The Battle for an Armory and Its Treasures

The war over some $6 million worth of paintings, flags and trophies inside the Seventh Regiment Armory on the Upper East Side has not been going on for as long as the Hundred Years War, which actually lasted 116 years. It only seems as if it has.

But at 10 years and counting, this fight has outlasted the Mexican Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's, both World Wars, the Boer War, the Spanish-American War, even the Civil War. And, as a television correspondent might say in signing off from the front lines, the end is nowhere in sight.

Last month, a judge ruled that New York State, not a fund set up by veterans, owns the memorabilia accumulated during the Seventh Regiment's storied history. Officials of the fund say they plan to appeal the decision.

But that legal skirmish is only one element in what the chairman of Community Board 8, who appointed a special subcommittee to deal with armory issues, calls "a huge war on many fronts."

Like many wars, it is about territory and control. The territory is the sprawling armory itself, a turreted, late-19th-century building that covers a square block, between 66th and 67th Streets and Park and Lexington Avenues.