James Baldwin Residence
137 West 71st Street | Lincoln Square | built 1890
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1896
Swindler Stephen Dutton, living in the house without paying for it, is headlined 'Prince of Swindlers'
In 1895 Cora Dutton contracted to buy 137 West 71st Street for $52,500, and she and her husband Stephen moved in with his brother Simeon after paying only the first $3,125. On November 24, 1896 the New York Herald headlined Stephen's trial as 'Dutton, Prince of Swindlers,' and he was sentenced to Sing Sing. Simeon went to the Tombs to say goodbye and was arrested there on a separate fraud indictment.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1902
A divorce fight at the house ends with a mother driving her children across the Canadian border
In early 1902 lawyer Frederick Adams Acer sued his wife Adelaide for divorce, claiming infidelity, while she accused him of seeing a woman from theatrical circles. He sent their two children to his mother in Buffalo. On March 14 Adelaide took them from a stroll and drove across the Canadian line, and Acer added kidnapping to his charges. The couple reconciled and returned to the house.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1961
Owners rebuild the 1890 row house as a Modern white-brick apartment building
No. 137 was one of four row houses designed by Thom & Wilson in 1890, and the last of them to survive; the other three were gone by the late 1930s. In 1961 owners Jack Mandel and Elias Gold hired architect H. Russell Kenyon, who removed the stoop, pulled the front wall forward to align with neighboring apartment houses and covered it in white brick, likely inspired by Manhattan House on the Upper East Side.
“Kenyon removed the house's stoop and brought its front wall forward to align with those of its neighboring apartment houses.”
- 1965
James Baldwin's family company buys 137 West 71st Street, and he moves in by 1966
On February 4, 1965 the El-Rhon Corporation, which Baldwin controlled and whose president was his sister and secretary Gloria Karefa-Smart, bought 137 West 71st Street. Baldwin spent nearly $50,000 on it in two years and moved in from West End Avenue by fall 1966, taking a rear first-floor apartment. His mother and sisters Gloria and Paula took units too, and other apartments went to unrelated tenants.
- 1966
Maya Angelou, Miles Davis, Max Roach and Toni Morrison pass through Baldwin's family house
After Baldwin settled in, the house became the family's headquarters and a gathering place. His niece Aisha Karefa-Smart, who grew up there, recalled writers, artists and musicians in the living room debating race, feminism, Africa and the Vietnam War. Visitors included Maya Angelou, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Max Roach, and Toni Morrison lived there for a time with her two sons.
- 1972
A newspaper column reveals the FBI quizzing Baldwin's building superintendent about his travels
On May 12, 1972 columnist Jack Anderson wrote about FBI informants. He noted that agents had asked 'Joseph Brusco (apartment) Superintendent' at 137 West 71st Street about Baldwin, learning that the writer had come back from a trip to Turkey, a tip stamped 'Secret.' The FBI watched Baldwin because of his civil rights activism and his open comments on race and sexuality.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1976
Baldwin's only children's book is inspired by his nephew who lived in the building
Baldwin's nephew Tejan, called TJ, lived in the building and often asked his uncle when he would write a book about him. Baldwin always answered that he was working on it. One Thanksgiving a box of copies arrived from Dial Press: Little Man, Little Man (1976), his only children's book. Baldwin was at home on West 71st Street for much of that year.
- 1987
After Baldwin's death in France, his family keeps the house until selling it in 1994
James Baldwin died in December 1987 in France, at his home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. The body was brought back to New York for a funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka delivered eulogies, and burial followed at Ferncliff Cemetery. His family sold 137 West 71st Street in 1994; the Landmarks Commission's report calls it the surviving building most closely linked to Baldwin in the United States.
“Baldwin's family sold 137 West 71st Street in 1994, and it remains an apartment house today.”
Further reading
- James Baldwin HouseWikipedia
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