Franklin Ave (foreground) at the north east corner of East 166th Street, showing the Allendorf Residence, 1901.

The Allendorf Residence was a wooded plot of land on a rocky slope. The plot included a wood-frame house seen in this photograph.

In 1903 the New York City Armory Board chose this site for the location of a new permanent armory for the Second Battery. Designed by a former militia man and architect of institutional buildings, Charles C. Haight, the armory was the first of its kind in the Bronx. Constructed from 1908 to 1911, the asymmetrical building has bold massing and Gothic features. The building was used until the 1980s for the functions for which it was built. Today the armory houses a women's homeless shelter.