The non-descript building occupying a square block on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, draws little attention of passersby and local residents. But this Sunday evening, thousands will file into the Troop C Armory for the banquet session, concluding the International Conference of Shluchim.
When Lieutenant Paul Grout petitioned the Ways and Means Committee for $150,000 to house his cavalrymen, he can hardly have pictured the troops who would dine in his drill hall 109 years later.
U.S. Military Armory is Transformed for Chabad Banquet
The non-descript building occupying a square block on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, draws little attention of passersby and local residents. But this Sunday evening, thousands will file into the Troop C Armory for the banquet session, concluding the International Conference of Shluchim.
When Lieutenant Paul Grout petitioned the Ways and Means Committee for $150,000 to house his cavalrymen, he can hardly have pictured the troops who would dine in his drill hall 109 years later.
It has taken nothing short of an army of producers, construction workers, designers, and electricians working over many months to transform the cavernous drill hall to seat 4,000 guests for dinner.
The convention committee runs into the same predicament each year: even in America’s largest, busiest city, it is hard work finding a place to seat so many people. In the early years of the conference, the several hundred or so rabbis who traveled to New York each fall could easily be accommodated in the local yeshiva’s social hall. When their numbers multiplied, the banquet moved to the Marriot Hotel in Brooklyn and then, when they outgrew that, to Manhattan hotels. Last year, thousands of guests made their way to Pier 94 on the Hudson River.
But for this year’s event, marking 70 years since Chabad-Lubavitch relocated its headquarters in Brooklyn, it made sense to make the culminating event, if not in spitting distance, at least an easy walk from 770 Eastern Parkway. Guests can reach the dinner via a 10-minute pleasant stroll under Eastern Parkway’s autumn overhang.
“Our move this year to the Armory in Brooklyn represents an important connection with the neighborhood where the American branch of Chabad began,” says David Scharf of DS Productions, who has been producing the banquet even for years, and has watched it grow.
The armory is still used by the military: the National Guard has offices inside and humvees are stored in the building’s garage (they were rolled out to accommodate the event’s lobby). In recent years, it has also often been used as a movie set.
Last spring, Chabad’s delegation lobbied the state for permission to rent the armory. They hired an architect who drew up blueprints, outlining the applicable zoning laws and the convention’s needs. Because the armory’s drill hall has an official maximum capacity of only 500 people, Scharf worked with the U.S. Division of Naval and Military Affairs to bring the building up to code and add emergency lighting and signs, to accommodate the 4,000 expected guests.
Jason Scharf recently graduated with a degree in business from Yeshiva University. Now the 20-something works as his father’s executive assistant. He sits in the front hall’s makeshift office, recording new arrivals, coordinating the deliveries, and trying to keep his cool.
