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Seventh Regiment Armory

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The Seventh Regiment Armory, located at 643 Park Avenue also known as Park Avenue Armory in New York, New York, United States, is a historic brick building that fills an entire city block on New York's Upper East Side.

History[]

The building was designed by architect Charles Clinton in the Gothic Revival style and dedicated in 1880. It is the only armory in the United States to be built and furnished with private funds.[1] It originally served as the headquarters and administrative building for the 7th New York Militia Regiment, known as the Silk Stocking Regiment due to the disproportionate number of its members who were part of the city's social elite. The building is known for detailed interior rooms that are furnished with ornamental woodwork, marble and stained glass depictions of moderately disapproved behavior.

7th Reg

Veterans (Tiffany) Room

The main facade of the administration building faces Park Avenue between 66th & 67th Streets, with the large vaulted space for the drill hall in the center of the block. The administration building has provisions for a reception room, a library, veterans room and staff offices for ten regimental companies. Noted architects and interior designers of the American Aesthetic Movement were commissioned to furnish the rooms and company quarters. The library is known as the Silver Room or "Trophy Room" and was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany who worked with architect Stanford White as a consultant on the project. The masterpiece of the armory building is the Veterans Room, also known as the Tiffany Room, with hand carved wood panelling and coffered ceiling in the Viking Revival style. Other significant craftsmen with work in the building include Kimbel and Cabus, Alexander Roux, Francis Davis Millet, and the Herter Brothers.

The building was used for the historic live broadcast of the radio play The Fall of the City by Archibald MacLeish in 1937, because of its acoustic properties.

The building was made a National Historic Landmark in 1986.[2][3][4]

Current Use[]

The Armory is currently leased by and home to Park Avenue Armory a not-for-profit arts organization whose mission is to revitalize this important landmark as a unique alternative arts space.

Other organizations using the space include:

  • The 53rd Army Liaison Team of the New York Army National Guard, a unit carrying on the heritage of the 7th Regiment.
  • The Veterans of the 7th Regiment
  • The Knickerbocker Greys, an afterschool program which has been at the Armory since 1902.[5]
  • The Veteran Corps of Artillery (VCA), a ceremonial unit which was organized on November 25, 1790 (Evacuation Day) by American Revolutionary War Veterans.
  • The Lenox Hill Neighborhood House Women's Mental Health Shelter [6]

Education[]

Park Avenue Armory enjoys a rich partnership with Williamsburg High School for Architecture and Design (WHSAD) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. WHSAD is a 9-12 college preparatory school whose mission is to provide its students with a quality education that is geared toward future training in the preservation trades and related professions such as architecture, conservation, engineering, and city planning. WHSAD is the only school in the country with a Historic Preservation program.[7]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ↑ "Fortress Under Fire". The American Legion Magazine. May 2007. http://www.legion.org/includes/printable_version.php?content=pub_mag_fortress_0507&id=. Retrieved 2008-04-05. [dead link]
  2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named nhlsum
  3. ↑ Seventh Regiment Armory PDF (214 KB) National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination, undated, by Carolyn Pitts
  4. ↑ Seventh Regiment Armory--Accompanying 4 photo, exterior and interior, from 1975-1983.  PDF (1.29 MB) National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination
  5. ↑ Knickerbocker Greys History
  6. ↑ [1]
  7. ↑ http://www.armoryonpark.org/index.php/education/history_and_architecture/

External links[]

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