Writers-in-Residence
Whether it is its extraordinary history, diversity, constant movement, or sheer size, there is something about New York that inspires artistic expression. The city easily fills the role of muse: who could not find inspiration in the classic glamour of Madison Avenue, the winding cobblestones of Greenwich Village, or the sight of the East River at dawn?
Given New York’s status as a catalyst for creativity, it is unsurprising that so many writers have chosen to make the city their home – and give it new meaning through their work. The fictionalized interpretations of New York that arise from its residents’ time here have not always been positive or straightforward. Not all of the writers who lived here loved the city – indeed, some despised it – but it never failed to provoke passionate responses and interpretations. Anaïs Nin compared New York unfavorably to Paris, but later wrote that she missed its “animal buoyancy.” F. Scott Fitzgerald lent his characters his own contradictory views of the city: The Beautiful and Damned’s disenchanted Anthony Patch proclaims Manhattan to be “chaotic” and “unintelligible,” but to Gatsby’s idealistic Nick Carraway, the city holds “the first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.”
The Village has always been a hub for authors and poets, but almost every neighborhood of Manhattan has housed literary greats on its side streets. Below are a few sites, historic and more recent, where great writers once lived and worked. Many have plaques affixed to the front door; others are more hidden. Some writers left their mark on multiple nooks and crannies around the city. For example, in addition to the residence listed here, Dorothy Parker lived on 68th Street and 103rd Street and was a member of the Algonquin Round Table. Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald also had multiple New York residences: In addition to their 59th Street home, they lived at the Plaza in 1922.
You may not be able to peruse the apartments themselves, but they are still worth a visit, if only to imagine your literary hero picking up a newspaper from the front stoop, or peering out from a high window onto the street below, incorporating the people who passed into his or her stories.
