Borough advocates have been pushing for preservation at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park since the city secured funding to restore the New York State Pavilion, which stands within it.
In the latest chapter of ongoing efforts to beautify the northeast Queens park, state Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) announced he helped secure $250,000 along with the city Parks Department to renovate two baseball fields there, officials said. Hevesi and Parks acquired the money through a Community Capital Assistance grant and said it will help install new backstops and fencing, re-grade the infield and add grass turf in the center to prevent flooding.
[Not the Pavilion]
Hevesi’s announcement came just days after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo rolled out more than $5 million in awards to 14 different historic spots that suffered damage from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 – one of them being the New York State Pavilion.
Cuomo allotted $127,000 of that money to the city Parks Department to help pay for a conditions assessment of damages to the pavilion’s cable roof structure.
[Wow! $127,000! That's like 1/10 of 1% of what's needed to restore it.]
This month, the New York Mets baseball club also announced it would be donating part of Friday’s home game ticket sales towards the People for the Pavilion advocacy group to help preserve the pavilion in celebration of the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the World’s Fair. In a statement, the team reflected on the historic site and how extra funding was needed to help keep it standing.
The team is playing like shit. I bet that was a huge haul of dough! And the Mets just noticed that the Pavilion needed help after being in the same park with it since 1964?
If anyone thinks these efforts are serious, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell you.
13 comments:
The big haul at Citi Field could have been substantial. If 5,000 tickets were sold online, at $5 a ticket , the Pavilion would have received $25k. True the Mets should have cut a check for $500k on the spot without any need for a ticket promotion.
The cable review will find the wire rope to be so deteriorated that it would have to be replaced.
Tear down the tent portion of the site,
and restore the iconic towers.
Convert the lowest level of the towers into a World's Fair Museum with the middle level as an observation deck.
The top level should be leased and used as a top end lounge/ possible wedding site.
That should pay for the maintance of the
towers.
Then light them in a spectacular way so that they can be seen for miles.
Redesign the land from the tent site into an appropriate secure parking area for the towers as well as the Theater in the Park.
Relandscape and theatrically light the road from the Queens Museum to the Towers.
This creates a more attractive core area that could be better utilized especially during periods of moderate weather.
Turn the towers into affordable housing and pack them with 3x the number of families that they can hold. THAT will get funded.
The tent crown cables were to support the Kewall roof panals, water drain and backlights, they are not needed and can be removed so why blow $$ on another study ?
HOWEVER the cables and lanyard's suspending the observation deck floors are a different story (talk about a 3 ring circus) These f_cking assholes have it all backwards.
(for those who dont know those heavy concrete and steel deck floors are actually suspended via cables from cantilever arms with brackets ONLY for lateral stability)
I'm convinced the plan all along has been to conduct these study's hoping the results will show imminent catastrophic failure to receive state funds for emergency demolition.
--If not wait another 5-10 years and try again.
The highest tower rises to 226 feet. Aren't you impressed?
FMCP already has a wedding site - Terrace on the Park. Do we need two?
This is posturing and I'm surprised how naive people are when it comes to the Tent of Tomorrow and the Observation Towers.
This may be posturing but the $6 million from the city is real. And probably would not be allocated if they weren't serious because of how stupid failing to follow through after that would look.
Are you mad? Don't destroy historic structures to put in parking.
I think anonymous #2 is on to something.
Anon2 wants to destroy the park. It already has way too many cars driving through it on busy days, and instead of a usable public space he wants car storage space so he doesn't have to walk from one of the many existing parking lots. The park has a circulation issue: electric buses, bike share, and at night well lit paths connecting the many existing parking areas to park destinations far from them is a better solution on busy days. Walking around the park should not be made an unpleasant experience by the mad drivers of NYC speeding by. Why don't Queens residents deserve car free park space when the other boroughs have it?
These were not designed or constructed as permanent structures and they haven't been maintained for almost 50 years. Spending limited park resources on them now seems a bit too little, too late.
Any restorative efforts should be focused on the terrazzo map of New York State (if it can still be salvaged). The tent and the towers should be demolished and the area should be covered with trees, plantings and lawns.
Trees, plantings, lawns, and terrazzo map for the area anon? Sounds a lot better than a parking lot.
Anon: 9 - The "Map of New York State" sponsored by Texaco - is one hell of a high maintenance effort - especially without a roof and enclosing walls to protect it. It would have to be reconstructed from scratch in any case.
It's just too fragile to be recreated and protected from nature, wear, and vandals.
Unwelding and jacking down the tent crown is far more work and danger then cleaning it all up.
The terrazzo map is to far gone to save, most of all Manhattan & Queens has been chopped out by vandals meaning the best parts of the map ARE COMPLETELY GONE.
To add All of the Texaco stars have been chopped out (also gone)the whole map would have to be re-created (nobody cares about a copy of a painting or any art)
FORGET THIS MAP MAKING RESTORATION SO COMPLICATED AND EXPENSIVE look at the bigger picture !!!.
They should get in there back-fill the tent column pile caps for stabilization, cover it up, start sandblasting & painting like they do the bridges. These new modern bridge paints inhibit rust and last a long time.
Then LIGHT IT UP and get tenants.
BTW-Otis still has the engineering diagrams schematics for the amusement elevators and can remake ANY of the parts
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