What a makeover mess for the New York State Pavilion.
Photos posted online claim to prove that tiles from a huge state road map created for the 1964 World's Fair icon were cracked and left lying in dust and weeds after undergoing a heralded $40,000 restoration.
[Photo caption: Parks Dept. preservation director John Krawchuk points out missing and damaged tiles (below) in January from map created for NYS Pavilion at 1964 World's Fair. Hagen for News]
A spokeswoman for the city Parks Department, which cares for the pavilion, said she didn't know if restored tiles had gone back into the pavilion at some point. But she said the tiles were put into special-made crates under supervision of a historic preservation specialist and are now safe in an enclosed storage space.
Early this year, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania pulled out 13 tiles - mostly from the Long Island part of the map - and restored several with a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Queens Museum of Art then put a collection of tiles - some restored, some not - on display for an exhibit that began in January and ended in May.
A few weeks later, photos were posted on a World's Fair fan Web site that showed some tiles with the Long Island forks visibly cracked and back inside the aging pavilion. It's unclear when the photos were taken.
Convinced the pictures were shot after the exhibit ended, visitors to the Web site posted angry messages blasting the city. "If this is what they do with $40,000, what would they do with the millions it'll take to fix the pavilion?" asked Christian Kellberg, 56, who attended the 1964 fair. But Parks Department spokeswoman Patricia Bertuccio denied the city would neglect the tiles after working toward restoration.
Conservator John Hinchman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who managed the map project, said he wasn't sure if the tiles in the photos matched the ones he helped preserve. Tom Finkelpearl, executive director of the Queens Museum of Art, said he hadn't seen the photos and didn't know whether to trust them. But he figured the tiles wouldn't have suffered damage from being back in the pavilion.
"What destroyed the tiles was not the weather," Finkelpearl said. "It was the plants that were growing into them and cracking them apart."
To view photos posted by the fan go to:
www.worldsfaircommunity.org/index.php?showtopic=8024&st=0
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