QMA Plans Expansion Into Ice Rink
BY RICHARD GENTILVISO

The Queens Museum of Art and World's Fair Ice Skating Rink have lived in a two-family house since 1972. But by this summer, the Museum will double its space when it expands into the south side of the New York City Building the two facilities have shared for more than three decades.

With the Olympic-size pool officially open, the estimated opening date for a year-round National Hockey League (NHL) regulation size ice rink at the new Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Pool and Rink is set for this fall.

"The ice skating rink is still there (in the New York City Building). This is the last season," Tom Finkelpearl, executive director of the Queens Museum of Art said, at the March meeting of Community Board 4 in Corona.

Finkelpearl said the museum expansion, which was announced in 2006 at a cost of $37 million, is fully contracted and set to go forward with groundbreaking planned for the summer. The work is going to take two years, during which the museum will remain open.

An initial plan, rejected by preservationists who wanted exteriors to remain truer to the original 1939 structure, was replaced by plans from Grimshaw Architects. New entrances on both the east and west sides of the building will welcome visitors into a large, skylit lobby with glass etched paneling running along most of the height and length of the west facade, making the museum visible from the Grand Central Parkway.

A new central gallery, spacious enough for the display of large-scale art works and/or hosting special events will be surrounded by a suite of seven smaller galleries. Diffused natural light will permit more light in the building without harming art works.

With open space in the center of the building, 45-foot ceilings and skylights, Finkelpearl said visitors will be able to see much better. There will be about 30,000 square feet of extra exhibition space, he said.

Since taking up residence on the north side of the New York City Building in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in 1972 as the Queens Center for Art and Culture, the Queens Museum of Art has long sought the additional space occupied by the ice rink on the south side of the building.

Built to house the New York City Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, the New York City Building became a recreation center for the newly created Flushing Meadows-Corona Park after the 1939/40 World's Fair. It is now the only surviving building from that World's Fair.

From 1946 to 1950, the New York City Building was home to the General Assembly of the newly formed United Nations. After the U.N. left, it again became a recreation site for roller and ice skating.

For the 1964/65 World's Fair, it again served as the New York City Pavilion, introducing the "Panorama of New York City". The exhibit remained and is a significant part of the museum's collection today.