Table Of Content
- Louis Armstrong House Museum Opens New Cultural Center at 34-40 107th Street in Corona, Queens
- Louis Armstrong Center
- The Armstrong Center
- Finalists for the National Medal for Museum and Library Service!
- The National Medal for Museum and Library Service
- Dr. John Collection ‘Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya: Singles 1968–1974’ Out Now
Since 2003, this National Historic Landmark has been open to the public weekly for individual and group tours with support provided by the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Queens College/CUNY, and other lead donors and partners. Louis Armstrong was already a worldwide star — a seasoned headliner with a Hollywood profile — when his wife, Lucille, surprised him with the purchase of a modest house in Corona, Queens, in 1943. He got his first glimpse of the place fresh off tour, rolling up in a taxicab. (He invited the cab driver to come in and check it out with him.) "The more Lucille showed me around the house the more thrill'd I got," Armstrong later wrote. Discover the city’s most unique and surprising places and events for the curious mind.
Louis Armstrong House Museum Opens New Cultural Center at 34-40 107th Street in Corona, Queens
Funds were awarded by the Office of the Governor, the New York State Senate, New York State Assembly, Office of the New York City Mayor, Office of the Queens Borough President, and theNew York City Council. The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York(DASNY) led the construction project. The Museum is announcing the upcoming season of its groundbreaking Armstrong Now, which will feature the creation and debut of new works by Esperanza Spalding, Amyra León and Antonio Brown. Writer Rebecca Bengal and photographer Chris Mottalini are exploring New York City’s boroughs through its blocks, one each in the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. They previously visited City Island’s Hunter Avenue and Manhattan’s Washington Square Village and Silver Towers.
Louis Armstrong Center
The museum is also announcing the upcoming season of its Armstrong Now performance series, which will feature the creation and debut of new works by Esperanza Spalding, Amyra León, and Antonio Brown. A week after the museum’s block party, the stretch of 107th Street appeared more like a church Sunday than the Friday before Labor Day. Junior Armstead stopped me to say hello; he’d changed out of his work clothes into a navy blue dress shirt and several of his signature custom-made rings.
Jason Moran curates multimedia exhibit on life of Louis Armstrong - BayStateBanner
Jason Moran curates multimedia exhibit on life of Louis Armstrong.
Posted: Wed, 01 Nov 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The Armstrong Center
LAHM administers the historic house under a long-term license agreement with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Queens College. The house where jazz legend Louis Armstrong lived and died is now a tribute to his life and legacy. The Louis Armstrong House Museum, still furnished as it was when Louis and his wife Lucille lived there, lets viewers peek into the intimate life of the couple, while its collection pays tribute to his public accomplishments and contributions to the world of jazz. The world`s most famous jazz musician could have lived anywhere, but in 1943, he settled in a modest house in Corona, Queens where he and his wife lived for the remainder of their lives. Bessie “Baby Ruth” Williams, Lucille’s housekeeper since 1973, continued to clean and preserve the house, eventually serving as the museum’s first caretaker and manager.
Designed by Caples Jefferson Architects, the two-story building comprises 14,000 square feet and sits between two single-family homes. The massing of the structure resembles a giant piano and features an undulating glass façade with black ornamental fins, a large metal canopy above a second-floor terrace, and a green roof with modest landscaping. Ticketing and information about all of the Louis Armstong Museum’s events and programs can be found here. On a late summer night in Corona, Queens, approaching 107th Street between 34th and 37th avenues, a Chinese-American woman in purple scrubs dances her way around the corner, a little sideways strut, making an entrance into the Louis Armstrong House Museum’s annual block party. On a sidewalk stage, when Roland Guerrero, leader of an eponymous quartet, proudly references his Honduran Garifuna heritage (which includes African, Caribbean, Central American, and European roots), the crowd applauds.
The National Medal for Museum and Library Service
The Armstrong Corona campus is a Queens-based hub for inspiration and learning, economic development and tourism. For local neighbors, city, national, and international visitors, the new campus will permanently establish Armstrong’s legacy as one of the most influential figures in American and Global History. Advance ticket purchase required to visit the new Center and the historic house. Tickets are non-refundable, but can be re-scheduled if guests have contacted the museum before the start time of their tour. The opening of the 14,000 square foot Center has spurred the creation of new programming.
Louis Armstrong is a definitive arbiter of Jazz and America’s first Black popular music icon, entertaining millions from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in the working-class neighborhood of Corona, Queens. The Louis Armstrong House Museum preserves his legacy by offering guided tours of the historic home and preserving Armstrong’s 60,000-piece archives. The brand-new Louis Armstrong Center, located across the street from the historic home, will further help celebrate his legacy by offering year-round exhibitions, performances, readings, lectures, and screenings through an array of public programs for all ages. It now includes the home itself that reflects the personal values of Louis Armstrong and the garden that serves as a place for gatherings and a place for live performances. The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation donated the Armstrong archives in the 1980s and provided the funds to purchase the lot on which the new Center sits. CUNY and Queens College officials, working with state and city legislators and executive offices, led the advocacy for the funding of the $26 million building across the street from the original Armstrong home.
HISTORY
A longtime neighbor suffered a heart attack over the weekend—Tomas Tavarez, an older Dominican-American man whom I’d noticed watching the music from his porch just a week earlier. The house is a gem frozen in time, as if the Armstrongs have just stepped out. The museum offers daily guided tours to visitors from around the world and features a variety of programs, including concerts, lectures, and seminars. Recently, we were invited to take part in a house tour, which took us through the Armstrongs’ living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and den (deemed Louis’ “man cave”). From the moment we stepped inside, it was evident that Armstrong’s essence completely saturates the house. Strolling through each room slowly, we were given the unique opportunity to see how he lived and where his genius was fostered.
Historic House Tour + Here to Stay
Heraldo’s home is a time capsule too, currently serving as office space for museum staff, and, during the summer jazz concerts and block party, a green room for the band. Louis called her “Little Dynamite” even though, at 5 feet 6 inches, he was not much taller than she; the museum programmers relied on her for public speaking and impromptu recollections. Open to the public since fall 2003, the Louis Armstrong House Museum is an exuberantly decorated time capsule, a window into the down-to-earth life of an artist, a pivotal period of music history. It is also both a portal to a neighborhood’s past and a link to its future. The Museum also recently launched an outreach program to local schools, providing trumpet lessons, made possible by a donation of musical instruments from Ken Karnofsky, a descendant of the same family who helped Armstrong buy his first instrument. Ticketing and information about all of the museum’s events and programs can be found at here.
No two rooms are alike — “I guess ‘Rococo’ is the word I could use without losing my job,” Harris said of the overall aesthetic — though many are surprisingly modest, especially given Armstrong’s larger-than-life presence. He is the only person ever to have hit records in the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. He played behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War and in the Democratic Republic of Congo during decolonization in 1960, during which both sides of a civil war called a truce to watch him perform, then picked up fighting again once his plane took off. The gold sconces offer a glimmer of opulence, but the walls themselves are covered in a subdued, cream-colored wallpaper — the same wallpaper that covered them at least 50 years ago. It matches the upright piano standing against one wall, and the two twill couches. There’s also a small TV — one of the first on the block — that sits low to the floor, so that the neighborhood children whom Armstrong would invite over (he never had kids of his own) could sit comfortably on the floor to watch Westerns.
In addition the interior of the house was renovated to their taste.[7] Ornate bathrooms, and the kitchen was not originally part of the house. Paintings and souvenirs were given to Louis Armstrong on tour from Asia, Europe to Africa. These gifts[8] have found a home of their own on dressers, night stands, shelves and walls.
The Museum is announcing the upcoming season of its groundbreaking Armstrong Now, which will feature the creation and debut of new works by Esperanza Spalding, Amyra León, and Antonio Brown. Armstrong Now will provide established and emerging artists with a platform to create new work inspired by Armstrong’s legacy, as well as the vast collection of artifacts and documents in the Armstrong archives. “His star shines bright worldwide, but especially here at his home in Corona, Queens,” Moran says. “I consider this one of the ‘wonders’ of the world, meaning, we have Lucille and Louis' magnificent home, and now a museum dedicated to his life and archive.
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