Located on a large, grassy campus in Staten Island’s Castleton Corners neighborhood, the Headquarters Troop, 51st Cavalry Brigade Armory is one of the borough’s signature buildings and a unique contributor to the city’s rich military history. The first National Guard armory constructed on Staten Island, it was one of only three armories built statewide in the 1920s and was one of the last completed in New York City.
The building’s architects, Harold H. Werner and August P. Windolph, designed the Headquarters Troop Armory in the Castellated style, which was inspired by medieval European castles and fortresses. After World War II, the armory came to house tanks and other armored vehicles, and in 1950, a brick, gable-roofed “Motor Vehicle Storage Building and Service Center” designed by Alfred Hopkins & Associates was constructed directly to its northeast.