First Battery Armory

About this property

The First Battery Armory (also known as the 102nd Medical Armory and the State 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 175 by 26 feet (53.3 by 7.9 m), 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 175 by 73 feet (53 by 22 m); 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.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in New York County

Historic places, battles, and census history across New York County.

More historic places in New York

Browse all historic places in New York.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

New York history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.