About the Massry Center for the Arts

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Students in our nationally-accredited art program, housed at the Picotte Hall Center for Art and Design in downtown Albany, will gain new learning opportunities at the Massry Center while students from all disciplines are exposed to the visual arts.

About the Massry Family

The Massry family has longstanding ties with The College of Saint Rose. In 2008 the College constructed the  Massry Center for the Arts, thanks primarily to the Massry family’s generosity.

Norman Massry is currently the longest-serving member of the Board of Trustees. Norman’s daughter Julie Massry Knox is Saint Rose MBA graduate, while his father Morris is the recipient of an Honorary Degree from the  College. Julie’s husband James Knox is also a Saint Rose graduate. Norman serves on the boards of Bentley College, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Seton Health, United Jewish Federation Endowment Board, HSBC Regional Advisory Board, and the Colonie Youth Center Foundation. Morris serves on the boards of Excelsior College, Proctor’s Theatre, The Center for Disability Services, and the State University at Albany Foundation, in addition to his past service with numerous other organizations. In 2006, Morris received the Boy Scouts Distinguished Citizen Award, and in 2004 he was given the YMCA President’s Award. Julie is the Chair of the College’s Board of Associates, the Foundation Board at the Center for Disability Services, and volunteers on the Hop, Scotch and Slide committee for Seton Health. Norman’s son Murray is a graduate of Bentley College and is the Project Manager for Tri City Rentals. Additionally, Murray serves on the Boards of  Albany Academies, Daughters of Sarah Nursing Home, and Albany Medical Center. Norman’s youngest daughter Laurie is a graduate of Cornell University, and is currently pursuing a Masters in Public Health at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.  The Massrys are also significant supporters of St. Peter’s Health Care Services.

The Massrys have owned and operated Tri City Rentals, the area’s premier apartment rental and management company, for more than 40 years. During this time, the community has greatly benefited from the professional activities and volunteer service of the Massry family members.

Morris and his wife Esther have six children and reside in Loudonville.

Building Green: Low Impact, Generous Rewards

From the start, College leaders and the architects at Saratoga Associates envisioned a center that would maximize energy efficiency and minimize waste. The building is designed to meet the second highest rating (LEED) “Gold” standard of the United States Green Building Council.

Among its unique features, the Massry Center:

•is heated and cooled by a geothermal system that originates in 40 wells beneath the parking lot. Each well is 450 feet deep – that is as deep as the building, above-ground, stacked up 10 times

•uses no fossil fuel in heating or ventilation and 35 percent of its electricity is supplied by wind or water power

•is constructed from reused materials, including 78 percent of the steel frame and 15 percent of the concrete

•recycled 98 percent of waste generated in its construction, with asphalt from the old parking lot ground up and used in the new parking lot and bricks and drywall hauled to the Port of Albany for recycling

•uses American Cherry and Patagonian Cherry wood on doors and floors, grown on tree farms meeting standards set by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Massry Center Interior and Exterior Details

Exterior
Respecting the streetscape and the design of our historic campus, the Massry Center mirrors the Victorian administration building next to it in its dimensions and roof pattern. The Center sweeps back nearly four times its front width, just over 200 feet, providing a dramatic expansive facility. The use of glass interspersed with brick lends lightness to the Center. The side entrance is enhanced by a plaza which, with landscaping, creates a welcoming seating and gathering area.

First Floor
Picotte Recital Hall, art gallery, art history classroom

A centerpiece of the building, the 400-seat Picotte Recital Hall, maximizes acoustical quality for performers and the audience alike. Visual flourishes, including scalloped panels along the walls and ceiling, play a crucial role in delivering superior sound.

At the center of the first floor, the College’s art history classroom is equipped with a touch-screen, digital light projector that beams high-quality digital images onto a wall painted with “Screen Goo,’’ an acrylic paint providing far crisper images than conventional screens. The room will become a springboard for the College to offer more art history classes, particularly in non-Western art.

The Picotte Recital Hall:
The panels on the walls and ceiling are designed by Peter D’Antonio, a physicist and world leader in acoustical design with more than 60 patents. These panels are seen in concert halls worldwide, but have rarely before been installed in educational institutions.

A pattern of holes on the recital seat bottoms are filled with an acoustical material that absorbs sound, ensuring the same quality and volume whether there are four or 400 people in the hall.

Acoustical properties of the recital hall doors: each door is five inches thick and weighs 380 pounds

A Steinway concert grand piano adorns the stage, thanks to a generous anonymous donor.

Esther Massry Gallery
At the Madison Avenue end of the first floor, the 2,200 square-foot art gallery provides flexible and open exhibition space. By assisting with exhibits, art students will have a special opportunity to learn gallery management.

Floor-to-ceiling windows supply natural light and can be covered with custom room-darkening shades to allow for light shows and multi-media installations.

Rigging apparatus near the window makes it possible to hang art weighing up to 3,000 pounds.

Movable halogen track lighting with lenses adjust intensity and color of the beam. The system is manufactured by Lighting Services Inc., of Stony Point, N.Y., a leader in museum lighting with installations at the American Museum of Natural History and Yale University Art Gallery.

Walls outside the gallery are backed with three-quarter-inch plywood, allowing art to be exhibited throughout the Massry Center.

Second Floor
The music education classroom is known as an Orff classroom, named for the composer Carl Orff, an innovator in teaching music to children. The room houses a collection of Orff instruments used to teach the youngest learners.

The KeyBank Music Education Suite includes three teaching studios/ensemble practice rooms, the music education classroom and the music curriculum library.

Third Floor
1,800 square-foot choral rehearsal room and 2,500 square-foot instrument rehearsal room

The instrument rehearsal and choral rehearsal rooms in the William Randolph Hearst Music Wing are uniquely constructed of the same wood floor, ceiling and wall paneling as the Picotte Recital Hall, resulting in exactly the same sound quality in the rehearsal rooms as the Recital Hall. This eliminates the great variation in sound quality between practice and performance that is often daunting to singers and musicians.

Third Floor Student Lounge Instrument Rehearsal Room

Lower Level
21 practice rooms, two classrooms, two percussion studios, instrument storage lockers, the artists’ Green Room and geothermal pump room.

Sound-proof practice rooms are fitted with acoustical blocks and an angled wall that give them superior sound quality, unlike conventional practice rooms, which are laden with thick walls and carpet that seal in sound but diminish sound quality.