text: Site clearing Moses predicted that the WFC would have to spend $11.6 million to clear the site. He recommended that most pavilions be demolished after the fair ended. By mid-1965, the WFC proposed preserving 19 structures, while the remaining pavilions were offered to anyone who could afford to relocate it. Several exhibitors chose to sell off their buildings due to the high cost of demolition, including U.S. Steel and Thailand. Other exhibitors sold off the contents of their pavilions, and people offered to salvage specific parts of pavilions. Any other buildings had to be demolished within 90 days of the fair's closure. Each exhibitor was supposed to have placed money in escrow, or posted a bond, to cover the demolition costs, but most exhibitors had not done so. As such, the WFC feared that exhibitors would merely abandon their pavilions.
  Demolition began the day after the fair closed; the rubble from most pavilions was dumped into Flushing Bay. By November, the site was filled with "rubbish and rats". Scientists temporarily preserved three of the fair's buildings for structural tests. The deadline for demolishing the other buildings was extended to December 1966, and about two dozen structures remained by mid-1966. Moses suggested that his Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority provide funding to convert the fairground into a park, and the city government took over Flushing Meadows–Corona Park from the WFC in June 1967. Few improvements were made to the park for several years, while many of the remaining structures were vandalized. According to a 1986 report, the city government had to spend $107 million ($ million in ) to turn the fairground into a park. In the 1980s, there was a failed proposal for an 1989 World's Fair on the site to mark the 1964 fair's 25th anniversary. The paths remain almost unchanged through the 21st century.