13th Regiment Armory
The 13th Regiment Armory, Brooklyn is a historic armory designed by architect Rudolph L. Daus (then 36 years old[1]) and built in 1892-1894. It is located at 357 Sumner Avenue/Marcus Garvey Boulevard between Putnam and Jefferson Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Daus had previously designed the Lincoln Club on Putnam Avenue in 1889.[2] It is currently used as the Pamoja House (Swahili for "together" [3]) (also known as Sumner House Shelter Care Center for Men[4]) homeless shelter for men managed by Black Veterans for Social Justice, Inc. and supervised by New York City Department of Homeless Services. "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," wrote Francis Morrone.[5]
History and Design
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.[6] According to Harper's Weekly,[7] it was designed to recall thirteenth century feudal France. The article states the dimensions of many of the building's features, including an arch and two towers all measuring 28 feet (length of arch, diameter and height of the towers). The south tower has an observatory, while the north tower has an additional, smaller turret, also 28 feet high, to serve as an outlook. The drill hall is 300 by 200 feet with galleries with built-in seats on the north, south, and west sides.[8] The roof is supported by 200-foot arches iron trusses with a skylight in the center. A further Harper's Weekly article[9] gave further dimensions: an Administration Building 200 feet wide and 180 feet deep, a basement and four stories, counting a mezzanine. The basement contained rifle galleries, firing rooms, squad drill rooms, engine rooms, and large lavatories. A swimming pool and bowling alleys were expected to be installed, but not at public expense. It includes company rooms 22 by 50 feet with 14-foot high 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, and a gymnasium 50 by 80 feet, also on the second floor. The third floor contained a mess-hall, kitchen, and lecture-room. The initial cost estimate for the building was capped at $300,000, but necessary changes were expected to push it up to $400,000,[10] and it ultimately cost nearly $700,000, paid by Kings County, New York.[11] In 1906, the drill hall had to be extended, (in 1890, The New York Times had criticized that too much money had been lavished on the exterior), and 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, casualties 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]
As Homeless Shelter
The building was vacated by the National Guard in the 1970s and was subsequently used as a men's homeless shelter.[15] The conversion to a homeless shelter began in 1988.[16][17] According to its website in 2015, "Pamoja House 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[disambiguation needed] and two four-ounce cups of juice.[19] Steven Banks, as commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services eliminated the "next step" program,[20] converting it into a general population men's shelter with the maximum 200 beds. 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).[21] 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. On November 29, 2017, security staff and residents were caught on camera punching and kicking shelter resident Alexander Singh.[22]
See also
External links
Black Veterans for Social Justice, Inc. https://bvsj.org/
References
- Morrone, Francis. An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2001, 256-257.
- Todd, Nancy L. New York's Historic Armories: An Illustrated History. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2006, 128-131.
- ^ Morrone, 257
- ^ Morrone, 257
- ^ https://theotherjournal.com/2013/06/24/pamoja-house/
- ^ https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipNXX8osyBpIA5M44ui-YxhK5eWQxeW4EVX3Ql5K
- ^ Morrone, 256-257
- ^ Todd, 128, 131
- ^ 9 August 1890, cited Todd, 128.
- ^ https://www.bklynlibrary.org/digitalcollections/item/d57088a5-38e3-4318-9346-145b55127ee3
- ^ 28 April 1894
- ^ Harper's Weekly, 16 July 1892, cited in Todd, 130-131.
- ^ Todd, 131.
- ^ Morrone, 257.
- ^ https://www.bklynlibrary.org/digitalcollections/item/9609cdf9-256f-420d-a498-b6819302de43
- ^ https://www.bklynlibrary.org/digitalcollections/item/031c379f-8313-4bd9-ac33-89b5d4f6dc85
- ^ Todd, 131
- ^ Morrone, 257
- ^ https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/24/realestate/streetscapes-13th-regiment-armory-brooklyn-fortress-yields-changing-times.html
- ^ Hurley, Clare. "Interviews with residents of Pamoja House Homeless Shelter in Brooklyn." World Socialist Web Site, 9 September 2015 https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/09/09/shelt-s09.rtf-s09.html.
- ^ http://brooklynink.org/2011/12/17/39204-next-step-shelter-program-uses-punitive-measures/
- ^ https://scottandrewhutchins.wordpress.com/2018/05/07/the-crock-of-cropper/M/
- ^ https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/back-to-the-bad-old-days/
- ^ https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-metro-homeless-security-20180622-story.html
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