The 13th Regiment Armory was completed in 1894. The building's opening came with all but little fanfare, though not in a positive fashion. Construction of the Armory cost a whopping $700,000, over twice the amount the 13th Regiment had received to construct the building. The bill was ultimately footed by King's County, which the Times, the Daily Eagle, and various other media as "The Armory Blunder...a scandal of no common dimensions." It may seem as though a project that went so over budget would have no problem meeting the bare necessities of construction. However, this was not reality: at its opening, the armory was left without fences or sidewalk around the building, the roof was found to leak in the year of its opening, the drill hall was too small, and in 1904, a wall fell and killed two soldiers training in the facility. By 1920, the regiment became the 245th Coast Artillery and in 1971 it was transferred for use by the City of New York. In 1974, New York State decided to deactivate the armory and four others in Brooklyn. Just as the Armory's beginnings were tainted with scandal, so was its closure. On August 1st, 1971, the New York Times reported that "The leader of a black veterans' group has accused New York State of attempting to limit the number of blacks and Puerto Ricans in the National Guard by closing the Sumner Avenue Armory." James Allen, a member of the 715th Veterans Association, who trained at the armory, criticized the city's decision to close the facility. He declared: "the decision to close the armory is totally racial...why is the only armory in a predominantly black and Puerto Rican neighborhood, where the community has taken an interest, being closed?" Two officials of the New York State Senate Division of Military and Naval Affairs claimed the closure was one of four in the state and "strictly because of budgetary limitations," citing the building's dilapidated state. The Times wrote that at the time of "dilapidation," about 450 men were training at the armory, 10% of whom were black. This was a percentage much higher than the estimated 3% of Black membership in the National Guard of New York State. State Senator Frederick A. Meyerson, member of the Military and Naval Affairs Committee tried to save the Armory, though it was ultimately closed. The building was converted to house homeless men in the 1980s.

13th Regiment Armory, 1927. The 13th Regiment dates to 1847 and during its first fifty years served in national and international war efforts, and had a presence at smaller, more localized clashes such as the 1863 Draft Riots and the the railroad strike of 1877. In 1880 the Seventh Regiment completed their grandiose armory on the Upper East Side (today' Park Avenue Armory). Unsurprisingly, the 13th began to plan for their own epic edifice. Following petitions for funds by other volunteer regiments (who did not want to be showed up by the "Silk Stocking Regiment" of city elites on Park Avenue) the 13th was granted a $300,000 appropriation for a new building. The resulting structure, medieval in milieu, was designed by a young, largely inexperienced architect named Rudolph L. Daus. At a cost more than double the original outlay, the massive structure was highlighted as an example of improper political power holding sway in the construction of new military facilities. Nonetheless the building opened in 1894 and was epic in scale and design. The two towers rose 200 feet over the street and the drill hall could hold more than 1200 parading soldiers (though a need for more space saw the doubling of the drill hall in 1906). The 13th Regiment became the 245th Coast Artillery in 1920 as the National Guard underwent substantial changes to importance and functions. Taken out of military use by 1971, the building came under the control in city a few years later. The city leased the headhouse to a school while the drill hall was used as vehicle storage. Later as the homeless crisis escalated, the city converted this space (as well as all, or part of, at least 10 other armories) into emergency homeless shelters.

This is an abbreviated version of Brooklynology blog post, the rest is available at this link. Walking the urban landscape of New York, one comes upon buildings of different styles and periods—one of the great joys of living in an older city. Even in this wildly varied landscape, the armories stand out. One can walk down a row of modest apartment houses and, turning the corner, confront one of these massive structures looming like an apparition from the middle ages. But how did they come to be here and how did their use change, particularly their transformation from military to civilian uses. What follows is not comprehensive documentation, but a selective jaunt through the evolution of our Brooklyn armories.