My spouse and I attended a show at the Park Avenue Armory in
late December 2014. We were looking for something to do for an hour or so in
the Midtown East/Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, and the Armory seemed
to be the right choice. This facility is located on (surprise!) Park Avenue,
between East 66th and East 67th Streets.
The National Guard’s seventh regiment (which included famous
families like the Roosevelts, Van Rensselaers, Livingtons, Stewarts, and
Harrimans) completed building the Armory in 1881. Many of those well-known
families later hired the decorators from the Armory (such as Louis Comfort
Tiffany and Stanford White) to work in their own mansions. The period rooms of
the Armory show a collection of 19th century interiors.
The facility provides a four-page printed guide with which
guests can take a self-directed tour of the first-floor reception rooms and
drill hall. On the first floor, visitors can view the hallways and staircase,
veterans room and library (with interiors by Louis Comfort Tiffany), field
& staff room (recent renovations revealed elaborate stencil work near the
wainscoting), and ladies reception room (which showcases Minton art tiles in
the fireplace hearth). Be sure to examine the mahogany woodwork and wainscoting
and the original lighting and chandeliers.
The second-floor rooms are accessible only via a 75-minute
guided tour, which occurs on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:00 am. Some walking
and stair climbing is necessary, although an elevator is available for those
with mobility issues. The front entrance of the Armory requires climbing quite
a few steps, but an accessible entrance is available on 60th Street
if you call ahead.
Restrooms are located on the lower (basement) level. A coat
check is available on the first floor, along with a salon where you can enjoy
drinks and simple snacks.
The draw of this building is the Wade Thompson Drill Hall,
which encompasses 55,000 square feet of space. The Hall is the largest
unobstructed (open and without columns) exhibition space in the city. The hall
reminds visitors of a train station, with its 80-foot-high barrel-vaulted roof
with eleven elliptical wrought iron arches. The drill hall provides space for unconventional
visual and performing arts performances that cannot be staged in traditional
museums and performance halls.
We attended a show called “Tears Become … Streams Become”, staged by Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon and acclaimed pianist Helene Grimaud. A pool in the main armory exhibition space was filled with water, atop which rested two floating platforms that held grand pianos. Performances were held several times throughout the month, but during regular exhibition times (not performances), player pianos were supposed to play music. Disappointingly, on the day that we visited, no musical component was available. (The admission price was reduced from $15 to $8 as compensation; the full show/performances cost $50+.) The visual effect when guests first entered the darkened hall, with the reflection of the arched ceiling in the water below, was breathtaking yet a bit dizzying, because it turned the Armory’s iconic architecture seemingly upside down!
Had the musical component been operating on the day that we
visited, it might have been worth the $8 each that we paid to see the armory,
but without any music, the exhibit was disappointing. (Perhaps someone could
have played music using an iPod.)
