13th Regiment Armory: Difference between revisions
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===Interior=== |
===Interior=== |
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The building contains a basement and four stories, counting a mezzanine. The basement contained rifle galleries, firing rooms, squad drill rooms, engine rooms, and large lavatories. In the 1894 ''Harper's'' article, it was indicated that swimming pool and bowling |
The building contains a basement and four stories, counting a mezzanine. The basement contained rifle galleries, firing rooms, squad drill rooms, engine rooms, and large lavatories. In the 1894 ''Harper's'' article, it was indicated that a [[swimming pool]] and [[bowling alley]]s were expected to be installed, but not at public expense. It includes company rooms {{convert|22|by|50|ft}} feet with {{convert|14|ft|m|-high|adj=mid}} ceilings, six on each side, containing captains' and sergeants' rooms, private stairs to locker rooms in the mezzanine. Officers' rooms are on the second floor, described as "large and excellent." There were also council and Veteran Association rooms, {{convert|44|by|50|ft}}, and a gymnasium {{convert|50|by|80|ft}} feet, also on the second floor. The third floor contained a mess-hall, kitchen, and lecture-room.<ref name="Harpers 1894-04-28">{{Cite journal|date=28 April 1894|title=Brooklyn's Great Armory|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013724433&view=1up&seq=402|journal=Harper's Weekly|volume=38|page=402}}</ref> |
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The drill hall contains galleries with built-in seats on the north, south, and west sides.<ref name="Harpers 1890-08-09"/><ref name="Bklyn Library Interior">{{Cite web|url=https://www.bklynlibrary.org/digitalcollections/item/d57088a5-38e3-4318-9346-145b55127ee3|title=13th Reg. Armory interior - Digital Collections - Brooklyn Public Library|website=www.bklynlibrary.org}}</ref> The roof is supported by 200-foot arch iron trusses with a skylight in the center.<ref name="Harpers 1894-04-28"/> |
The drill hall contains galleries with built-in seats on the north, south, and west sides.<ref name="Harpers 1890-08-09"/><ref name="Bklyn Library Interior">{{Cite web|url=https://www.bklynlibrary.org/digitalcollections/item/d57088a5-38e3-4318-9346-145b55127ee3|title=13th Reg. Armory interior - Digital Collections - Brooklyn Public Library|website=www.bklynlibrary.org}}</ref> The roof is supported by 200-foot arch iron trusses with a skylight in the center.<ref name="Harpers 1894-04-28"/> |
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Revision as of 17:22, 24 October 2019
| 13th Regiment Armory | |
|---|---|
 Pamoja House Entrance, July 2018 | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | Armory |
| Address | 357 Marcus Garvey Blvd |
| Town or city | Brooklyn, New York |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 40°41′06″N 73°56′14″W / 40.685124°N 73.937361°W |
| Current tenants | Pamoja House |
| Construction started | 1892 |
| Completed | 1894 |
| Opened | April 23, 1894 |
| Cost | $24,650,769 |
| Owner | New York City Department of Homeless Services |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | Rudolphe L. Daus |
The 13th Regiment Armory is a historic armory designed by architect Rudolph L. Daus and built in 1892-1894.[1] It is located at 357 Marcus Garvey Boulevard (formerly Sumner Avenue) between Putnam and Jefferson Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City. Daus had previously designed the Lincoln Club on Putnam Avenue in 1889.[1]
The armory building is currently used as the Pamoja House (also known as Sumner House Shelter Care Center for Men), a homeless shelter for men managed by Black Veterans for Social Justice, Inc. and supervised by New York City Department of Homeless Services. The Pamoja House is named for the Swahili word for "together".[2]
The armory's design is expansive, yet austere. According to Francis Morrone, "Something, perhaps the busy-ness or a greater stridency in the machicolations, makes this armory seem more forbidding than the 23rd Regiment's which is actually rather jolly."[3]
History
Construction and use as armory
The Thirteenth Regiment was previously housed in Gothic Hall on Adams Street in the 1830s. In 1858, it moved to the Henry Street Armory. and finally to the Flatbush Armory in 1874-75 until moving into the Sumner Avenue location on 23 April 1894.[4]
The 13th Regiment had received a $300,000 award for the construction of a new armory in 1890.[5] However, subsequent changes increased the armory's cost to $400,000.[6] The armory ultimately cost nearly $700,000, more than twice its original outlay, which was paid by the Kings County government.[5][7] The Brooklyn Daily Eagle called the drastic cost increases as "a scandal of no common dimensions",[8] and The New York Times described the armory as one of three Brooklyn armories facing extreme cost overruns, the others being the 14th Regiment Armory in Park Slope and the 23rd Regiment Armory in Crown Heights.[9] A panel of experts recommended cutting several ornate features and downsizing the drill room in order to complete the project within the $300,000 appropriation.[10] The armory opened on April 23, 1894.[11]
In 1906, the drill hall had to be extended. The architectural work for this was done by the Parfitt Brothers.[12] In 1921, a large memorial made by L. Riene Co. was erected in the southwest yard with the names of all the soldiers who had been stationed in the armory during World War I, with the casualties listed at the top.[13]
On June 22–28, 1953, the building was used for the 48th annual session of the Baptist Congress by the Sunday School Congress and Baptist Training Union.[14] By the mid-20th century, urban armories had become less necessary, and in 1974 the Thirteenth Regiment was deactivated.[5]
Conversion into homeless shelter
After deactivation, the 13th Regiment Armory's headhouse was used to store vehicles while the administration building was used as a school. However, by the 1980s, existing homeless shelters in New York City had become overcrowded, so the city started opening new shelters in armories.[5] Starting in 1987 or 1988,[1][5] the 13 Regiment Armory was converted for use as a men's homeless shelter,[15] In 1992, a judge ordered that the armory shelter's capacity be cut back from 550 to 200 homeless men.[16] Some residents of the nearby neighborhood did not want the shelter to be opened in the first place, but by 1993, had planted some flowers outside the shelter to beautify it.[17]
According to the Pamoja House's website in 2015, it "specializes in managing a homeless population that was refused from other shelters in New York City and is a ‘next-step’ facility. Residents of Pamoja House were deemed ‘non-compliant’ in general population shelters."[18] As a next-step shelter, residents had an 8 PM curfew rather than the DHS standard of 10 PM, and the facility had no television sets, dirty sheets, and meals consisting of one frankfurter and two four-ounce cups of juice.[19] Steven Banks, as commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services, eliminated the "next step" program, converting it into a general population men's shelter with the maximum 200 beds.[20]
The company rooms are used as dormitories, and the drill shed is filled with additional dormitories that are no longer in use after the 200-bed limitation was imposed (at one point it had 550 beds in active use). Memorial Hall is used as the mess, and is the only part of the building with central air conditioning. The offices, in one of the company rooms and in the base of the south tower, have window-mounted air conditioners. The north side of the drill hall contains the lavatories and laundry room, but the drill hall is mostly walled off (the walls are about four feet high) and accessible only to staff, as are all floors above the first.[20]
On November 29, 2017, security staff and residents were caught on camera punching and kicking shelter resident Alexander Singh.[21]
Design
The 13th Regiment Armory consists of a two-story administration building with a flat roof, as well as an attached 1.5-story, barrel-vaulted drill shed to its east. The lot measures 200 feet (61 m) on Marcus Garvey Boulevard and 480 feet (150 m) along Putnam and Jefferson Avenues. According to Harper's Weekly, the building was designed to recall thirteenth century feudal France.[22][23]
Exterior
The armory consists of an Administration Building 200 feet (61 m) wide by 180 feet (55 m) deep.[24] To the east is a drill hall measuring 300 by 200 feet (91 by 61 m).[22][25]
The main facade of the administration building is located along Marcus Garvey Boulevard to the west. This facade contains a large round-arched, stone-faced stone sally port, 28 feet (8.5 m) in diameter. There are two turreted towers flanking the arch, each with a diameter and height of 28 feet.[22][23] The south tower has an observatory, while the north tower has an additional, smaller turret, rising another 28 feet, to serve as an outlook.[25] A terrace measuring 16 by 45 feet (4.9 by 13.7 m) in area is located directly above the sally port.[22]
Interior
The building contains a basement and four stories, counting a mezzanine. The basement contained rifle galleries, firing rooms, squad drill rooms, engine rooms, and large lavatories. In the 1894 Harper's article, it was indicated that a swimming pool and bowling alleys were expected to be installed, but not at public expense. It includes company rooms 22 by 50 feet (6.7 by 15.2 m) feet with 14-foot-high (4.3 m) ceilings, six on each side, containing captains' and sergeants' rooms, private stairs to locker rooms in the mezzanine. Officers' rooms are on the second floor, described as "large and excellent." There were also council and Veteran Association rooms, 44 by 50 feet (13 by 15 m), and a gymnasium 50 by 80 feet (15 by 24 m) feet, also on the second floor. The third floor contained a mess-hall, kitchen, and lecture-room.[24]
The drill hall contains galleries with built-in seats on the north, south, and west sides.[22][25] The roof is supported by 200-foot arch iron trusses with a skylight in the center.[24]
See also
References
- ^ a b c Morrone, 257
- ^ "Pamoja House". The Other Journal. June 24, 2013.
- ^ Morrone, 256-257
- ^ Todd, 128, 131
- ^ a b c d e Gray, Christopher (1988-01-24). "Streetscapes: 13th Regiment Armory; A Brooklyn Fortress Yields to the Changing Times". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
- ^ Harper's Weekly, 16 July 1892, cited in Todd, 130-131.
- ^ Todd, 131.
- ^ "The Armory Blunder". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. March 9, 1892. p. 4. Retrieved October 21, 2019 – via Brooklyn Public Library; newspapers.com
.
- ^ "Rifles and Magazines; the Earnest Search for an Effective Arm. Problems Encountered in Trying to Obtain a Piece Combining Rapidity, Accuracy, and Ease of Handling -- Types of Rifles". The New York Times. 1892-03-20. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
- ^ "Taxpayers Must Pay for It.; Queer Doings in Connection with Thirteenth Regiment's Armory". The New York Times. 1892-03-09. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
- ^ "VETERANS FOR ITS ESCORT; THIRTEENTH REGIMENT TO MARCH TO NEW ARMORY TO-NIGHT. Its Third Home One of the Finest Military Structures in the Country -- Castle of Chapultepec Model of Its Front -- Great Drill Hall had Splen- did Accommodations -- Record of the Thirteenth in Time of Peace and War a Brilliant Gue". The New York Times. 1894-04-23. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
- ^ Morrone, 257.
- ^ "[13th Regiment memorial] - Digital Collections - Brooklyn Public Library". www.bklynlibrary.org.
- ^ "Mayor to address Baptist Congress - Digital Collections - Brooklyn Public Library". www.bklynlibrary.org.
- ^ Todd, 131
- ^ Dugger, Celia W. (1992-12-24). "Decreases Ordered at 2 Big Shelters for the Homeless". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
- ^ Holloway, Lynette (1993-09-26). "NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: BEDFORD - STUYVESANT UPDATE; Quieter Shelter Makes Friends". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
- ^ Hurley, Clare. "Interviews with residents of Pamoja House Homeless Shelter in Brooklyn." World Socialist Web Site, 9 September 2015
- ^ Haire, Christopher (December 17, 2011). "Next Step Shelter Program Uses Punitive Measures".
- ^ a b "Back to the Bad Old Days - Coalition For The Homeless". www.coalitionforthehomeless.org.
- ^ Smith, Greg B. "City turns over reports of arrests inside homeless shelters following Daily News expose". nydailynews.com.
- ^ a b c d e "New Buildings in Brooklyn". Harper's Weekly. 34: 619. 9 August 1890.
- ^ a b Harpers (1890), cited Todd, 128.
- ^ a b c "Brooklyn's Great Armory". Harper's Weekly. 38: 402. 28 April 1894.
- ^ a b c "13th Reg. Armory interior - Digital Collections - Brooklyn Public Library". www.bklynlibrary.org.
- Morrone, Francis (2001). An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith. pp. 256–257. ISBN 978-1-58685-047-0. OCLC 45284576.
- Todd, Nancy (2006). New York's Historic Armories: An Illustrated History. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. pp. 128–131. ISBN 978-0-7914-6911-8. OCLC 62697093.