Queens Museum

The Queens Museum is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows, Corona Park in the borough of Queens, New York City. Established in 1972, it serves as the principal art museum for the borough and functions partly as a local history museum for the city. The institution is best known for housing the Panorama of the City of New York, a room-sized scale model of the five boroughs originally built for the 1964 New York World's Fair. As of 2026, the museum's director is Debra Wimpfheimer. The museum's building, constructed for the 1939 New York World's Fair as the New York City Pavilion, is itself a significant piece of New York history, having served multiple purposes including as the temporary home of the United Nations General Assembly.

The museum's origins trace back to the 1939 New York World's Fair, when the New York City Pavilion was designed by architect Aymar Embury II. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia envisioned the building as a showcase for "modern municipal government in all its aspects." The pavilion cost $1.645 million and was one of only seven structures preserved after the fair closed in October 1940. Following the fair, the building was converted to ice-skating and roller-skating rinks, opening on January 12, 1941. From 1946 to 1951, it served as the temporary meeting place for the United Nations General Assembly, where UNICEF was founded and the partitions of Korea and Palestine were decided. The building was renovated by architect Daniel Chait before serving again as the New York City Pavilion for the 1964 World's Fair. In November 1972, the northern part of the building opened as the Queens Center for Art and Culture, later renamed the Queens Museum of Art and then simply the Queens Museum. The museum underwent renovation in the late 1970s, adding a community gallery, and another in the 1990s with an eastern entrance. Architect Rafael Viñoly redesigned the interior in 1994, integrating galleries, classrooms, offices, and half the building as an ice-skating rink. Beginning in 2009, the museum reversed this mixed use, expanding to approximately 9,300 square meters, and reopened in November 2013. Another expansion was announced in the 2020s.

The Queens Museum's collection encompasses approximately 6,500 objects, combining modern art with significant archival and documentary materials. The institution maintains a large archive of artifacts from both the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs, selections of which are on permanent display. The collection is particularly strong in works that engage with urban infrastructure, environmental themes, and human rights. The museum hosts semi-annual rotating exhibitions focused on environmental protection and human rights. Its holdings also include the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany glass, a significant collection of decorative arts and craftsmanship displayed since 1995. The museum's identity as both an art institution and a local history museum shapes its collecting priorities, with particular attention to the diverse communities of Queens and the broader history of New York City.

The signature holding of the Queens Museum is the Panorama of the City of New York, a 1:1200 scale three-dimensional model of all five boroughs built for the 1964 World's Fair. The panorama contains approximately 900,000 individual building models and incorporates a daylight effect simulation. The model has been periodically updated to reflect the city's changing skyline, though as of 2021 it still displayed the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center, with plans to update the model following completion of the new World Trade Center. Another significant holding is the Relief Map of the New York City Water Supply System, also known as the Water System Model, created in 1939. The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany glass, displayed since 1995, represents an important holding in decorative arts. The museum has also presented exhibitions by artists including Cai Guo-Qiang, Dawoud Bey, Hedda Sterne, and Yue Minjun, among others.

The Queens Museum occupies the New York City Building at the western edge of Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, situated along the Avenue of the States and surrounded by the oval of United Nations Avenue. The building stands near the intersection of the Long Island Expressway (Interstate 495) and Grand Central Parkway, south of LaGuardia Airport and near sports facilities including Citi Field. The site is aligned on an eastward sight axis with the 43-meter steel Unisphere, designed by Gilmore David Clarke for the 1964 World's Fair, which stands in a fountain basin. The nearby Queens Zoo is also in the vicinity. Originally designed by Aymar Embury II as a permanent structure for the 1939 World's Fair, the building was proposed initially as a two-story "glass house" but was ultimately constructed as a rectangular building. A plaza called City Hall Square separated it from the Trylon and Perisphere, the central monument of the 1939 fair. The original landscaping included a spiral hedge ranging from 1 to 20 feet tall and English boxwood trimmed in the shape of the fair's seal. Malvina Hoffman's bas-relief Dances of the Races was installed to the east, and William Zorach's sculptural group Builders of the Future to the west.

The Queens Museum is located in Flushing Meadows, Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. The museum's website is http://www.queensmuseum.org/. As of 2026, the institution is directed by Debra Wimpfheimer. The museum operates as a public institution, and in 2005 it was among 406 institutions to receive funding from the Carnegie Corporation. The museum has achieved recognition in popular culture, appearing in the video games Grand Theft Auto 4 and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars under the name "Ice Skating Museum." In the latter game, the museum is depicted as being destroyed. The institution continues to serve its dual role as an art museum and educational center for one of New York City's most diverse boroughs, with expanded facilities following its 2013 reopening that provide approximately 9,300 square meters of space for exhibitions, education, and public programs.