First Battery Armory
The First Battery Armory is a historic National Guard armory building at 56 West 66th Street, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The building was constructed between 1901 and 1904 and was designed by Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery in multiple revival architectural styles. It is composed of a symmetrical brick-and-granite headhouse to the north and a drill hall to the south. The armory is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The three-story headhouse, measuring, contains a central tower with a penthouse and is flanked by pavilions on its western and eastern ends. The facade of the headhouse, which remains largely intact, is made of granite at the first story and brick with granite trim on the upper stories. The drill hall is a three-story, gable-roofed space measuring approximately ; it also has a brick facade. The First Battery Armory was initially arranged in a similar manner to other armories, with offices, horse stables, storage rooms, training rooms, and areas where soldiers could socialize. The headhouse housed most of the mechanical rooms and administrative offices, while the drill room was used for training and horse stabling. The interior layout was changed significantly over the years, and almost none of the original interior decorations remain extant.
The New York City government built the armory for the First Battery of the New York National Guard, which had occupied rented space since its founding in 1867. The armory's site was selected in 1896, but construction did not start until May 1901 due to various disagreements. The building was completed in May 1903 and formally opened on February 3, 1904. The First Battery was reorganized multiple times during the late 1900s and early 1910s, and it moved out of the armory by 1917. The First Sanitary Train of the New York National Guard, which became the 102nd Medical Regiment, occupied the armory until 1976 and sometimes rented it out for events. The building was sold at auction to the American Broadcasting Company, which converted the armory to a television studio from 1977 to 1978. After the armory was converted into an office building in 2012, sports television network ESPN, a subsidiary of ABC parent The Walt Disney Company, moved into the armory. Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion bought the armory in 2025 and announced plans to renovate it.
Site
The First Battery Armory is at 56 West 66th Street, in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The building occupies the southern sidewalk of 66th Street between Central Park West to the east and Columbus Avenue to the west. The armory occupies a rectangular land lot of, with a frontage of and a depth of. The armory building is adjacent to several apartment buildings, some of which were developed as tenements. Nearby buildings include Manhattan New York Temple to the west, 50 West 66th Street and Congregation Habonim to the east, and the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and 55 Central Park West to the southeast.The First Battery Armory is the only building to have been developed on the site. The area was historically a farm, which had been parceled up for development in 1852. Although the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 had created a street grid for Manhattan in the early 19th century, some streets in the area were not laid out until near the end of the century. The construction of Central Park in the 1860s spurred construction on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but similar development on the Upper West Side was slower to come. Major developments on the West Side were erected after the Ninth Avenue elevated line opened in 1879, providing direct access to Lower Manhattan. By the late 19th century, the block contained five-story brick rowhouses, and St. Nicholas Rink, the first indoor ice rink in New York City, had been built across 66th Street.
Architecture
The First Battery Armory was designed by Arthur J. Horgan and Vincent J. Slattery, who designed numerous buildings for the New York City government, including the Surrogate's Courthouse in Lower Manhattan. The building is three stories tall and is composed of two sections: a symmetrical headhouse to the north, measuring, and a drill hall to the south, a large space spanned by steel trusses. This layout was based on the design of the Seventh Regiment Armory and other early armories designed by the New York Armory Board. The armory is designed in multiple revival architectural styles; according to civic group Landmark West, the armory contains elements of the "Beaux-Arts, Georgian Revival, Medieval Revival, and Romanesque Revival" styles.The headhouse is composed of a central tower flanked by pavilions on its western and eastern ends. The central tower served as the armory's main entrance and signal tower, while the outer pavilions contained sally ports. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission described the building's character as reminiscent of 14th- and 15th-century British castles; the "sharpness and character" of the details as being derived from a 15th-century French castle; and the walls and windows as being similar to Georgian revival and 18th-century English design. The drill hall and the facade of the headhouse remain largely intact, but the building's interiors have been significantly modified over the years.
Facade
The facade contains many castellated architectural elements, including deep openings, turrets, cornices with machicolations, and parapets with crenellations. The facade is clad in granite at ground level, while the upper stories are clad in brick with granite trim. The upper stories contain many elements of late-19th and early-20th-century architectural revival styles, including red and gray brick in Flemish bond, as well as granite window surrounds with classical details. According to the LPC, the design includes many details inspired by "medieval castles and Parisian boulevards". The facade was originally planned with red-brick stretchers and blue-brick headers, which would have formed a checkerboard pattern. Although the building was patterned after old fortifications, only some design elements, such as the granite base, central tower, and recessed areaways on 66th Street, served a defensive purpose. Other elements, including the windows, crenellations, and cornice, were included for aesthetic reasons.The headhouse and its penthouse contain a narrow flat roof, while the drill hall is topped by a wider gable roof. The penthouse's roof originally contained an iron-and-glass skylight, while the drill hall originally contained 12 skylights. Half of the drill hall's skylights were removed in 1936, when the headhouse and penthouse roofs were resurfaced in asphalt and the drill hall roof was resurfaced with a mineral mixture. The penthouse's skylight was removed in 1960 when the roof was replaced with three-ply wood. The roof was replaced again in 1977, when mechanical equipment was installed atop both sections of the building, and the drill hall's roof was replaced with asphalt shingles in 1998., the headhouse's roof contains HVAC equipment, emergency generators, a boiler flue, and stair bulkheads, while an elevator shaft and cooling tower are placed atop the penthouse.
66th Street elevation
On 66th Street, the central tower contains a wide granite round arch at the first story, accessed by a small granite stoop with a metal handrail. The round arch originally contained a bronze-clad door; this was replaced in 1977 with aluminum-and-glass doors, then in 2011 by bronze-and-hardwood doors, topped by a transom window and flanked by sidelights. The stoop is flanked by granite pedestals topped by cast iron spherical lamps; the lamps were replaced by granite caps in the 1970s and restored in 2011. The central tower contains two stone panels with inscriptions. Directly above the entrance is a panel with the initialism "A.D. 1901 / N.G. N.Y.", referencing the year when the building's construction started and the New York National Guard. Atop the tower is a panel with the insignia of the First Battery, which consists of a shield with the year 1901, the initials N.G. N.Y., and the Latin motto semper paratus. The shield is flanked by motifs of cannons and militiamen tending cannonballs, and it is topped by motifs representing helmets, crossed axes, and flags.The primary portions of the facade on 66th Street, between the central tower and outer pavilions, are placed behind an areaway with an iron fence and granite posts. The areaways and fence originally stretched across the entire distance between the central tower and outer pavilions. Part of the areaway to the west of the main entrance was slabbed over in 1977, when the New York City government added a streetlamp. The areaway to the east is covered by a wheelchair-accessible ramp, which leads to a doorway immediately east of the main entrance. The upper stories largely contained one-over-one sash windows with wood frames, inset within granite surrounds; these were replaced with aluminum replicas in 2004.
Segmental arches in each of the outer pavilions provide additional entrances to the building. The east pavilion originally contained a wooden garage door, leading to a horse stable in the basement and a riding path in the drill hall; the doors were replaced at least three times, and the doorway includes a pair of wooden double doors as of 2011. The west pavilion contains a granite base and recessed metal door, which was installed in 2011 and is a replica of the original door there. The door in the western pavilion, as well as three windows directly above it, were replaced with a fire exit in 1977. The central tower and the outer pavilions contain 24 loophole windows, some of which have been replaced over the years.