Photos and Video Inside the New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Corona Park

On Saturday, we brought 25 lucky Untapped Cities readers into a special behind-the-scenes tour inside the New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The visit was in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, currently in the midst of an Indiegogo campaign with The Cities Project by Heineken to raise funds to repair the entryway of the 1964-65 World’s Fair site, with NYC Parks, and the New York State Pavilion Paint Project. Mitch Silverstein, one of the leaders who heads up the Paint Project led the tour. As Janice Melnick of NYC Parks told the group, “You were given access that very few people get, as this particular visit offered access not usually available on other public visits.

The readers were selected through a giveaway, but we also broadcasted the tour live on Facebook (see above).

On this visit, we learned the ins and outs of the Pavilion – its role in the World’s Fair, its deterioration, the strong community efforts to save and restore it that have taken place, and the nuts and bolts of the construction. The New York State Pavilion Paint Project has been one of the driving forces behind the restoration and awareness of the site in the city, with the National Trust for Historic Preservation taking the helm at the national level. NYC Parks has been a strong partner in the efforts, opening up the site to the public for visit days over the last several years.

We hope to produce this tour again, sign up on our advance notification list for a potential future giveaway and check out more photographs from the visit by Untapped Cities contributors Bhushan Mondkar and Jeff Reuben below: