2025 Theses Master's

Open the Old Urban Fortress: Assessing Community Perception of Value in New York City’s Historic Armories

Crum, Charlotte

New York City’s historic armories, notable for their medieval fortress-like architectural design, grand street entrances into ornamented vestibules, and massive interior drill sheds with exposed truss roofs, rarely continue to serve military purposes and have since been adaptively reused or left vacant, risking potential demolition. While detailed architectural histories of these buildings have been published, their contemporary value as historic and cultural resources to their local communities has yet to be explored.

This thesis analyzes New York City’s historic armories to better understand the methodologies through which preservationists can use quantitative and qualitative data to assess how communities value their historic and cultural resources. Data was collected from the public on two specific case studies (the Fort Washington Avenue Armory and the Bedford Union Armory) via interviews and an online survey to assess these views directly. Additionally, a spatial analysis was undertaken to identify potential patterns of reuse, vacancy, and demolition across all of New York City’s armories.

The findings indicate that community-driven/informed adaptive reuse projects have increased the local perception of the value of historic resources in New York City’s historic armories, which in turn aids in the continued preservation of these buildings. By evaluating outcomes of completed adaptive reuse projects of armories in New York City, this information can be used to forecast the impact of future projects that are centered around public use. Preservationists can use the data collection methodologies proposed through this thesis to understand how communities perceive historic buildings as an important part of their heritage.