The Armories of New York

photo of the 69th Regiment by wallyg on flickr

As we mentioned in our blog post last week, this past Sunday was the centennial of the 1913 Armory show, an important moment in the history of modern art. The exhibit--officially titled the International Exhibition of Modern Art--is known as the Armory show because it was housed in the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue, an imposing Beaux-Arts fortress that had been completed just seven years earlier.

Walking the streets of New York, you are liable to come upon many such military structures; some, like the 69th Regiment, are still operating as National Guard posts. Others, including the famous arsenal in Central Park, have long since been decommissioned. Why does the city have such a proliferation of these buildings?

One answer is that before the Civil War, it was up to each town and city to provide for the nation's common defense. Volunteer militia companies were the backbone of the country's armed forces, and these militias required space to house munitions, drill, and fraternize. The most famous of the militias in New York was the Seventh Regiment, also known as the "Silk Stocking" regiment.

As we write in Inside the Apple:

First known as the Eleventh Regiment, it guarded New York harbor during [the War of 1812]. During the Marquis de Lafayette's farewell tour of America, the regiment acted as his honor guard and gave itself the name National Guard after Lafayette's Garde Nationale in Paris. When militia companies were reorganized later in the 19th century, this idea of having a National Guard stuck....

In 1880, the Seventh Regiment opened its new headquarters on Park Avenue. Designed by one of its own veterans, Charles Clinton, the massive structure...takes up the entire block between Park and Lexington avenues. The rear section was a drill hall--at the time, the largest interior drilling space ever created, spanned by a tremendous 300-foot barrel vault--and the front was three stories of meeting rooms for the various regimental companies.... Of particular note are the Veterans' Room and Library on the main floor, which were done by Louis Comfort Tiffany's Associated Artists, and remain today the most complete Tiffany interiors.

In 1884, recognizing the dearth of suitable drilling space for New York's military companies, an Armory Board of the City of New York was established with the purpose of building or renovating existing drill halls. Over the next forty years, armories proliferated around the city.

When the 69th Regiment opened in 1906, designed by the firm Hunt & Hunt, it was unique in its contemporary (though classically inspired) Beaux-Arts styling; most other armories tried to convey their function through the use of faux-Medieval architectural detail. Along with the Seventh Regiment (today known as the Park Avenue Armory), it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, both for its role in the 1913 Armory Show and for being home to the "Fighting 69th," New York's famous Irish regiment, one of the first to volunteer for action in the Civil War.

Other famous armories around the city from this period include 94th Street armory (parts of which were integrated into the design of Hunter College High School), the First Battery armory, which became ABC television's first studio building, and the Fort Washington Armory at 168th Street, now a track and field center.

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Read more about aresenals and armories in NYC in 

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Getting Inside Old New York: Tom Sachs at the Armory and Mark Dion at the Explorers Club

There are two exhibitions running in the city right now--just three blocks from each other--that are not only worthwhile to visit for their own charms, but because they give access to some fabulous old New York spaces.

At the Park Avenue Armory (formerly the Seventh Regiment Armory) through June 17 is Tom Sachs Space Program: Mars, an exploration--in replica, miniature, film, and performance art--of every step of a mission to Mars. The bulk of the show is in the armory's drill hall, but some of the smaller exhibits are in the former Veterans Room and Library, which were decorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany's Associated Artists. These are the most complete Tiffany interiors in situ and definitely should be seen by anyone interested in Gilded Age interior design. As we write in Inside the Apple:

The materials in the rooms are an eclectic assortment, from aluminum foil in the coffered ceiling to recycled wallpaper rollers reused as column capitals. A gorgeous Tiffany fireplace with turquoise tiles stands against one wall of the Veterans Room and the walls are capped by an elaborate frieze depicting twenty great battles from the dawn of history to the modern era.

(Be forewarned, these rooms are poorly lit but still worthy of exploration.)

Also on view at the armory is Thomas Nast's Departure of the Seventh Regiment to War (reproduced above), which hangs in the hallway just to the left of the entrance (near the Veterans Rooms). No matter what your opinion of Nast, this is a great painting.

At the nearby Explorers Club on East 70th Street, Mark Dion's Phantoms of the Clark Expedition (on until August 3) takes a look at the ephemera associated with Sterling Clark's 1908-09 scientific expedition to map China's northern provinces. The exhibition features (in the artist's words) "not only what Clark and his team took from China but also what they brought to the site of inquiry. Thus, the equipment and provisions to undertake such a complex tour are given a new importance that emphasizes the labor of the journey rather than the particular scientific results." Dion and his team have created papier-mache versions of everything from the expedition's campfire to the cages used to haul chickens--there's even a replica of Clark's hat. The show is set up in the Explorers Club's Trophy Room on the fifth floor, a space originally designed to be an art gallery.

The club is housed in a mansion built by Stephen Clark--Sterling's brother--thus forging a connection between the building and the exhibition. It is a great opportunity to get a peek into this space that is normally off limits to non-members.

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Read more about the Park Avenue Armory in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

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"Infinite Variety" at the Park Avenue Armory

One of our favorite buildings in New York, the Park Avenue Armory--aka the Seventh Regiment Armory--is playing host to a wonderful, free exhibition, Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts. The catch is that it is only up for two more days, so if you would like to see it, you must go today or tomorrow.

The Seventh Regiment, or "Silk Stocking Regiment," was one of the most important volunteer militias in America in the era before the U.S. had a large standing army. As we note in Inside the Apple:

The regiment was called in to quell the Astor Place riots and was instrumental in the military’s role in ending the Civil War Draft Riots in 1863…. In the 1870s, the city ceded the regiment a block on Fourth Avenue between 66th and 67th Streets. Originally, this had been part of Hamilton Square, one of the few pubic plazas that had appeared on the original Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 but had never been built, in part because it lay along the awful stretch of Fourth Avenue that was the New York and Harlem Railroad’s right of way. 

While the city was happy to rent the land to the Seventh Regiment for a nominal fee, neither it nor the state had any funds available for construction, so the regiment was forced to raise its own funds. It turned first to its wealthy members, who contributed $200,000, before holding events to raise more. From that point forward, the regiment and its new headquarters would be associated with large events, from fairs and grand balls to sporting events and antique shows. 

The regiment picked one of its own veterans, Charles Clinton, to design the building. The massive structure, opened in 1880, takes up the entire block between Park and Lexington Avenues. The rear section was a drill hall—at the time, the largest interior drilling space ever created, spanned by a tremendous 300-foot barrel vault—and the front was three stories of meeting rooms for the various regimental companies. These rooms are some of the most lavishly appointed in the city; of particular note are the Veterans’ Room and Library on the main floor, which were done by Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Associated Artists, and remain today the most complete Tiffany interiors. 

While the Tiffany rooms aren't open to the public, the massive drill hall is playing to host to this wonderful exhibition of mainly 19th- and early 20th-century quilts. Even if you have zero interest in quilts, the show is worth seeing. Innovatively hung by Thinc Design--the same people who are working on the September 11th Museum at the World Trade Center site--at first glance, the show has more in common with a showcase of Abstract Expressionism than Americana. But once you begin to delve into the designs of the individual quilts (and there are 650 of them from Joanna S. Rose's personal collection), the show becomes a primer in American history and values from the 19th century.

The exhibit is open today, Tuesday 3/29, from 11:00-7:00PM and tomorrow, 3/30, from 11:00-5:00PM.

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Read more about the Park Avenue Armory and the Seventh Regiment in
Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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