1964 New York World's Fair - Reuse of Pavilions and Major Exhibits

Reuse of Pavilions and Major Exhibits

Like its predecessor, the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair lost money. It was unable to repay its financial backers their investment, and it became embroiled in legal disputes with its creditors until 1970, when the books were finally closed and the New York World's Fair 1964-1965 Corporation was dissolved. Most of the pavilions constructed for the fair were demolished within six months following the fair's close. While only a handful of pavilions survived, some of them traveled great distances and found reuse following the fair:

• The Austria pavilion became a ski lodge at Cockaigne Ski Resort in western New York. On January 25, 2011 the building was destroyed by fire.
• The Wisconsin pavilion's front teepee-like portion became a radio station in Neillsville, Wisconsin. The pavilion's large rear structure that formed a squat-looking "H" (if seen from above) is the combined kitchen, dining hall, and recreation hall of Camp Ramah in upstate Lakewood, Pennsylvania.
• The US Royal tire-shaped Ferris wheel was relocated to become a landmark along Interstate 94 in the Metro Detroit Downriver community of Allen Park, Michigan.
• The Pavilion of Spain relocated to St. Louis, Missouri and is now a part of a Hilton Hotel.
• The Parker Pen pavilion became offices for the Lodge of Four Seasons in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri.
• The Johnson Wax disc-shaped theater was reworked by members of the Taliesen Fellowship and joined the S.C. Johnson Wax complex in Racine, Wisconsin, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
• The stained glass windows from the Vatican pavilion were built into Saint Mary's Church in Groton, Connecticut.
• The Christian Science pavilion became a church in Poway, California. The structure was demolished in 2006.
• The Mormon pavilion became a church in Plainview, New York, dedicated December 2, 1967 and still in use.
• A large oil painting of a woman, painted in 1964 by Roy Lichtenstein and titled New York World's Fair, is in the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• The carillon from the Coca-Cola Pavilion was moved to Stone Mountain Park, near Atlanta, Georgia.
• Mathematica: A World of Numbers... and Beyond, an interactive exhibit from the IBM Pavilion, was relocated to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, but is no longer there. An identical copy of the exhibit was obtained by the New York Hall of Science around 2000, and remains on display not far from the site of the original 1964 installation.
• The illuminated "G" from the large fiberglass square and compasses that stood in front of the Masonic Brotherhood Center was moved to the New York Masonic Home campus in Utica, New York and installed into a smaller sculpture. The Grand Lodge of New York installed a bronze sculpture by artist Donald De Lue, of George Washington in Masonic regalia at the fairgrounds after it closed. It still stands near the soccer fields. (De Lue also sculpted the Fair's iconic Rocket Thrower sculpture.)
• As noted, the Disney-created attraction It's a small world was transferred to Disneyland, along with the "Carousel of Progress" and the first Abraham Lincoln audio-animatronics figure for the original Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln show. Scenery and the audio-animatronics dinosaurs from the Ford Magic Skyway show were installed in the Disneyland Railroad's Primeval World Diorama, and the attraction's actual WEDway ride system was improved upon and used for Tomorrowland's PeopleMover.
• Some of the light fixtures that lined the walkways can be found still functioning at Penn Hills Resort in the Poconos, Analomink, Pennsylvania, the Orange County Fairgrounds in Middletown, New York, and Canobie Lake Park in Salem, New Hampshire.
• The Skyway tower structures and gondolas were moved to Six Flags Great Adventure (at that time called Great Adventure) in New Jersey for use from 1974 to the present.
• The New England Pavilion was disassembled and moved to South Portland, Maine where most of it was reassembled and still in use today as a small shopping mall at 50 Maine Mall Road.
• The World's Fair Building/Churchill Tribute was dismantled after the fair and later reassembled as the aviary for the Flushing Meadows zoo (now Queens Zoo). It is still in use.
• The Triumph of Man exhibit from the Traveler's Insurance Pavilion was on display at the original location of the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio from 1966 to 1999 when the museum moved. It was revamped as the Time Tunnel in 1983.