INSIDE SUMNER ARMORY – BASEBALL! (1895)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
Do you know the history of YOUR house?
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Back in the day, in addition to drilling the troops, our national guard reserve units used to utilize our armories the way we all hope they’ll be used again one day – for exercise and fitness.
Here at the 13th Regiment Armory (formerly known as the Sumner Armory on Sumner Avenue [now known as Marcus Garvey Boulevard] between Jefferson and Putnam Avenues), a number of the men chose up sides and played a game of baseball – inside.
By the mid 1870s, “baseball already was popular in most big eastern cities and remained so throughout the nineteenth century,” noted “The Great Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Major League Baseball” By David Nemec.
“The ball was softer, the fielders never wore gloves, the bases were closer together and sliding was taboo–otherwise spectators saw much the same display of skills they did during the outdoor season.”
Views of the armory (which was built in 1891, according to Save Bedford-Stuyvesant, in order to replace an armory in Flatbush) from the outside are all too easy to come by. But shots like these (drawings, rather), depicting the layout of the structure from the inside, appear much less often.
Originally, according to the New York Times, “(i)nside the headhouse, the administrative section at the front of the armory, a a great oak stairway leads to the company rooms, some plain, some ornate. Behind the headhouse runs an enormous drill hall under a great arched roof, designed for parades and exercises for 1,200 men”
After its use by the 13th Regiment, the city, according to the Times, used the drill hall for vehicle storage and leased the huge headhouse to a school.
Today, however, if you were to view the drill floor of this armory – it currently belongs to the N.Y.C. Department of Homeless Services (DHS) – you would see a warren of open-topped “rooms” which look like large cubicles, where single homeless men are sometimes housed.
If certain neighborhood activists have their way, though, then the homeless shelter will go the way of the militias, and the neighborhood will have its very own recreational center – for the engagement of activities much like those displayed in the drawing above.
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Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
