Queens Museum

History

Early building use

The Queens Museum is located in the New York City Pavilion at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, designed by architect Aymar Embury II for the 1939 World's Fair. The fair was first announced in 1935, and engineering consultant J. Franklin Bell drew up preliminary plans for the fairground the next year, including a structure for the New York City government. The building was originally proposed as a two-story "glass house", but it was ultimately erected as a more conventional rectangular building. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia said he wanted the building to showcase "modern municipal government in all its aspects". In April 1937, the New York City Board of Estimate approved the sale of $180,000 in bonds to fund the construction of the City Building's foundation. That August, Psaty & Fuhrman submitted a low bid of $556,000 for the building's construction. The building's ceremonial cornerstone was laid in January 1938, and the facade was completed by the beginning of May. La Guardia used the building as his "summer City Hall" during mid-1938, and his office there was fitted with temporary mechanical equipment while other parts of the building were being completed.

The New York City Pavilion ultimately cost $1.645 million. The pavilion was the second-largest structure at the fair, after the United States pavilion, and it was intended as a permanent structure for the outset, in contrast to nearly all the other structures, which would have been demolished. Next to the building was a plaza named City Hall Square, which separated it from the Trylon and Perisphere, the central monument of the 1939 fair. Around it was a spiral hedge ranging from 1 to 20 feet (0.30 to 6.10 m) tall, as well as English boxwood trimmed in the shape of the fair's seal. Malvina Hoffman designed a bas-relief called Dances of the Races to the east of the building, while William Zorach designed the sculptural group Builders of the Future to the west. Inside the pavilion were dioramas, murals, models, and displays about various departments of the city government. The pavilion included exhibits on such topics as the WNYC radio station, the city's courts, and the Independent Subway System, along with stage shows and a voting demonstration. There were a total of 63 exhibits, as well as an auditorium.

La Guardia dedicated the building when the fair opened on April 30, 1939. The fair ran for two 6-month seasons until October 26, 1940. A special edition of New York Advancing, a book about the city government, was published in celebration of the fair's opening. The special edition included an official guide to the New York City Pavilion. After the end of the fair's first season in November 1939, the space east of the building was converted to a concert area, and furniture was stored in the pavilion prior to the 1940 season. A memorial plaque was installed on the New York City Pavilion after two policemen were killed in 1940 while attempting to defuse a bomb nearby.

Late 20th century

After the TBTA moved out of the New York City Pavilion, city parks commissioner August Heckscher II announced in November 1971 that part of the New York City Pavilion would be converted into Queens's first art museum. Heckscher organized a board of 14 trustees, and the city government provided $100,000 for the museum. During mid-1972, the mechanical systems for the building's skating rink were refurbished, and part of the building was renovated to accommodate the museum. A local group, the Flushing Meadows Corona Park World's Fair Association, also asked the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to conduct a historical study of the New York City Pavilion. Queens borough president Donald Manes announced in July 1972 that the Queens County Art and Cultural Center had been established at the New York City Pavilion. The museum opened on November 12, 1972, with Clare Fisher as the museum's first director. The writer Lawrence R. Samuel wrote that the building's conversion into a museum helped to raise Flushing Meadows Park's profile, and The New York Times described the museum as "a primary force in [the] renaissance of the arts" in Queens.

Originally, the Queens County Art and Cultural Center occupied 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2), and two-fifths of the museum's space was taken up by the Panorama. There was only about 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of actual display space, which meant that the museum had to close every time a temporary exhibit was being added or replaced. The museum had four to five school groups per day, though nearly as many school groups had to be denied admission to the lack of space. The museum's main entrance was at the northern end of the New York City Pavilion building, while the ice-skating rink occupied the structure's southern half. The museum's collection also had no clear focus; according to a 1991 New York Times article, many visitors assumed the Queens Museum was a history museum or knew only about its Panorama. Shortly after the museum opened, the city allocated $140,000 for additional upgrades to the New York City Pavilion, which was later increased to $317,000. The ice-skating rink continued to operate five days a week.

The Queens County Art and Cultural Center changed its name to the Queens Museum in late 1973. The board of trustees fired Fisher as the museum director that year, following disagreements over policy. Kenneth Kahn was hired to replace Fisher in 1974. The museum's eight employees subsequently expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of personnel guidance from the board of trustees, and the staff sought to restructure the museum. Kahn alleged in early 1975 that the trustees were "a closed corporation, representing a narrow spectrum of the community". The Friends of the Queens Museum, a volunteer group for the museum, suspended its operations to protest the trustees' actions. The museum's board of trustees fired Kahn in February 1975, along with the museum's administrator Betty Miller the next month. Several trustees also resigned, and the museum's staff took over the museum's gift shop from the Friends group. Kahn later sued several trustees, claiming that they had broken a contract and slandered him.

21st century

In 2001, the New York City Department of Design and Construction hosted an architectural design competition for a proposed renovation of the Queens Museum building. The museum hired Eric Owen Moss to design the expansion that December. The plans called for the relocation of the ice skating rink, as well as a new bent-glass roof, an exhibition space at the center of the structure, and a dirt mound facing Grand Central Parkway to the west. This would have doubled the museum's space and allowed it to accommodate more art exhibitions and programs. The city government also promised $22.5 million toward the museum's expansion, but the museum needed to raise another $15 million. Architectural critics derided Moss's plans, and preservationists described it as being incongruous with the building's original design; museum officials then voted to scale down Moss's plans. NYC Parks began building another ice rink nearby in 2002 to replace the New York City Pavilion's rink, but work on the new rink was delayed later that year due to funding shortages. The next year, city officials said they could not provide funds for the museum's expansion until 2006.

Tom Finkelpearl was hired as the museum's director in early 2002. Finkelpearl said at the time that many visitors to Flushing Meadows Corona Park continued to ignore the museum because the building looked "like it's closed, even when we're open". He was advocating for changes to the museum's renovation plans by late 2004, saying that Moss's plan "wasn't jelling from a practical perspective". Accordingly, the museum abandoned Moss's plan in early 2005. The museum solicited a new proposal from Grimshaw Architects, which agreed to work with local engineering firm Ammann & Whitney. Queens borough president Helen Marshall gave the museum a $10.6 million grant for the expansion in March 2006, which at the time was the largest gift the museum had ever received. Grimshaw presented revised designs for the expansion that October. The revised plans called for new facades to the west and east, as well as a skylit interior courtyard. At the time, the renovation was supposed to cost $37 million of which $21 million came from Marshall's office.

The museum began an expansion project in 2009. Grimshaw Architects and Ammann & Whitney developed plans for 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2) of exhibition, education, and office space, as well as eight new artist studios. The new space would be created on the site of the old ice skating rink. The ice rink was relocated to a new facility in the northeastern section of Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. and the interior of the ice rink was demolished by the beginning of 2010. The project ultimately ended up costing $69 million. The expanded museum reopened in November 2013 with a new entrance at Grand Central Parkway. After it reopened, the museum shortened its name to Queens Museum.

Building

The museum building, originally the New York City Pavilion, covers 105,000 square feet (9,800 m2) following the 2013 renovation. As constructed, the building measured 360 by 120 feet (110 by 37 m) across, with a ceiling 40 feet (12 m) high. The building includes exhibit spaces, event spaces, artists' studios, a cafe, and an atrium. The structure is one of five buildings that survive from the 1939 World's Fair. The other structures include a boathouse and an administration building in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park; the Parachute Jump on Coney Island; and the Belgian Building at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia. It is also one of several 1964 World's Fair structures that remain in the park, along with the New York Hall of Science, the New York State Pavilion, Terrace on the Park, and the Unisphere.

The exterior is primarily made of concrete. When the New York City Pavilion was built, it had rectangular pillars, glass-block walls, and a geometric cornice. In advance of the 1964 fair, the glass blocks were covered up, and the cornice was removed. Prior to the 2013 renovation, the building had no main entrance; thus, many visitors to Flushing Meadows–Corona Park did not know of the museum's existence. After the 2013 renovation, there is a 200-foot-wide (61 m), 27-foot-tall (8.2 m) glass wall on the western facade of the museum building. The glass facade consists of fritted glass panels interspersed with aluminum panels. At night, the facade is illuminated by LED lights that are visible from Grand Central Parkway immediately to the west. The eastern end of the building has a set of revolving doors embedded within a 30-foot-tall (9.1 m) curtain wall, which in turn is recessed behind a colonnade.

Collections and exhibits

Permanent collection

The museum's permanent collection includes 10,000 items related to the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs. As of 2013, about 900 World's Fair objects are on permanent display. Acquisitions over the years have included works by Salvador Dalí and Mark Dion.

The largest permanent exhibition at the Queens Museum is the Panorama of the City of New York, which was constructed by Lester Associates for the 1964 World's Fair. A celebration of the city's municipal infrastructure, this 9,335-square-foot (867.2 m2) architectural model includes almost every building that existed in all five boroughs in 1992, at a 1:1200 scale. One hundred employees from Raymond Lester Associates built the model in three years. The model is made of 273 panels. The panorama depicts 895,000 individual structures, which are made of plastic or wood. All of the bridges are made of brass. The panel depicting the Far Rockaway neighborhood was not originally installed due to space limitations; in 1987, the Far Rockaway panel was installed in its own room.

After the Fair closed, the Panorama remained open to the public, and Lester's team updated the map in 1967, 1968, and 1969. After 1970, very few changes were made until 1992, when again Lester Associates was hired to update the model, adding over 60,000 structures. In March 2009, the museum announced that it would allow people to donate at least $50 to have accurate scale models created and added. The mechanical "helicopter" vehicles for conveying exhibition visitors were showing signs of wear, and were removed before the 1994 reopening. The Panorama has also hosted temporary exhibits, such as models of unbuilt structures in the 2018 exhibit Never Built New York.

The current installation, dating to a 1990s renovation of the museum by Rafael Viñoly, features accessible ramps and an elevated glass floored walkway which surround the Panorama. Since 2023, the museum has also allowed visitors a closeup look at individual structures in the Panorama, via an electronic kiosk display.

The museum also displays the Relief Map of the New York City Water Supply System, which measures 18 by 30 feet (5.5 by 9.1 m) across, with a total area of 540 square feet (50 m2). The map is a scale model of the New York City water supply system and watershed. Tunnels and reservoirs are marked by lights that are placed across the map. The map is divided into 27 panels so it can be easily disassembled.

Non-permanent collection

Since 1995, the museum has maintained a partnership with the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass. Selections from the collection are on long-term display, drawn from a large private Tiffany collection assembled by Egon Neustadt and his wife Hildegard starting in the mid-1930s. The pieces originally went on display in 1997, after the museum's expansion was completed, and were intended to be exhibited for a decade. There are 440 pieces in the collection, most of which are kept in storage in Long Island City, Queens, and are not on public view. The history of the creation of Tiffany's artworks is featured in the Queens Museum exhibitions, as Tiffany Studios and Furnaces was once located in Corona, which were closed in the 1930s.

Temporary exhibits

The museum also stages temporary exhibits regularly. In its first decade, the museum staged eight to ten temporary exhibits annually. The museum's first-ever exhibition was a set of 19th-century landscapes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Starting in the 1970s, local artists' work was displayed at the museum every year, and there were two or three annual exhibitions of local artists' work. The topics of other exhibits in the 1970s included works by Joseph Cornell, animals in art, historical representations of cows, sports-themed art, the history of Queens, and items from the 1939 and 1964 fairs. During the 1980s, the topics of the museum's exhibits included American art films, 18th- and 19th-century European prints, Spanish gold artifacts, and the creation of the Panorama exhibit. By the end of that decade, the museum displayed about 15 exhibits a year.

The museum began hosting exhibits relating to Queens residents and ethnic groups in the 1990s. These included exhibits about Korean Americans and the musician Louis Armstrong. Exhibits in the first decade of the 21st century included a showcase of crime scene photographs from the Daily News' archives, a showcase of banners created by schoolchildren, a show about the diplomat Ralph Bunche, drawings from the court reporter William Sharp, and an exhibit of photographs of Robert Moses's work. During the 2010s, temporary exhibits included collections of World's Fair artifacts. When the museum reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic, it hosted exhibitions about the concept of home, the photographer Bruce Davidson, and children's art.

Programs and outreach

The Queens Museum has run numerous outreach programs for the surrounding community. In the 1970s, it offered a free art program for local youth. The museum also hosted Latin American cultural events and arts-education activities during the 1990s. When the museum building was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Queens Museum organized a food pantry for residents of the surrounding neighborhood. The museum launched an activist program for teens, the Queens Teens Institute for Art and Social Justice, in 2023.

The Queens Museum has also been involved in community projects. These have included the restoration of Corona Plaza, a public plaza near the New York City Subway's 103rd Street–Corona Plaza station, in the early 21st century. Starting in 2004, the museum helped sponsor the Queens Culture Trolley, which traveled between Flushing Meadows and the neighborhoods of Corona and Jackson Heights.

Operation

Management

The museum is operated by the Queens Museum of Art, which is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization since 1972. As of 2026, Queens Museum's director is Debra Wimpfheimer. In the 1970s, the Queens Museum was part of the Flushing Arts Council, a group of Flushing cultural institutions that also included Flushing Town Hall and Queens Botanical Garden.

Attendance and funding

The museum accommodated 60,000 or 100,000 annual visitors in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Roughly half of visitors came as part of school field trips. By the 2010s, the museum had 200,000 annual visitors; prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum accommodated 30,000 students annually. In 2020, the Queens Museum made admission free for all visitors, and the museum instead operates on a pay what you want model.

When the museum opened, it sold annual memberships. Members received regular newsletters and bulletins, and the museum also hosted member-only events and exhibition previews. As of 2024, the Queens Museum sells four tiers of memberships, and the museum hosts member-only publications, events, and exhibition previews. The Queens Museum is also part of the Culture Pass program, whose members can enter for free.

In the 1970s, the museum's annual operating budget totaled $150,000, of which four-fifths came from the New York City government. The budget grew steadily during the 1970s and 1980s, reaching $2 million by 1989. During the 1990s, the museum had an operating budget of $1.8 million, and seven-tenths of the budget was funded by the city or other public sources. For the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2022, the Queens Museum recorded total revenue of $6.38 million, expenses of $6.59 million, assets of $36.6 million, and liabilities of $364,000.