[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong - Michael Cogswell - House in New York City

[Stephen Barbone]

Here is the information on Pop's house in the Corona section of New York
City should anyone be planning a visit. Michael Cosgrove who wrote the
brand new book about Pop's personal life probably knows more about him
than anyone else on the planet. See references to Cosgrove in paragraphs
#2 and the 3rd paragraph from the end below: Like Bob Ringwald, I urge
you to buy it and read it if you are interested in what Louis was like
as a person. And I urge you to visit his house.

My childhood home was not far from Louis Armstrong's, and Dizzy's
houses. How lucky is that? BTW, contrary to popular thought, Pops and
Diz were great friends which one could easily see when they were
together at the local Chinese Restaurant, or sitting on Pop's stoop,
laughing and joking with the kids.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone BA, MA, LLD, CAH ;-) VBG


"When he pulled up in a taxi, in 1943, to 34-56 107th Street, Louis
Armstrong was a tad incredulous about his new digs, which his wife had
bought and furnished while he completed his latest tour. The famed
trumpeter was so skeptical that he asked the cabbie how much he made per
hour and told him to wait, for Armstrong wasn’t sure if he wanted to
stay put in the modest, two-story brick house nestled in Corona. Yet,
once he got inside and greeted his wife Lucille, Armstrong was won over,
and invited the cabbie in to have breakfast with him and his wife. He
lived in there for nearly 30 years, until he passed away in his sleep in
1971."

"He could have had a huge estate with a swimming pool in the shape of a
trumpet," said Mike Cogswell, director of the Louis Armstrong Archives
at Queens College, about the merrimaking musician who made millions but
chose to live in a blue-collar community of Queens, even when he had the
opportunity to buy a house in the suburbs next to his favorite baseball
player, Jackie Robinson. Pops, as he is reverently referred to by those
who knew him, fell in love with the neighborhood, and, according to
Cogswell, some of the older residents remember the man with the big
smile for his warmth and generosity and his occasional trumpet sessions
on his stoop.

Phoebe Jacobs, vice president of the Louis Armstrong Education
Foundation, who worked for Pops’ manager Joe Glaser, agrees that
Satchmo, another of the trumpeter’s nicknames, was always the jovial,
generous man.

"Louis was a people person," said Jacobs warmly. "He loved New York and
Corona."

According to Jacobs, the Armstrongs settled in Corona because Lucille
grew up in the neighborhood. The two met and fell in love while she was
a dancer at the Cotton Club. "He would watch her walk, and he would say
‘How do you like that filly?’" said Jacobs.

While working for Glaser, Jacobs made many trips out to the performer’s
house and saw how the two became mainstays in the community. She recalls
Pops, who had no children of his own, always buying ice cream for the
neighborhood kids whenever the Good Humor man came to his block.

Pops was one of many jazz greats to live in the area. Other famous
residents include Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald and Clark Terry. "For
Louis and Dizzy, who came from the south, it had a nice atmosphere — a
little like the country," said Jimmy Heath, a saxophonist and Corona
resident, on the reason the two acclaimed performers took to Corona.
Heath would speak with Armstrong in the streets when they bumped into
one another,
and the two musicians would attend each other’s shows.

Fans curious to know what home life was like for Satchmo have the chance
to take a tour of his residence, courtesy of the Louis Armstrong
Education Foundation and the Louis Armstrong Archives. The house was
willed to the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, while its
possessions went to the Louis Armstrong Archives, after Mrs. Armstrong
passed away in 1983. In turn, the department leased the Corona treasure
to Cogswell’s organization, to manage it and conduct tours. After a $1.6
million renovation, it unfurled its welcome mats October 16, 2003

"He was the one who started it all and put it all together," said John
Faddis, a trumpeter and Purchase College professor, who is organized the
celebration’s musical ensemble, about Armstrong’s significance to jazz
music. Faddis, a former director of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra,
said that a vision of Louis Armstrong is what inspired him to take up
the trumpet when he was seven.

After 20 years with no one living in the house on 107th Street, the
national and city landmark remains almost exactly as the Armstrongs left
it. Vibrant colorful wallpaper chosen by Lucille Armstrong, who, as an
assistant to interior designer Morris Grossberg, gained an eye for
decorating, lines the interior. The original 1950’s-style kitchen
remains intact, as do the myriad mirrors adorning the walls of the
bathroom.

"Louis was a delightfully eccentric pack rat," said Cogswell, who
recently wrote Louis Armstrong: The Off-Stage Story of Satchmo, which
details the trumpeter’s personal life. The director said that Armstrong
was known for tape recording anyone who came for a visit. Six hundred
and fifty tapes were found in his house, including piquant palavers of
Pops entertaining dinner party guests, joking — during one meal, he
japes, "Brussel sprouts
come from Brussels?" — telling band stories, palling around with the
family dog, General, and even bickering with his wife. From the start of
the tour, which begins with a ring of the door bell, people will hear
these audio tracks of the Armstrongs and their guests playing in each
room.

And, of course, in keeping with Mrs. Armstrong’s practice of maintaining
an immaculate home, the rooms are spotless. "He would say, ‘That Lucille
is so clean, you could perform surgery in these rooms," said Jacobs,
relaying one of Pop’s quips.

The Armstrong House is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through
Fridays, and noon to 5 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays. General admission is
$8. Students and seniors pay $4, and free for members of the Louis
Armstrong Museum.