WEDGED BETWEEN THE CHEERLESS skyscrapers of Third Avenue and an uncharming stretch of Second, just blocks north of the bro bars of Murray Hill, is a row of nine townhouses. They have flat façades and modest entrances a step down from the street beside lines of trash bins. One block south, on 48th Street, is another row of similarly unassuming design. Anyone passing by might not guess that these houses are connected and centered on a shady private garden. Or that they have acted as a sort of year-round summer retreat for generations of actors and writers—a place where E.B. White could get writing done, where Robert Gottlieb could edit from bed, and where Bob Dylan could avoid prying eyes, except for those of his next-door neighbor, Katharine Hepburn.
Together, these 19 townhouses make up Turtle Bay Gardens, created around 1920 by a developer who renovated the 1860s-era homes all at once. Each has its own small private space, with low walls, that looks onto an unusually beautiful shared garden. That developer was an heiress named Charlotte Hunnewell Sorchan. The press at the time reported the idea first came up at a tea at the Ritz-Carlton shortly after World War I, where her friends had apparently been complaining they couldn’t find good affordable housing; the war had put a stop to new construction, and prices were out of control. She had the funds for a solution. After some hunting, she came across two rows of brownstones in a “quarter that was then considered too far east,” as she later wrote. Working families, wedged there between elevated-train lines, had used their yards to vent kitchen smoke, hang laundry, and store garbage. She and her friends saw potential, with press reports saying that they were inspired to create something like “a little villa in ancient Italy.”
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin July 24 - August 11, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin July 24 - August 11, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.