QUEENS, NY.- Louis Armstrong House Museum Executive Director Michael Cogswell announced that there was a groundbreaking ceremony for the Museum’s new 14,000-squarefoot Education Center.
The new $23-million facility will broaden the public’s understanding of Armstrong’s life and legacy with a state-of-theart Exhibition Gallery, 68-seat Jazz Club, and Museum Store to complement the visitor experience at the Museum. The Museum’s monumental research collections, currently housed in the library at Queens College, will move into a leading-edge Archival Center on the second floor. “The Louis Armstrong House Museum’s transformative new Education Center and expanded programming will better serve visitors from around the globe and directly support the very community that Satchmo called home,” said Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.
The Center is designed by New York City-based Caples Jefferson Architects, a recipient of numerous commissions and awards, including AIA New York State Firm of the Year. When completed in 2019, the project design aims to achieve a LEED Gold rating.
Cogswell said, “We are thrilled to reach this important milepost. The groundbreaking for the Education Center is the next step toward creating a Louis Armstrong campus. When completed, we can offer a broad array of public programs to preserve and promote Louis’s remarkable legacy. There is nothing else like it in the jazz world.”
The campus will also comprise the home of the late Selma Heraldo, the Museum’s beloved neighbor who had lived next door to the Armstrong House for her entire life of 87 years and was a very close friend to the Armstrongs. She bequeathed her house to the Museum after her death in 2011. The Museum has since received a $1.027-million grant from the City of New York to renovate Selma’s House (as it will always be called) for offices, meetings, and storage.
The exhibit “Fifty Years of What a Wonderful World” is on display now through October and is free with museum admission. Parking is available in the neighborhood and the Museum is accessible via the 7 train on the 103 St-Corona Plaza stop.
