The Armory was demolished in May of 2000.

In the Sunday, December 31, 2000 issue of the Boston Globe Jane Holtz Kay wrote the following letter about the Salem Armory (page D8).

Double turncoat for dark-of-night demolition

"Historic architecture took the hindmost as preservation philanthropist Edward (Ned) Johnson, heir to the family (Fidelity) business, orchestrated the flattening of Salem's handsome, arched brick Armory 1908 headhouse. In the name of providing a view corridor, i.e. a distant perspective for Moshe Safdie's new Peabody-Essex museum across the street, the injuring parties violated a binding memorandum of agreement by leveling the building.

"Left behind: a soul-less lot - a keen reminder of the parking lot similarly bequeathed to Boston by this preservation paragon who bulldozed Gridley J.F. Bryant's Devonshire Street brownstone for a park for his personal chariot."

(Caption beneath a picture of the pre-fire Armory: "Salem's handsome armory, built in 1908, is no more.")

From Jim McAllister's History of Salem, of March 20, 2002, that appears regularly in the Salem Evening News --

"Remembering Salem's most beloved band leader [Jean Marie Missud]....

"The armory would be the scene of another important chapter in the life of Jean Missud and his musicians. On April 14, 1928, more than 2,000 people gathered there to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Salem Cadet Band -- and to show their affection for its humble leader.

"Other honors...awaited Jean Missud. Perhaps the most exciting of these was given him a few years before his death in 1941, when the conductor joined an overflow audience at the armory to watch America's greatest band leader, John Phillip Sousa, in action.

"Part way through the concert, Sousa summoned Jean Missud to the stage and handed him the baton. The gesture was the ultimate tribute to Salem's greatest and most beloved band leader."

Links

This letter appeared in the Salem Evening News of June 24, 2002:

Letter: Still waiting for museum's apology

To the Editor:

It being a little more than two years since the destruction of the facade of the Salem Armory headhouse, now might be the time to look back and remember why it was demolished and why a park exists there now. History must not die nor be swept under the rug.

In 1982, the interior of the Armory was destroyed by fire, leaving only the front three walls of the headhouse and the attached drill shed intact.

Early in the 1990s, what is now the Peabody Essex Museum agreed to reuse portions of the headhouse walls for an expanded museum facility.

In 1993, Dan L. Monroe began his tenure as executive director of the Peabody Essex Museum. Soon after, he wrote to the city of Salem that the armory facade "dramatically inhibits future plans for the Head House" and requested that the plans for its reuse be "revisited". In 1995, new plans for the museum expansion called for "Construction of a museum campus orientation kiosk on the corner of a new Museum Plaza after removal of the Armory Headhouse facade."

Mr. Monroe was quoted as saying, "We're very sensitive to the feelings people have about the facade, but we couldn't develop a plan to meet our needs."

In 1998, Mr. Monroe, in correspondence attempting to extricate the museum from its legally binding agreements to reuse the Armory facade, stated that their previous plans "are no longer, we have concluded, appropriate."

Why were the plans to reuse the Armory no longer appropriate? Because, as Mr. Monroe told the Salem Evening News later in 1998, "while the expansion would bring a major new building to downtown, it lacked grand, new outdoor space to accompany it." Plans for the Armory site now called for "a courtyard with benches, outdoor art, and works from (the museum's) collections dedicated to a 'liberty theme.'" Note that no mention is made of veterans, of the Second Corps of Cadets, or of a veterans' memorial.

The Salem Armory was demolished simply to get a better view of the Peabody Essex Museum's addition, an addition driven by the ambition and ego of individuals and trustees who have dreams of turning what used to be two world-class history, architecture, and maritime museums into a money-making art and "culture" museum.

Whether one agrees with their decisions or not, one must acknowledge that the museum trustees certainly have the right to change the direction of, move, or expand the institution entrusted to them if they so choose. The trustees and their staff also have the right to use whatever legal means and tactics they so choose to gain their ends. The fact that the present Peabody Essex Museum more resembles and conducts itself as a large, impersonal corporation than a museum must also be recognized and acknowledged.

Many fought the destruction of the Armory. In the wake of its destruction, we have been forced to accept many realities.

We must accept losing our unique history and maritime museums. Everyone must accept losing Liberty Street and downtown parking. We must accept deferred payments until a new parking garage is built, then must accept the museum being guaranteed special parking privileges and rates in that garage.

We must accept the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in waived permit fees. We must accept the fact that museum officials used intimidation and threats in gaining these and other benefits. We must accept the museum's signing and then reneging on agreements. We must accept the museum's attorneys' half-truths, obfuscations, and legal manipulations.

These things we must accept because we have no choice.

Much more difficult, if not impossible, to accept is the destruction of a portion of a people's heritage and history. The judge who reluctantly allowed the destruction of the Armory recognized that when he said: "The plaintiffs do establish irreparable harm. The destruction of the historic Armory Headhouse will be a loss that cannot be remedied. The Museum's response that it will create a 'world class' park in the place of the historic structure is both weak and peculiar coming from a party whose mission is to preserve history. Destruction of a historic structure, particularly in a city that prides itself on its renowned history, is always regrettable."

The fact that a piece of Salem's heritage was destroyed so that an institution and a few ambitious and ego-driven men can get a better view of the monument they built to themselves is abhorrent. Their subsequent attempts to sugar-coat that destruction with the sop of a memorial to some of the finest citizens of our country -- our veterans -- the very people whose history they destroyed, only makes that destruction more repulsive.

It's unfortunate that the Peabody Essex Museum has pursued this expansion in the arrogant manner in which it has. The museum has alienated many of the citizens of Salem by its destruction of the Salem Armory and by its tactics to achieve its goals. But the museum expansion is now a reality and we all must live with it.

In the future, things will change, hopefully for the better. Executive directors change, trustees change, benefactors change.

Until that happens, I call upon the Peabody Essex Museum to apologize to the citizens of Salem, the Second Corps of Cadets, and the veterans of our country for the destruction of our common heritage -- the Salem Armory headhouse. Until the museum apologizes, it shall forever be haunted by the memory of the Salem Armory.

Staley McDermet

Salem, Massachusetts