another remnant of the ’64 World’s Fair, in New York, Wednesday, June 6, 2007. The pavilion was named on the World Monuments Fund’s 2007 list of the 100 most endangered sites. This year’s list is the first to add global warming to a roster of forces the organization says are threatening humanity’s architectural and cultural heritage.
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
Amid passionate community engagement, the New York City Parks Department opted to stabilize the structure, a project costing more than $50 million. By the end of 2026, NYC Parks expects the pavilion to reopen for limited tours and an electrical upgrade will allow its towers to light up at night.
“I think it’s a tremendous victory that it’s been funded. I think that there’s a lot of work to do still,” Khan said. “My goal is that my son someday can use it and play in it whereas, for decades, it’s just been this thing that was off in the background.”
Though it would take untold millions more to reopen the pavilion in full to the public, advocates are heartened by the progress.
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