New York Literary Pilgrimage

New York Literary Pilgrimage

by Alexander Laurence

If you take a walk around New York, you can find places where several previous writers have lived, worked, and died. This is a list of notable places around Manhatten.

James Agee

The author of A Death In The Family (1957) lived in New York City the last two decades of his life in alchoholic bliss.

38 Perry St (Greenwich Village)

172 Bleeker Street

33 Cornelia Street

W. H. Auden

Famous poet had a few years of expatriate living. His works, The Age of Anxiety and The Rake's Progress were written here.

7 Cornelia Street

77 St. Mark's Place

Djuna Barnes

Born in upstate New York, lived in Greenwich Village and Paris most of her life. She wrote Nightwood and worked for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Patchin Place

The Chelsea Hotel

Opened in 1884. Many writers came here to stay like Mark Twain and O. Henry. Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can't Go Home Again. Other residents include James T. Farrell, Dylan Thomas, Edward Dahlberg, Brendan Behan, James Schuyler and Arthur Miller.

222 West 23rd Street

John Dos Passos

Author of several novels including The Manhatten Transfer.

14A Washington Mews

106-10 Columbia Heights

214 Riverside Drive

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The author of The Great Gatsby spent a few years in New York.

200 Claremont Avenue

The Biltmore Hotel: East 43rd Street

Langston Hughes

Author of The Weary Blues and Mulatto lived in New York City most of his life.

634 St. Nicholar Avenue

20 East 127th Street

Henry James

Born at 21 Washington Place, left for Europe and returned several times. Author of Washington Square, The Ambassadors, and Daisy Miller.

Jack Kerouac

He wrote On The Road in a room on West 20th Street. Lived off and on in Manhatten for years.

454 West 20th Street

501 East 11th Street

Herman Melville

He was born at 6 Pearl Street, and lived at 33 Bleeker Street and 675 Broadway as a child. He wrote Typee and Moby Dick. He lived in obscurity for thirty years till his death in 1891.

104 East 26th Street

Arthur Miller

Author of Death of a Salesman and husband of Marilyn Monroe grew up in Brooklyn and Harlem.

444 East 57th Street

The Chelsea Hotel (1962-1968)

Marianne Moore

Famous 20th Century poet, associated with Modernism, and rival of artist/poet Mina Loy.

14 St. Luke's Place

35 West 9th Street

Dorothy Parker

Poet, writer for Vanity Fair and subject of the movie, Mrs. Parker and Her Vicious Circle. Grew up on 57th Street, and spent her last days at The Volney Hotel.

57 West 57th Street

Volney Hotel, 23 East 73rd Street

Edgar Allen Poe

Spent most of his time in Baltimore but was in New York City for a few years between 1837-1844. He wrote most of his well known poems at The Poe Cottage.

West 84th Street (at Broadway)

85 Amity Street (now West 3rd Street)

John Reed

Revolutionary and author of Ten Days That Shook The World. He lived in New York City between 1911-1919.

42-43 Washington Square South

23 5th Avenue

147 West 4th Street

John Steinbeck

California's great novelist lived in New York City's upper east side for the last three decades of his life with his third wife. Cannery Row and East of Eden were written at this time. In 1962, he won the Nobel Prize.

206 East 52nd Street

Edith Wharton (née Jones)

Part of one of New York City's prominent families, she wrote several novels including The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. Close friends with Henry Miller. Born at 14 West 23rd Street.

28 West 25th Street

884 Park Avenue