Chances are you have never been to the Park Avenue Armory in New York City unless you have gone there for one of the legendary Arts and Antiques Fairs.  In recent years, this landmark building from days gone by has been undergoing a quiet restoration and re-birth.  And as part of the WNET, New York PBS, series: “Treasures of New York,” I am doing a documentary on this massive urban palace from the Gilded Age. The Armory, which takes up a full city block on tony Park Avenue between 66th and 67th Street, was built in the late 1800’s by what was known as the Silk Socking Regiment of the National Guard.  The Silk Stocking Regiment earned it’s distinctive name because so many of its members came from the finest New York families.  Astor and Harriman, Roosevelt and Van Rensselaer to name just a few.  The names meant big bucks when the place was being built as both a military installation and an elite social club.  The Regiment called upon the greatest artisans of the day to adorn their play house: Tiffany, Stanford White, the Herter Brothers.  The end result is a masterpiece with a 55,000 square foot Drill Hall and 18 glorious period rooms.  Today the Armory is being restored to its beautiful origins and being re-invented as a cultural arts space that can present works needing huge spaces and great imagination.  Works like Peter Greenaway’s “Leonardo’s Last Supper” or Ryoji Ikeda’s “The Transfinite.”  Works that can really only happen in the Armory’s Drill Hall with it’s 85 foot high curved ceiling.  It’s a marvel and the subject of my latest documentary for PBS which will air at the end of October.  Stay tuned!