On January 15, 2011, the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, opened its redesigned and expanded building after a $65 million project. The museum, originally opened in 1988 in the former East Coast home of Paramount Pictures, is devoted to the art, history, and technology of film, television, video, and digital media. The expansion, designed by Leeser Architecture, doubled the institution's size and added a new theater and education space, while the permanent exhibition Behind the Screen was also redesigned. The reopening gave New York a larger museum platform for time-based media, preservation, public screenings, and hands-on interpretation of production technologies.
The reopening strengthened moving-image culture's claim to full museum treatment alongside traditional visual arts.