Louis Armstrong House Museum Tour

Come spend the day with Louis Armstrong!

WBGO members are invited to Louis Armstrong's lifelong home in Corona, Queens for an intimate guided tour, reception and luncheon, led by Morning Jazz host Gary Walker.

The Louis Armstrong House Museum brims with Satchmo's unique, infectious personality. You'll hear him enjoying a meal with wife Lucille in their dining room, joking with friends in the living room and practicing the trumpet in his den. The Museum's Director, Michael Cogswell, will personally welcome you to Louis' house, a National Historic Landmark that draws visitors from all over the world. Take in the museum's current exhibit, browse the gift shop and talk jazz in Louis and Lucille's spacious and beautiful Japanese-style garden. Then Gary will take us to lunch at Pio Pio Restaurant. The house specialty is Chicken Pio marinated in a unique Peruvian sauce, with tostones, avocado salad, and rice and beans on the side.

Make the whole day a field trip! The bus leaves from WBGO at 9am and from Madison and 41st St. in Manhattan at 9:45am and returns in mid afternoon. Come hang with us as we hang with Satchmo.

We are limited to just 50 members. So reserve your place on this great WBGO Members Only field trip right now!

To learn more about the Louis Armstrong House Museum, visit www.louisarmstronghouse.org

Pio Pio Restaurant www.piopionyc.com

Photos courtesy Louis Armstrong House Museum

Louis Armstrong

By the time of his death in 1971, the man known around the world as Satchmo was widely recognized as a founding father of jazz—a uniquely American art form. His influence, as an artist and cultural icon, is universal, unmatched, and very much alive today.

Louis Armstrong’s achievements are remarkable. During his career, he:

• developed a way of playing jazz, as an instrumentalist and a vocalist, which has had an impact on all musicians to follow;
• recorded hit songs for five decades, and his music is still heard today on television and radio and in films;
• wrote two autobiographies, more than ten magazine articles, hundreds of pages of memoirs, and thousands of letters;
• appeared in more than thirty films (over twenty were full-length features) as a gifted actor with superb comic timing and an unabashed joy of life;
• composed dozens of songs that have become jazz standards;
• performed an average of 300 concerts each year, with his frequent tours to all parts of the world earning him the nickname “Ambassador Satch,” and became one of the first great celebrities of the twentieth century.

Through the years, Louis entertained millions, from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in Corona. Despite his fame, he remained a humble man and lived a simple life in a working-class neighborhood. To this day, everyone loves Louis Armstrong—just the mention of his name makes people smile.

Visiting the Museum

Yet in 1943, he and his wife, Lucille, settled in a modest house in Corona, Queens, where they lived for the remainder of their lives. No one has lived in the house since the Armstrongs, and the house and its furnishings remain very much as they were during Louis and Lucille’s lifetime. Today, the Louis Armstrong House Museum is open to the public, offering guided tours of Louis’s longtime home. On the tour, audio clips from Louis’s homemade recordings are played, and visitors hear Louis practicing his trumpet, enjoying a meal, or talking with his friends. Visitors also get to enjoy an exhibit on Louis’s life and legacy, and the Armstrongs’ beautiful Japanese-inspired garden.

ADDRESS

Louis Armstrong House Museum
34-56 107th Street
Corona
NY 11368
718-478-8274

HOURS

Tuesday – Friday: 10 am – 5 pm
Saturday – Sunday: 12 pm – 5 pm

The Museum is shown only through guided 40-minute historic house tours that start every hour on the hour (last tour of the day starts at 4 pm). The exhibit area and garden can be explored before or after the tour. No appointment is necessary, unless you are planning a group visit for at least 8 people.

Closed on all Mondays and the following Holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Always open on the 4th of July, in honor of Louis’s traditional birthday.

The price of admission includes a guided historic house tour and access to the exhibit area and garden, which can be viewed before or after your tour.

ACCESSIBILITY

The entire ground floor (which includes the Welcome Center, Museum Store, exhibit area, and restroom) of the Museum is wheelchair-accessible. The historic house tour requires the ability to climb two sets of steep stairs and to stand for 40 minutes. Visitors that are unable to take the tour receive a virtual tour instead.

PARKING

There is usually plenty of street parking available on the block, especially on weekdays. Alternate side parking is in effect on Thursday and Friday, from 9:30 am – 11 am

DIRECTIONS
View Map

By Subway: Take the 7 train to 103 St-Corona Plaza. Choose the exit on the north side of Roosevelt Avenue, and then take the stairs on your left. Make a right (north) onto 103rd Street. Walk two blocks and make a right onto 37th Avenue. Walk 4 short blocks and make a left onto 107th Street. The Museum is on the left side, 1/2 block north of 37th Avenue.

By Car via Long Island Expressway: Take the Long Island Expressway to exit 22 and get on the Grand Central Parkway going west towards Triboro Bridge. Immediately get in the left lane, take left exit 9W, and cosntinue straight onto Northern Boulevard. Make a left turn onto 106th Street, another left onto 37th Avenue, and an immediate left again onto 107th Street. The Museum is on the left side, 1/2 block north of 37th Avenue.

By Car via Triboro Bridge: Take the Grand Central Parkway going east to exit 8. Make a right at the stop sign and then an immediate left onto 31st Drive. Cross Astoria Blvd and continue 2 blocks to make a right onto Northern Boulevard. Make a left turn onto 106th Street, another left onto 37th Avenue, and an immediate left again onto 107th Street. The Museum is on the left side, 1/2 block north of 37th Avenue.

Make your own driving directions on mapquest.com, or visit mta.info for subway maps and service alerts.

Louis Armstrong as a Visual Artist: New Exhibit Opened on April 7, 2009 (and runs through July 12th)

The Louis Armstrong House Museum opened A Little Story of My Own: Louis Armstrong's Collages on Tuesday, April 7, an exhibit of collages created by the "Father of Jazz" during the thousands of hours he spent in dressing rooms and hotel rooms during his long career. Because of the fragility of this artwork, the exhibit will stay open only until Sunday, July 12.

Louis Armstrong is internationally renowned as a trumpet player and vocalist (he had hit records for five decades), actor (appearances in more than 30 films), and writer (two autobiographies and thousands of letters). Yet few people know that Armstrong created more than 500 collages, clipped and assembled from photographs, news stories, postcards, letters, telegrams, and other diverse material. Made in part to pass the time, the result was a body of sometimes sophisticated and sometimes whimsical works of art.

"The art of collage is very much like the art of jazz," said Michael Cogswell, director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum. "Found material is divided and then rearranged to create new meanings. Many of Louis's collages display multiple layers of meaning which are more intuitive than deliberate." Armstrong himself acknowledged that his collage-making was like improvising a jazz solo. As he wrote to a friend in 1953, "My hobbie (sic) is to pick out the different things...and piece them together...making a little story of my own."

A Little Story of My Own provides the public a rare opportunity to view the collages. Except for several that were loaned to a national traveling exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution in the early 1990s, Armstrong's collages have never been exhibited outside of the Louis Armstrong House Museum. In fact, all but one of the collages in this exhibit are on view for the first time.

The exhibit coincides with the release of an art book of Armstrong's collages, Satchmo: The Wonderful World and Art of Louis Armstrong (New York: Abrams, 2009), and an exhibit of reproductions of Armstrong's collages at Jazz at Lincoln Center in May.