The Louis Armstrong Center Houses the Largest Jazz Musician Archive and Will Host Exhibitions, Trumpet Lessons, Other Community Events
The internationally renowned Louis Armstrong House Museum and The City University of New York held a ribbon cutting for The Louis Armstrong Center, a new state-of-the-art building, preserving and expanding the legacy and ideals of America’s first Black popular music icon. The new center opened to the public on Thursday, July 6.
“The opening of the new Louis Armstrong Center is music to my ears. I’ve been looking forward to this occasion since helping to break ground on the project in 2017 when I was president of Queens College and Armstrong’s archives were housed on campus,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “This state-of-the-art Center will give the archives a permanent home, provide performance and exhibit space so that we can continue to promote the legacy of the storied Jazz legend and allow for the work of the Louis Armstrong House Museum to grow. CUNY and Queens College are proud partners of the Louis Armstrong Center and are grateful to our city and state leaders, including Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams, for funding this expansion, which will help people in the community and all New Yorkers learn more about this crucial figure in American history.”
“Queens College most joyously welcomes the opening of the new Armstrong Center,” said Queens College President Frank H. Wu. “We have worked closely with and deeply thank the state and city of New York, CUNY, the LAHM Board of Trustees and many elected officials and community partners. They truly helped realize the vision of a launching pad for musical stars through outstanding concerts, exhibitions and community events. The Armstrong Center will build on the iconic legacy of Satchmo while serving as an international destination ten minutes from La Guardia Airport, and for New York’s school children and their teachers, and for music lovers throughout our nation. This great opening of the beautiful facility brings a ‘wonderful world’ to Queens, the world’s most diverse borough.”
“This is a landmark moment for the Louis Armstrong House Museum,” said Louis Armstrong House Museum Executive Director Regina Bain. “Standing on the shoulders of the jazz and community greats who have come before us, the new Louis Armstrong Center invites today’s musicians, neighbors and global fans to discover Louis and Lucille Armstrong’s story from a new perspective. We will bring the Armstrongs’ unique archives alive through new interactive events. And we will ensure that music once again rings out on 107th Street through groundbreaking programs in collaboration with emerging artists and contemporary icons.”
With longstanding partners Queens College and the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, and with a growing list of members, supporters and programmatic collaborators, the museum and center will serve as a Queens-based hub for inspiration and learning, economic development and tourism – from New Yorkers to the world.
Grounded in the new building design by Caples Jefferson Architects, the new Center will be a permanent home for the 60,000-piece Louis Armstrong Archive, the world’s largest for a jazz musician, and a 75-seat venue offering performances, lectures, films and educational experiences.
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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, 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. Funds were awarded by the Office of the Governor, the New York State Senate, New York State Assembly, the Office of the New York City Mayor, the Office of the Queens Borough President and the New York City Council. The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) led the construction project. The staff and board of the museum for the past 15 years, including former director Michael Cogswell, worked tirelessly to ensure the new building’s success.
The opening of the Center has spurred the creation of new programming. 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 contextualizes Louis Armstrong’s immense contributions in a contemporary era and provides 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.
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 www.louisarmstronghouse.org.
“Louis Armstrong is the greatest of all American virtuosos,” said Wynton Marsalis, president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, and managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. “With his trumpet and voice, Armstrong redefined what it meant to be modern by testifying to the range and depth of humanity from the vantage point of the bottom social strata in post-Reconstruction America. He was able to evoke deep blues and spiritual feeling, to dance notes with extreme rhythmic sophistication, and to improvise meaningful melodies on the spot with absolute harmonic accuracy. His genius and charisma influenced generations of musicians from all over the world. His generosity and unique personality have made him an international icon. Louis Armstrong’s trumpet is the sound of freedom and with it, he left the world so much richer than how he found it. We need his consciousness, intelligence and broad understanding now, more than ever. The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation was the baseline grantor of the Louis Armstrong House Museum and we have been in full support throughout the growth of this historic site. We are so proud of the Museum, and now, the new Armstrong Center. This great achievement is a physical representation of the down-home soulful world of Pops. It is much, much more than just a place. It’s a way for all people from everywhere to physically interact with the profound and deeply moving legacy of Lucille and Louis Armstrong.”
The new Center’s exhibition curated by Jason Moran, Here To Stay will look at Louis Armstrong’s five-decade career as an innovative musician, rigorous archivist, consummate collaborator and community builder – entertaining millions from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in the working-class neighborhood of Corona, Queens.
“The Here to Stay exhibition is a declaration of Louis Armstrong’s infinite love of music and humanity,” said Moran. “Armstrong’s musical innovations combine with his empowerment of himself and those around him. As an incredible artist and archivist, he thoughtfully documented his life’s journey through a variety of media: cameras, typewriters, reel-to-reel recorders and his iconic music. His magnetic musicianship allows each breakthrough in technology to catapult his star power. In Here to Stay we amplify Louis Armstrong’s ability to connect with communities locally and globally. His star shines bright worldwide, but especially here at his home in Corona, Queens. 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. To have these things for an African-American musician of such stature is rare and will be celebrated forever. We thank Lucille Armstrong for her vision of what the Armstrongs mean to Queens.”
Working with the museum’s Grammy-winning Director of Research Collections Ricky Riccardi and Executive Director Regina Bain, C&G Partners (MoMA, 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Smithsonian, NASA) designed the exhibition with Art Guild (Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Martin Guitar Museum). The 60,000 photos, recordings, manuscripts, letters and mementos in the Louis Armstrong Archive will be returning home to the block where the Armstrongs lived and built the collection.
Caples Jefferson Architects designed the 14,000-square-foot building to expand the capacity of the historic house museum and to allow many more people to appreciate the legacy of Louis Armstrong, the man and his music. Armstrong was both down-home and revolutionary and this building reflects that breadth. Caples Jefferson kept the building at the scale of the modest neighborhood that he loved, while creating an urban precinct for his music that welcomes in all visitors. This new building establishes the final piece of the campus that now comprises the museum as whole; it now includes the home itself that reflects the personal values of Louis Armstrong, the garden that serves as a place for gathering and a place for live performances, the donated home of next-door neighbor Selma Heraldo, reflecting the deep roots within the community, and the new center, designed as an interpretation of Armstrong’s music, where the public can learn even more about the icon who was Louis Armstrong.
“In a neighborhood comprised of modest two-story houses, we wanted to keep the building in the scale of its surroundings while creating an urban precinct that notes the singular work of the man whose music underlies so much of what we listen to today,” explain Sara Caples and Everardo Jefferson of Caples Jefferson Architects. “The design of the museum is simultaneously exuberant and restrained, and is, in every way, a celebration of the legacy of Louis Armstrong.”
“DASNY is proud of our partnership with CUNY, Queens College and Caples Jefferson Architects on the design and construction of the Louis Armstrong Center to further honor the legacy and inspiration of Louis Armstrong,” said Reuben R. McDaniel III, President and CEO of DASNY. “We are grateful to Governor Hochul for her commitment to this important project, and to city and state leaders for their continued support as we work to enhance our communities.”
The Center and the historic house will be open to the public Thursdays through Saturdays. Tickets can be purchased on the Museum’s website. Advance purchase is highly recommended as tours of the Center and the historic house have limited capacity. Authors, researchers and other scholars can visit the Armstrong archives by advance appointment. For ticketing and more information about the new Center, visit www.louisarmstronghouse.org.
Louis Armstrong is a definitive arbiter of Jazz and America’s first Black popular music icon. He entertained 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 this legacy by offering guided tours of the historic home and preserving Armstrong’s 60,000-piece archives. The Museum is in the midst of a dramatic physical and programmatic transformation, marked most visibly by the opening of the new Louis Armstrong Center, located across the street from the historic home. The new Center helps advance our mission of preserving the legacy of Louis and Lucille Armstrong, and to live their values of artistic excellence, education and community. The expanded campus will become a new, international destination celebrating Armstrong’s distinctive role in African-Diaspora history and vitality, offering year-round exhibitions, performances, readings, lectures, and screenings through an array of public programs for all ages. With two longstanding partners, Queens College and the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, and with a growing list of supporters and programmatic collaborators, the Museum will become a Queens-based hub for inspiration and learning, economic development and tourism.
The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges and seven graduate or professional institutions spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving over 243,000 undergraduate and graduate students and awarding 55,000 degrees each year. CUNY’s mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined. More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. CUNY’s graduates and faculty have received many prestigious honors, including 13 Nobel Prizes and 26 MacArthur “Genius” Grants. The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background. To learn more about CUNY, visit https://www.cuny.edu.
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