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.