New York City: Park Avenue Armory (December 2014)

Park Avenue Armory – Historic Building Might Be Worth a Look Depending on the Exhibit

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 66^th and East 67^th 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 19^th 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 60^th 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.)