Holding stately court near the entry to the Central Park Zoo, the Arsenal is one of only two buildings on the park grounds that predate Central Park itself. Built between 1847 and 1851 as a storehouse for arms, the building’s history has been rich and varied, including serving as a temporary home to the Museum of Natural History, and stints as a police precinct, art gallery, and weather bureau.
These days, the Arsenal is home to the offices of New York City’s Commissioner of Parks and Recreation. The facility hosts administration offices and service facilities, as well as a large gallery that serves as a conference room for meetings and press conferences. As Leo Garrison, Senior Designer for Metro Sound Pros (Washingtonville, NY) explains, the gallery space has long been problematic for those presentations.
“It’s not a large space, but it’s very, very reflective, with tile floors, hardwood walls, large windows and high ceilings,” Garrison relates. “Normally, we’d recommend some acoustical treatment, but the room doubles as an art space, so they didn’t want to have any fabric on the walls.”
The building’s historic status also limited their options. “In designing a sound reinforcement system for the space, it was important for us to have minimal visual impact on the room’s aesthetics,” adds Garrison. “The meant not only drilling as few holes as possible, but also matching the room’s white color scheme.”
Garrison recommended a single Renkus-Heinz TRX82 loudspeaker system to cover the space, He cites the system’s tight coverage pattern as being ideally suited for this application. “The TRX82’s output dispersion is perfect for the space,” he offers. “It’s got more than enough power and a nice tight coverage pattern, but it’s compact enough to have minimal visual impact. And Renkus-Heinz matched the paint to the walls perfectly, so it really blends in well. They’re thrilled with the system.”