Mapping New York’s Fair

The decrepit remains of the Tent of Tommorrow haunt Flushing Meadows.

By Theresa Juva

The Great Texaco Road Map Floor of the 1964 World’s Fair captivated people with a 22,000-square-foot capillary-network of roads that pinpointed every nook and cranny in New York State—and not to mention every Texaco station.

The sprawling, $1 million terrazzo map floor, funded by Nelson Rockefeller and laid down in the “Tent of Tomorrow,” was the country’s first pop culture piece of art, an intricate masterpiece that documented 50,000 miles across the state.

In the decades since the fair, the map deteriorated from lack of repairs, overgrowing vegetation, vandalism, and natural elements. The cracking and disintegrating pieces turned the floor into a decaying mosaic that has sparked an attempt to salvage the World’s Fair treasure.

University of Pennsylvania students have started boxing the Terrazzo Map. Photos: Theresa Juva

Last summer, the Parks Dept. received $55,000 in grants to remove the floor and preserve part of it. Historical preservation students from the University of Pennsylvania are in the process of meticulously excavating and documenting the segments.

Although a chain and door closes off the site, 40 boxes labeled as fragments of the Texaco map are piled near the entrance. According to a report from the University of Pennsylvania, the project is divided into stages that will photograph and organize the 530 panels before the Manhattan and Long Island portions are collected for storage. A handful of Long Island pieces will undergo the conservation process, and the work will correspond to an exhibit at the Queens Museum of Art, where people will be able to observe the students and learn about the process of saving artifacts.