Queens Museum

The museum's permanent collection consists of around 10,000 items, over 6,000 of which are documents and objects related to the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs, some of which are on long-term display. Recent acquisitions, either through purchase or donation, include works by Salvador Dalí, Mark Dion, Andrew Moore's photographs from Robert Moses and the Modern City (a collection of 20th century photographs from the 1964 World's Fair Kodak Pavilion), crime scene photographs from the Daily News Archive (1920s–1960s), and nearly 1,000 drawings by the court reporter and political cartoonist William Sharp.

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 Dr. Egon Neustadt and his wife Hildegard starting in the mid-1930s. The collection consists of windows, lamps, and related objects, and also boasts an archive of nearly 300,000 pieces of flat and sheet glass formerly stocked by the Tiffany Studios. A selected subset of the collection, containing representative samples of each type, color, texture, and pattern of this material is being established for exhibition and study.

The history of the creation of Tiffany's artworks is featured in the Queens Museum exhibitions, as Tiffany Studios and Furnaces was once located within studios in Corona, which were closed in the 1930s.[9][10]

The repeatedly updated Panorama of the City of New York, as it appeared in 2011

The best-known permanent exhibition at the Queens Museum is the Panorama of the City of New York, which was commissioned by Robert Moses 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 every single building constructed before 1992 in all five boroughs, at a scale of 1 inch = 100 feet (1:1200).[11] The Panorama was built by a team of 100 people working for the architectural model makers Raymond Lester Associates in the three years before the opening of the 1964 World's Fair.[11] The model was constructed in 273 sections, depicting a total of 895,000 individual structures; the section showing the Far Rockaway neighborhood was never installed, due to space limitations.[11]

The Panorama was one of the most successful attractions at the 1964 Fair, with "millions" of people paying 10 cents each for a 9-minute simulated helicopter ride around the city.[11]

After the Fair closed, the Panorama remained open to the public, and Lester's team updated the map in 1967, 1968, and 1969.[11] After 1970, very few changes were made until 1992, when again Lester Associates was hired to update the model to coincide with the re-opening of the museum, after a two-year total renovation of the building by Rafael Viñoly. The model makers changed over 60,000 structures to bring it up-to-date at that time.[11]

In March 2009, the museum announced the intention to update the Panorama on an ongoing basis. To raise funds and draw public attention, the museum will allow individuals and developers to have accurate scale models made of buildings newer than the 1992 update created and added, in exchange for a donation of at least $50. More-detailed models of smaller apartment buildings and private homes, now represented by generic models, can also be added.[11]

As of February 2021, the original twin towers of the World Trade Center are still on the map, even though some new buildings have been built on the actual site; the museum has chosen to allow the destroyed structures to remain until construction is complete, rather than representing the ongoing construction. The first new building to be added under the new program was the new Citi Field stadium of the New York Mets; the model of the old Shea Stadium was to be displayed elsewhere in the museum.[12]

The mechanical "helicopter" vehicles for conveying exhibition visitors were showing signs of wear, and were removed before the 1994 reopening.[11] The current installation by Viñoly features accessible ramps and an elevated walkway which surround the Panorama, allowing viewers to proceed at their own pace, or to linger for as long a look as they desire. Because of space constraints, portions of the walkway are cantilevered over the outer edges of the map, but a glass floor still allows views of the model below.[11] As in the original installation, tiny scale model airplanes take off and land at LaGuardia Airport, mechanically guided by long wires.

The New York City Panorama was featured in two 2011 fictional works: the movie New Year's Eve directed by Garry Marshall, and the book Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick. Each year, the Queens Museum hosts the "Panorama Challenge", a trivia contest run by The City Reliquary. Contestants use the Panorama to identify various New York City landmarks.

A scale model of the 1964 New York World's Fair site, showing all the buildings and pavilions of the time, is located in a separate area devoted to World's Fair exhibits.

For the 1939 World's Fair, city agencies were invited to produce exhibits for the New York City Pavilion. The Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity (a New York City Department of Environmental Protection predecessor agency) commissioned the Cartographic Survey Force of the Works Progress Administration to create the large Relief Map of the New York City Water Supply System and watershed. Work began in 1938, and a team of map builders toiled over the map with an immense depression-era budget of $100,000 (equivalent to $2,104,000 in 2022). At 540 square feet (50 m²), the map was too big for the allocated space in the New York City pavilion, resulting in its elimination from the World's Fair. Ten years later, the map made its first and only public debut at the city's Golden Anniversary Exposition in Manhattan's Grand Central Palace.[13]

By the start of the 21st century, the 27-piece map in storage was in desperate need of conservation. In October 2006, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and the Queens Museum sent the historic display to McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Lab in Oberlin, Ohio, for restoration. Over the next 18 months, conservators and technicians worked on the model full-time, removing over 70 years of accumulated dirt and re-paintings. Clearing away the dirt and debris, they found much of the original geography and painted details to be intact or recoverable. Road maps and satellite images were used to restore lost portions of the model.

Near the 70th anniversary of the model and the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of the Catskill System's construction, the map was restored to its original form and was installed in the former New York City Building (now the Queens Museum), where it remains on long-term loan.[14]

Located on the second floor of the Queens Museum, this exhibit displays memorabilia from both the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs. This exhibit has a long term connection with Queens Museum because both events were held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, and the museum building is the only remnant structure surviving from both celebrations. The online catalog contains over 10,000 items in total from both fairs.[15][16]

A scale model of the 1964 New York World's Fair site, including all of its buildings and pavilions, is located in the exhibit gallery. It is protected under a clear plastic dome, allowing a close examination of the model, in which each significant structure is labeled with a small flag.

Each year, through exhibitions and programs the Queens Museum serves about 200,000 visitors. Attendance is drawn from Queens, the other NYC boroughs and Nassau County as well as international visitors. Museum audiences are distinguished by the diversity of visitors, reflecting the variety of ethnicities living in the borough. Over the last 20 years, a demographic shift has transformed Queens into the most culturally diverse county in the nation, according to the 2000 census: 37% of the population is White, 25% Latino, 20% African-American, and 18% Asian. There are roughly 138 languages spoken in Queens, and more than half of the households are run by people born outside of the United States.

The Queens Museum's learning programs annually engages over adults and children.

The museum offers visitors a range of film screenings, dance performances, musical experiences, and public dialogues to provide a point of entry for understanding exhibitions, in addition to making some spaces in the museum available for rental by outside groups.

The Public Events Department at the Queens Museum was founded in 2002, and is said to have resulted in increased attendance at the museum.