It’s a monstrous cleanup job.
Famous Panorama at the Queens Museum is undergoing its annual deep clean – two weeks of meticulous work to remove chewed gum, discarded receipts and candy wrappers from the streets of the giant model of the entire Big Apple.
Art prep student Yezika Tutik — with a vacuum strapped to her back and surgical booties on her feet — stepped carefully into Midtown and Central Park on Tuesday to clear a year’s worth of dust and debris from small buildings .
“For the first time, I felt like Godzilla,” Tutik, 37, of Ridgewood, told The Post.
Tutik is one of three trusted art preparators the museum calls in each year to deep clean the panorama – which was Unveiled for the 1964–65 World’s Fair.
It takes about 90 hours to sculpt the 9,335-square-foot model filled with 895,000 tiny buildings, even smaller cars, delicate bridges and a constantly flying miniature airplane.
The panorama is the crown jewel of the museum – this institution is so popular dedicated his first published work in three decades Magnificent piece of history.
“Panorama allows our visitors to place themselves in the city in a completely unique way: you are above it, within it, and imagining the cumulative set of memories associated with it,” said Lynn Maliszewski, assistant director of collections and archives. We do.
About 80% of the museum’s visitors travel to Flushing Meadows Corona Park to set their sights on the miniature city, which means it not only catches heaps of dust throughout the year, but also a lot of litter left by tourists. Is.
“This time I didn’t have to collect so much disgusting stuff,” said Tutik, originally from Argentina.
“The first time, there was sticky candy thrown around, gum, a lot of paper receipts and things like that. This time it was surprising that there was very little litter made by people in the panorama. “I’m proud of the guys, it’s good to see.”
If the scale wasn’t daunting enough, Tutik said, the age of the mini-city makes the task even more difficult. The 60-year-old urban planning tool can’t handle any water-based supplies, which would cause the paint — which is used to paint residences, parks, transit and more — to be completely destroyed.
The glue has also completely disintegrated from some pieces, making them vulnerable to breaking with light touch.
“We move very slowly because it is a very old structure. Some of these monuments are not very stable,” he said. “It’s a very delicate piece.”
Tutik is limited to Swiffer pads, paint brushes and even Q-tips to clean the centimeters of space between buildings. She also uses a cordless backpack vacuum cleaner, which Tootick religiously keeps on the lowest power setting for fear of destroying an NYCA building or bus terminal.
Midtown Manhattan is the hardest area to care for.
“Imagine the city – it’s like that. “It’s a lot of narrow streets that have to be cleaned,” Tutik said. “Typically we try to find different tools and attachments that we get from other vacuums and things like that or that we Make your own to go to those areas because it’s a very small, small, small area.”
To get into the nooks and crannies of the dense neighborhood, Tootik has to put one foot on the island in the East River and the other in Central Park, and lean as far as possible until his nose touches the Empire State Building .
“It’s very tricky, it’s like a circus – acrobatics,” she said, acknowledging that the neighborhood is “the most stressful.”
Her favorite places to clean are not only the more spacious ones — like the airport and the museum’s home in Flushing Meadows Corona Park — but also neighborhoods with special places in the heart of Tootick.
Last week, as she carefully walked around Williamsburg, Tootick took a moment to honor the smaller wooden version What was once Crest Hardware. The 62-year-old shop closed its doors this summer – but it will be forever memorialized on the Panorama.
“There is an emotional attachment with him. This is ridiculous. This is amazing. It’s like such a detail oriented piece.
“Even though I’m very, very, very big in front of the model, I still feel small,” she said. “It’s just so precise and delicate and beautiful, building little houses and buildings and it’s so amazing how with little materials you can pretend that it’s a house, that it’s a cemetery.”
Despite Tutick’s best efforts, there are some stains that have become permanent parts of the panorama, such as water damage near Jamaica Bay and a suspected wine spill near South Ozone Park.
The panorama is scheduled to receive some conservation in the coming months – a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services will provide a new set of lights for the municipal buildings, replacement of areas affected by water damage and a new coat of paint for the parks. Will be done. and public sector.
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