They’re trying to put the pieces back together.

Five historic mosaics commemorating the Queens World’s Fairs will be demolished in the coming months – despite passionate calls from preservationists to save pieces of New York’s past.

History buffs are scandalized the Parks Department is abandoning hope of restoring the intricate medallions adorning the entrance to Flushing Meadows’ Corona Park, with officials saying the badly eroded tiles pose a pedestrian safety risk.

“In Europe and the Middle East, mosaics are being rediscovered after many centuries of abandonment. They are discovered and they exist. Archaeologists and government officials go to great lengths to preserve them. Why should Queens, aka the borough of the world, be treated any differently? » fumes Michael Perlman, founder of the Rego-Forest Preservation Council.

Perlman says conservationists have banged the drum for 15 years to save the deteriorated mosaics of Passerelle Plaza, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

The parks department may even have contributed to the accelerated deterioration, Perlman said, by “obnoxiously” dumping the artwork to melt snow and driving heavy vehicles over the facilities.

“No one takes care of them. I’ve been photographing them for over a year and a half and they just keep getting worse,” said Gloria Nash, 70, whose upcoming book “Looking Back at the Future” chronicles the living relics of ’39 and ’64. Fairs in Queens and around the world.

Up to ten medallions have already disappeared into history since they were placed in 1997 at the foot of the David Dinkins circle, next to the Billie Jean King Tennis Centerin homage to the Fairs ’39-40 and ’64-65.

Each mosaic paid homage to a different scene from the historic fairs, including the synchronized swimming spectacle nicknamed “Aquacade” and the still-standing New York State Pavilion, which once invited park visitors to its terrace. observation and watching the fairs from above. Most were covered with concrete or completely demolished.

Only five remain today: an imitation of Salvador Dali’s “Venus”, the fountain of the World’s Fair, the Hall of Science and Elsie the Cow, the real mascot of the Borden Daily who visited the Universal Exhibition of 1939.

The largest remaining mosaic is a tribute to Andy Warhol’s portrait of Robert Moses, then-Commissioner of the Parks Department who organized the 1964 World’s Fair as an opportunity to transform the Queens park.

Each of the remaining mosaics has been seriously eroded and pieces of missing tiles have been replaced with concrete pours.

Perlman, Nash and other members of the Rego-Forest Preservation Council launched a new campaign two years ago, imploring the Parks Department to develop plans to save the remaining decaying mosaics, but their calls remained unanswered until October, when the agency revealed it would scrape. the art installation entirely.

Trustees wrote a letter to the preservation group, attributing the deterioration to “natural elements” — and saying an expert condemned the installation in 2009 as a tripping hazard and “non-salvageable.”

“After much deliberation and continued deterioration of the mosaics, NYC Parks determined that the best solution would be to remove the mosaics and replace them with pavers similar to those in the surrounding plaza, which would even out the grade and thereby reduce risk of stumbling currently created by the pieces,” says the letter, seen by The Post.

A representative from the Parks Department confirmed that they plan to remove the medallions within the next calendar year. They declined to say whether they would consider requests to save the artwork.

The colorful mosaics will be replaced with dull, gray cobblestones similar to those in the surrounding square – and there is no hope of preserving the decades-old homage to Queens history.

Instead, the Parks Department will dedicate up to $20,000 in grants per year to display temporary art installations.

“It’s a real shame,” said Perlman, who recently I rediscovered a long-lost mural from the time of the World’s Fair in a basement in Massachusetts.

“These mosaics were placed here as a tribute decades after the Universal Exhibitions. It’s wonderful to see how much the Parks Department cares…They are destroying something symbolic.

For Nash, who was lucky enough to visit the 1964 World’s Fair as a child, the loss of the mosaics would be nothing short of heartbreaking.

“There are other people who feel the same way. These fairs are very, very special to too many people, not just older people, but younger people too. I know so many young people who are interested in the Fair, even if they’ve never been, and I think it’s amazing,” Nash said.

The two men, along with other conservationists, hope the Parks Department will reverse its decision and make efforts to properly preserve the five remaining mosaics, whether in their original resting place at David Dinkins Circle or in the neighboring Queens Museum.

“Art is a gift to the masses,” Perlman said.

“Flushing Meadows Corona Park is a public park and I hope they restore ‘public’ to this public park.”