Trumpeter Louis Armstrong was born and raised in New Orleans but he spent large portions of his later life in his Corona, Queens home, which has been turned into a museum. The museum offers tours throughout the week for the jazz fan interested in Armstrong’s life and how he lived off of the stage. After a a $1.6 million restoration and renovation, the Louis Armstrong House, the long-time home of the internationally acclaimed jazz musician Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong (1901-1971), has finally opened to the public. The modest house, known by Armstrong and his friends as “Satchmo’s Castle”, is a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark. The house was purchased by Armstrong and his wife Lucille in 1943, and they lived there for the rest of their lives. In 1986, the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation gave the house to the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) and arranged for Queens College to administer the house under a long-term license agreement.
Visitors to the house will have the intimate experience of “visiting Louis and Lucille,” during hourly 40-minute guided tours. Because no one has lived in the house since the Armstrongs, all of the furnishings are authentic. Highlights of the tour include a turquoise kitchen from the 1960s, original oil paintings by Tony Bennett, LeRoy Neiman, and Calvin Bailey, a spectacular bathroom with gold fixtures and mirror-covered walls, and Louis’s den, where he wrote letters to his fans and visited with friends and neighbors. In three rooms, a hidden audio system plays excerpts from Louis’s home-recorded tapes—visitors will hear Louis telling jokes and band stories, Louis and Lucille eating dinner, and Louis playing with General, the family dog. An exhibit area in the basement displays Louis’s gold-plated trumpets, scrapbooks, photographs, and other memorabilia. A gift shop sells postcards, t-shirts, books, CDs, red beans and rice, and other Armstrong-related items.
For those who really like Armstrong he is buried in the Flushing Cemetery, 163-06 46th Avenue, Flushing, NY, (718) 359-0100.
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