The observation towers at the New York State Pavilion went up for the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller commissioned Philip Johnson to design the pavilion, and the tallest of its three towers rises 226 feet over the park. NYC Parks owns the site, and our scope is the concrete restoration: cleaning, biological growth removal, crack and patch repairs, and an anti-graffiti coating on the lower 8 feet of each tower.
Methods and materials get tested on mockups before any repair goes full scale. Cleaning mockups ran at pressures from 15 to 25 psi and at 35 psi, with a Quintek Rotec rig and glass media. Cut-out and rebar prep, patching with Jahn mortar, and the anti-graffiti coating are each tested the same way, on a small area first.
The work extends past the towers themselves to pier-top patching and repairs at the Plaza Level's peristyle piers, ramp, and stair walls, along with removal of embedded metal inserts from the concrete.
Tower 3 carries the largest single piece of the job: 8,082 square feet of cleaning and 185 linear feet of interior crack repair. Across the site, the work totals 17,327 square feet of concrete cleaning, 1,375 square feet of graffiti removal, 3,412 square feet of anti-graffiti coating, and 245 linear feet of crack repair.
Sixty-two years after the Fair opened, the towers are still standing over the park. This time under scaffold instead of flags. The archival photograph on this page shows the pavilion during the fair itself, towers and all, long before any of this work began.
Scope of Work
Concrete Restoration
- Concrete cleaning and biological growth removal
- Crack repair
- Patch repair with Jahn mortar
- Anti-graffiti coating on the lower 8 feet of each tower
- Pier-top patching and repairs at the Plaza Level's peristyle piers, ramp, and stair walls
- Mockup testing of every method before full-scale work
About Graciano Corporation
Founded in 1916 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Graciano Corporation is one of the oldest and most experienced masonry and concrete restoration firms in the United States. With offices in Pittsburgh, PA, New York, NY, and Florida, we perform 90% of all labor in-house with our own skilled journeymen. Graciano is a WBENC-certified Woman Business Enterprise with deep experience in concrete restoration on public and landmark sites.