Charlie Parker Residence

151 Avenue B | East Village | built 1849

Open on the map7 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1906

    The Bryson Day Nursery expands into the house

    Dr. David D. Toal's family, longtime owners of 151 Avenue B, sells the house in 1906 to the Bryson Day Nursery, which already runs the building next door. The nursery spends $18,500 renovating the house in 1909 and, later overseen by the National Association of Day Nurseries, keeps it in institutional use until 1944.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1945

    February

    Joseph Raskob buys the house and converts it into apartments

    Joseph Raskob buys 151 Avenue B in February 1945, a year after Samuel Kilpatrick purchased it along with the neighboring nursery building, and converts it into one apartment per floor. The basement unit he creates becomes available a few years later to a touring jazz musician.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1950

    Charlie Parker moves into the ground-floor apartment at 151 Avenue B

    Around 1950 the saxophonist Charlie Parker moved into the ground floor of this circa-1849 row house with his partner Chan Richardson. They lived here about four years, and their children Pree and Baird were born during that time. It was Parker's last permanent home in New York before his death in 1955.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1954

    October

    Charlie Parker leaves the Avenue B apartment for Pennsylvania

    After four years in the basement apartment with Chan Richardson and their children, Charlie Parker moves the family to New Hope, Pennsylvania, in October 1954, months after the couple's young daughter Pree dies of congenital heart failure. Already barred from performing in New York State's nightclubs since 1951, Parker himself dies within the year, on March 12, 1955.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1955

    Painter Franz Kline briefly takes the third-floor apartment

    Abstract Expressionist painter Franz Kline rents the third-floor apartment at 151 Avenue B in 1955, arriving just after Charlie Parker's departure. Sculptor Peter Agostini later lives in the building from 1962 to 1966, continuing its run as an address for New York artists.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1979

    Jazz producer Judy Rhodes buys the house and moves into Parker's old apartment

    Concert producer and booking agent Judy Rhodes buys 151 Avenue B for $90,000 in 1979 and moves into the ground-floor apartment once occupied by the Parkers. She lets visiting musicians rehearse in her front room, keeping the address's jazz ties alive decades after Charlie Parker's residency.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1999

    May 18

    The city designates Charlie Parker's former home a landmark

    The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 7, 1994, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it a city landmark on May 18, 1999. In the early 1990s the stretch of Avenue B between 9th and 10th Streets outside the house was renamed Charlie Parker Place.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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