Louis Armstrong House

Recently we visited the home of jazz titan Louis Armstrong.

Although a child of New Orleans -- and a Man of the World -- Armstrong spent the last thirty years of his life with his third wife Lucille in a small cozy house in the heart of Corona, Queens.

Lucille was a native of Corona, and Armstrong fell in love with the neighborhood and her in the late 1930s. Even though he was a rich man, he had good but humble taste, and was perfectly happy living his modest house in a working class neighborhood of NYC. That said, it's beautifully decorated with gifts he received during his extensive tours -- he was on the road for 10 months of the year -- as well as other collectibles. And his bathrooms are, to put it simply, lit.

Borin 1901, Louis Armstrong died in 1971.

We were not allowed to take any photos of the house during our visit but you should check out the home's website or, better yet, visit it yourself. Across the street from the house is a small museum dedicated to the man's life. During our visit, one of the people on our tour was someone who had came all the way from Japan -- a country where they love jazz.

It's a reminder that, in this town, you can find cultural history in the most unlikely places.

Sidenote: my wife's father used to deliver groceries to the Armstrong house when he was a kid. He never met the great man himself (he was usually away or upstairs) but Armstrong's wife and housekeeper would give him pancakes.

You can read more about Louis Armstrong on Mr NYC here as well as my earlier picture of his grave here.