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America’s first Black popular music icon is getting his due with a massive new center that’ll house a 60,000-piece collection and a venue for live music, lectures and screenings.
NYC’s Louis Armstrong House Museum is finally opening its new facility, the Louis Armstrong Center, on July 6—and it’s a big deal!
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“This is a landmark moment for the Louis Armstrong House Museum,” Executive Director Regina Bain said in a statement. “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.”
The 14,000-square-foot center is located in the same Corona, Queens neighborhood across from the museum—the home Armstrongs lived. The designer, Caples Jefferson Architects, had to work within the scale of the “modest” neighborhood.
When it opens in July, it’ll act as a permanent home for the 60,000-piece Louis Armstrong Archive (the world’s largest for a jazz musician containing photos, recordings, manuscripts, letters & mementos) and a 75-seat venue for performances, lectures, films, and educational experiences, according to a release.
The museum campus, which now includes the House Museum, the Center, a garden and the donated home of next-door neighbor Selma Heraldo, is finally complete with this last addition.
The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation donated the Armstrong archives in the 1980s and came up with the funding to purchase the lot for the new center. CUNY and Queens College officials worked with state and city politicians to find funding as well.
“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,” said Wynton Marsalis, President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. “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 center will open with a new exhibition called “Here to Stay,” curated by award-winning pianist, composer and Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz, Jason Moran. The show will explore Armstrong’s five-decade career in which he entertained millions “from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in the working-class neighborhood of Corona, Queens,” according to the release.
“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,” Moran said. “His magnetic musicianship allows each breakthrough in technology to catapult his star power.
“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,” he added. “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.”
The Center and the historic house will be open to the public Thursdays through Saturdays starting July 6. Tickets can be purchased at louisarmstronghouse.org. Tours have limited capacity, so book in advance.
