nypavilion4, originally uploaded by base10blog.

Base10 spent this past Sunday morning in Flushing Meadow Park, only this time he draged along Mrs. Base10 to carry stuff. The above structure is called the New York State Pavilion and was erected for the 1964 World's Fair. Base10 previously posted an image of it here, but it's hard to get sense of the massivness of the structure from that angle. This image was taken from the south side of the Long Island Expressway and shows just how big this thing is.

nypavilion2, originally uploaded by base10blog.

This image is taken from the bridge connecting the west side of the park to the east side. You can see the corner of the main pavilion at the bottom right of the photograph. Exterior elevators used to travel up and down the towers along those tracks.

nypavilion1, originally uploaded by base10blog.

This image was tken from the bridge that connects the north side of the park with the lake on the south side. You can make out the guy wires on the roof of the main pavilion. Base10 remembers as a youth that there were multiolored translucent tiles on these wires. These were removed as a dangerous hazard in the eighties.

nypavilion3, originally uploaded by base10blog.

This is a wideangle shot from the east-west bridge. Note the slight fisheye effect. You can see the Queens Theater in the Park in the lower left corner. It is the only structure still in current use on the site of the Pavilion.

While Base10 was barely a gleam in Base10 Senior's eye at the time of the World's Fair, he did grow up with the remnants of the Fair in his youth. It is a shame that the NY Pavilion is literally rotting away. You can learn much more about the New York Pavilion, its glorious past and its sad decline here. Also, click here for a current proposal to turn the Pavilion into an Air-and-Space Museum--a move Base10 wholeheartedly supports.
- posted by Base10 @ 8:10 PM