The Tent of Tomorrow is a elliptical structure measuring 250 by 350 feet (76 by 107 m) across, with a cable suspension roof and a terrazzo highway map of New York state on its floor.

[10] Another change to the original plans was the addition of observation towers, since Rockefeller wanted the New York State Pavilion to be the tallest structure in the fair.

[11][22][24] The structure was to contain a Tent of Tomorrow (also known as the County Fair of the Future[22]) for exhibits and events, a theater called Theaterama, and three observation towers.

[11][15][24] The state government allocated $11 million to the World's Fair, expecting to earn revenue by selling tickets to the pavilion's restaurants and observation deck.

[32] Workers began pouring concrete for the observation towers' columns in June 1963, and the layout of the Tent of Tomorrow had been finalized by the middle of that year.

[46] The cost increases prompted an investigation from Louis J. Lefkowitz, the state's attorney general, who looked into the records of several hundred subcontractors.

[70] According to a National Park Service report, toward the end of the 1964 season, nearly one-quarter of all visitors to the World's Fair were recorded as having visited the New York State Pavilion, or about 55,000 people daily.

[76] An art exhibit called The City: People and Places was displayed at the New York State Pavilion for the 1965 season;[44][77] it consisted of 50 pieces created between 1880 and 1958.

[81] Moses proposed restoring the pavilion after the fair as part of a $6.3 million program to renovate the park,[82] and the Queens Federation of Civic Council also launched a fundraiser to preserve the structure.

[98] NYC Parks also promised to fund up to $200,000 in renovations,[98] and Philip Johnson and theater consultant P. Donald Howard were hired to convert the Theaterama into a 500-seat performing-arts venue.

[111] David Oats and Eric Ierardi, the leaders of the Friends of Flushing Meadows group, also circulated a petition to save the pavilion, obtaining 20,000 signatures by that February.

[119] The New York City government abruptly closed the Tent of Tomorrow and canceled Robert Jelin's lease in July 1974 after finding severe damage to the roof.

[127] By the late 1970s, Oats was petitioning state officials to find a company to restore the terrazzo map on the Tent of Tomorrow's floor, which was decaying.

[147][139][148] The project was designed by Alfredo De Vido and included a new lobby and entrance,[149] as well as upgrades to the mechanical systems, catwalk, stage, seating, and rehearsal spaces.

[152] The New York City Department of Design and Construction hired Caples Jefferson Architects in 2000 to renovate the Theaterama, and planning for that project continued for several years.

[1] Robert Silman Associates completed an engineering report on the Tent of Tomorrow that year,[156][176] finding severe damage to wooden beams, walls, concrete, and cables.

[107][180] NYC Parks devised plans to update the equipment systems and rebuild the towers' perimeter walls, and the design firm Perkins + Will created a proposal for the adaptive reuse of the structures.

[189] The University of Central Florida (UCF) and architectural archive website CyArk began raising $15,000 to fund a 3D laser scan of the pavilion that May.

[206] In addition, as part of the Cities Project, Heineken organized an Indiegogo fundraiser, seeking to raise $15,000 to restore the Tent of Tomorrow's terrazzo floor.

[211] The city government announced in September 2019 that it would begin renovating the three towers and the Tent of Tomorrow;[184][207] at the time, the design phase was supposed to be completed in early 2020.

[214] As part of the project, the original electrical wiring was replaced to accommodate a mobile command center for the New York City Police Department.

[219] North of the New York State Pavilion are the Unisphere, Queens Museum, Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, and Citi Field.

[232] The wall around the main floor, below the mezzanine level, was composed of red and white panels made of steel or canvas, although they have since been replaced with concrete blocks.

[248] The theater building's facade originally contained rectangular openings at ground level, which have been variously infilled with masonry or glass bricks.

[160][250] This annex, known as the "nebula",[251] is located northwest of the relocated main entrance and contains a flat roof, as well as a glass facade with a diagonal ramp-shaped structure around it.

[38] Some of the notable artworks included a car's crushed fender by Chamberlain,[253] a comic strip-style work by Lichtenstein,[89] a combine painting by Rauschenberg,[254] and a mural by Indiana that spelled out the letters "Eat".

[265] Max Kozloff, writing for Nation magazine, compared the pavilion favorably with the New York State Theatre despite regarding the towers and Tent of Tomorrow as kitschy.

[268] Conversely, Time said that, although Johnson's Lincoln Center designs had received praise, he "deserves no such cheers for his New York State Tent of Tomorrow and its flanking circular observation towers".

[69][270] Christopher Gray of The New York Times wrote in 1990 that the pavilion, "for all its size, had an appropriately gay, gaudy character", despite the discrete characteristics of the theater, tent, and observation towers.

[89] Writing retrospectively in his 1995 book New York 1960, Robert A. M. Stern wrote that "the pavilion was so seductively garish that only hard-core purists could resist its fun-loving spirit.