Armory

It’s for the National Guard. Many cities have buildings that were built to house the local National Guard’s equipment (including weapons). Hence, this became known as “the armory.”

In many cases, these buildings are no longer used for those purposes – the National Guard unit has moved into other buildings, for example. The characteristics of the buildings (large open spaces) mean that they often get turned into community centers or gymnasiums.

I actually asked this same question on Reddit back in 2016:

Why do a lot of cities have an “armory”? Why do they often have a curved roof? What are they generally used for today?

Some answers:

Nowadays, an armory is usually the local regiment’s headquarters. They often have large drill halls in the inside, for hundreds of soldiers to drill and march, so those big central halls affect the shape of the architecture. Generally they’re still used as places to drill, as well as classrooms for officer training, regiment administration, and some social events.

I assume this person was from the United Kingdom, giving the usage of “local regiment.”

Depends on which kind you mean. Almost all of the ones I’ve seen are National Guard depots. They store all the fun National Guard stuff, like rations, cots, tents, generators, guns, ammo, uniforms. No clue why lots of them have curved roofs though.

[…] I can tell you that near my neighborhood there is an old National Guard Armory. The National Guard decided they didn’t need it for military purposes anymore, so the park district bought it. There’s gyms inside, you can play basketball, or run laps, or climb ropes or whatever.

I found a news article about armories in New Jersey:

Most of these gargantuan buildings were created as indoor drilling grounds, mustering sites, for the National Guard. The rest of us know them as convention centers, concert halls, sports arenas. One in Red Bank – decommissioned – is a full-time ice rink.

It’s likely that armories are just a historical concept now. They seem to mostly date to the early part of the 20th century. They were built inside cities because citizen soldiers had to mobilize quickly, without cars – they literally had to run to a building, likely in response to a siren.

But today, remote communication technology like telephones and the Internet, combined with cars, mean that soldiers can be mobilized from a greater area.

Additionally, modern National Guard units have so much equipment that they’ve mostly moved outside city limits to more sprawling “bases.”

Why I Looked It Up

I’ve wondered this for a long time. I have no idea when I was cognizant of it, but it might have been when I was attending Iowa State. There was an armory on campus.

The published history of the building doesn’t mention military uses much at all, until the last sentence:

Twelve design studios were built in the building in 1990, and the ROTC moved its training to State Gym.

The implication is that this is where ROTC did training, which is a military usage.

Postscript

An article in the NY Times entitled “A Moonshot Plan to Fill a Cavernous, Dilapidated Armory in the Bronx” brought to my attention The Kingsbridge Armory:

The estimated $1 billion redevelopment of the armory, a 1917 Romanesque arsenal on about five acres in Kingsbridge Heights that was once home to the National Guard …

Wikipedia has some history:

During World War II the armory was active in the war effort. Herbert Lehman, a former governor and U.S. Senator, ceremonially reviewed 10,000 troops there at a 1942 event. It was one of the few registration sites in the city for immigrants from enemy nations. After the war the city offered it to the United Nations General Assembly as a temporary meeting place until the main UN building was finished.

In 1957 the two rear buildings were constructed. It was designated a city landmark in 1974. At that time the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission called it “an outstanding example of military architecture.” Over the years following, the main armory building was neglected, and by the 1990s, the Guard units who called it home were running most of their operations from the annex buildings on West 195th.