To Kill a Mockingbird is consistently ranked as one of the most beloved and influential novels of the twentieth century. Generations of students have studied Lee's work in literature classes and thousands have come to know the book through film or stage adaptations.&nbsp; But Harper Lee was an intensely private person. Even after winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, she preferred to live as anonymously as possible, rarely giving interviews and generally shunning the trappings of fame. Though she counted Truman Capote and Gregory Peck among her friends, she maintained a simple life, preferring to be home in Alabama for much of the year. So successful was Lee in guarding her privacy that in the days and weeks following her death in 2016, many New Yorkers were surprised to find that the person who created Boo Radley and Atticus Finch had lived among them, quietly, for decades. Lee came to New York in 1949 and worked as an airline reservation agent, cramming as much writing as she could into her nights and weekends. In 1956, friends gave her her yearly salary as a Christmas gift with the stipulation that she take a year and devote herself to her writing. The following year, Lee's manuscript Go Set a Watchman reached an editor, and after a couple of years of revisions, the manuscript emerged as To Kill a Mockingbird.&nbsp; When Lee arrived in New York, she got a cold-water flat on York Avenue and 82nd Street, where she lived until it was demolished in the late 1960s. She then moved to the apartment at 433, where she lived in 1E. The building is as unassuming as the writer herself, and even some of the residents in the building were unaware that one the country's greatest writers lived in the building. Lee maintained the apartment until her death, reportedly paying just under $1000 a month for the one-bedroom flat.&nbsp;

Harper Lee in the courthouse in Monroeville, the basis for Maycomb

A brief clip of Gregory Peck's recollection of Harper Lee

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Beloved author Harper Lee, who won the Pulitzer Prize for To Kill a Mockingbird, was an Alabama native who made her hometown of Monroeville famous as the fictionalized Maycomb. Lee spent much of her life in Alabama, but she also maintained an apartment on the Upper East Side. She moved to the city in 1949, well before becoming a literary sensation, and kept the apartment on 82nd Street until her death in 2016.

Former Apartment of Harper Lee 

Stroll through the Yorkville neighborhood (east of Carnegie Hill and not quite as posh), to historic apartments, rowhouses, and a library; then say hello to the mayor at Gracie Mansion.

A carved limestone griffin at the apartment building's corner below the third story keeps watch over the intersection, above a brass landmark plaque near the sidewalk on the E. 80th street side. The brickwork of the exterior of the third and fourth floors is patterned in a cross-hatch style. The rooftop features an enclosed water tank.The Apartment Building at 133 E. 80th Street has retained its traditional usage with commercial spaces on the ground floor along Lexington Avenue and residential apartments in the rest of the building. The apartment house is unusual in the large size of each apartment; the building only contains 26 units and is now organized as a co-op. The building has been touted as one of Lexington Avenue's most distinguished apartment buildings, with the multiple gargoyles and doorman making up for the lack of parking or balconies.The apartment building's footprint is 70 by 100 fee with the longer side facing east (Lexington Avenue). Commercial spaces take up only about 4,000 of the building's roughly 77,000 square feet. Apple Bank, a tailor shop, and a coffee/ juice/ sandwich shop occupied the commercial spaces facing Lexington Avenue in recent years.Rosario Candela immigrated from Sicily and later graduated from the Architecture School of Columbia University in 1915. Candela was key to the transformation of portions of Fifth, Park, and Lexington Avenues from boulevards lined with mansions in 1920 to thoroughfares of towering apartment buildings by 1930. Most of the apartments in the building at 133 E. 80th Street still kept their original floor plan by 2010, when the structure was evaluated for listing in the New York and National Registers of Historic Places. The apartment building was listed on both registers in 2010. The awning over the entrance to the residential entrance on 80th Street is labeled "One Thirty-Three." Other nearby apartment buildings designed by Candela include the high-rises at 770 and 778 Park Avenue and 834 and 1040 Fifth Avenue.

Built between 1929 and 1930, the 15-story apartment building at the northwest corner of East 80th Street and Lexington Avenue was designed by Rosario Candela (1890-1953). Candela was an architect who specialized in luxury apartment houses. In the 1920s, rising land values and zoning changes created a market for tall apartment buildings, especially in the Upper East Side neighborhood. By the late 1920s, it was becoming fashionable for upper class Manhattanites to live in apartment homes. The limestone base with patterned brown brick above is embellished with Medieval-inspired stone and terra cotta trim. The building's tower is formed by staggered setbacks of the upper floors and is ornamented in Gothic style.

Apartment Building at 133 E. 80th Street

The New York Public Library, Yorkville Branch building is one of four adjacent buildings of roughly the same height, wedged between high-rises. The library building is three bays wide, with three round arched openings in the limestone facade on the first floor. The keystone of each arch features a carved lion's head. Below the second floor is a belt course marked with a Greek fret symbol. Ionic columns separate the three windows in each level of the upper floors, with pilasters marking the outer edges of the building; the windows are topped with a pediment below an oblong window framed with garland swag decorations. A strong cornice with a low balustrade tops the main facade, reaching slightly higher than its three neighbors.When news of Andrew Carnegie's donation of funds to New York City for new library buildings was announced, one local newspaper mentioned in 1901 that the funds were "especially gratifying for those of the free circulating library branches that have yet no permanent homes of their own, but are inadequately housed in rented quarters. Of those may be mentioned the Yorkville, at Seventy-ninth-st. and second-av., which is doing a remarkable work in a corner store 25 by 80 feet..." The German Association for Culture created an art exhibition at the Yorkville Branch beginning in 1912. The 1913 exhibition featured the paintings of a new member, Gustave Wolff, plus work by Henry Hintermeister and Louis Bromberg. There is at least one instance of a famous use of this library for research: Thomas Masaryk used this library to prepare for the founding of the Czechoslovac Republic after World War I.The Landmarks Preservation Committee of New York City held a public hearing on designating the Yorkville Branch Library building as a landmark on November 10th 1966. Two people spoke in favor of the designation and none were opposed. A representative of the New York Public Library stated there was no objection from the library. The building was proclaimed a New York City Landmark in January 1967. The interior of the library underwent extensive restorations in the mid-1980s. The lower level contains a meeting room seating 72. The adult, young adult, and reference collections are on the first floor. The second story houses a children's room.

The three-story Italian Renaissance style building on the south side of East 79th Street was built in 1902 as a public library. The limestone main facade of the building, designed by architect James Brown Lord, officially opened on December 13th 1902. The New York Public Library, Yorkville Branch building was listed in the New York and National Registers in 1982. The building is a rare example of the Palladian phase of Italian Renaissance architecture in Manhattan. Still a public library branch, the building was the first library built in the city with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie to New York City for 65 public library buildings.

New York Public Library, Yorkville Branch

Until 1851, this block was part of the "Common Lands" owned by the City of New York. The Third Avenue Railroad opened in 1852, making it easy for residents of the Yorkville neighborhood to commute to lower Manhattan. By 1860, the block was still undeveloped but considered part of the village of Yorkville. A developer named Howard A. Martin bought 200 feet along the south side of the block in 1861. Martin subdivided the property into fifteen narrow lots (206 - 234 E. 78th St.), each only 13 feet 4 inches wide. An investment banker, William H. Brewer, purchased the complex from Martin in 1862 while it was still being built. Since the lots were the same width and the same builders - Warren and Ransom Beman and John Buckley - constructed all of the units, the units were likely identical. Before construction was finally completed in 1865, Brewer had sold all of the units. The units at the ends of the block - 206 (west) and 220 - 234 (east) were demolished in the 20th century to construct apartment buildings.All of the windows on the front of 214 E. 78th Street have had functioning white shutters added. Most of the rest of the facades of the row houses are identical except for individual colors and styles of the front door. Most seem to include a separate apartment in the raised basement, with an entrance door beneath the main residence's front stoop and double front windows with bars overlooking a small patio. Similar but not identical sets of Black cast iron railings line both sides of each main entrance stairway; the stairway and the entrance to the basement level also are fenced with Black cast iron fencing at the sidewalk level, with varying heights and styles of gates. The original brownstone stoops have been replaced with concrete in some of the rowhouses.Three of the six rowhouses were occupied by their owners in 1980. Most of the rowhouses are currently two-family residences. The house at the west end, 208 E. 78th Street, contains a one-bedroom, one-bath unit of around 850 square feet in the raised basement/ ground floor, while the three upper floors are a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath unit of 2,600 square feet.

The row of six connected row houses from 208 to 218 East 78th Street in the Upper East Side were listed together on the New York and National Registers in 1983 and as a New York City Landmark in 1978. This side of the block used to contain a row of 16 of these houses, built from 1861 to 1865 as speculative residences for the middle class. Each three-story house over a raised basement is only about 13 feet wide with two bays. The elliptical arched openings with decorative keystones for the first floor doorway and parlor window are unusual in Italianate design. Tall stoops lead to the doorway on the left of each unit; the double doors below an arched transom appeared to still be the originals in 1982. Ground floor units have an entryway under the stoop.

Houses at 208 to 218 E. 78th Street

York Avenue is located in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, New York. Starting at 59th Street and extending up to 92nd Street, York Avenue is named after the American World War I veteran Alvin C. York. Dedicated in 1928, sections of Avenue A and Sutton Place were renamed York Avenue (Pollak). Born in Eastern Tennessee, Alvin Cullum York is best known for known for his heroics in October of 1918. Alvin York was a part Eighty-Second Division and fought in the last major Allied battle of the war, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in Northern France. On October 8th, 1918, York is stated to have personally shot six machine gunners and killed six German lieutenants using his .45 Colt automatic pistol (Birdwell). Along with seven other soldiers, York marched one hundred thirty-two German prisoners of war back to the American Second Battalion command post. (Birdwell). For his heroics, Alvin York was awarded the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross, along with being promoted to Sargent.Sargent Alvin York maintained a great deal of popularity after World War I. This would not be the case if it were not for the Saturday Evening Post article by George Patullo that outlined and spread the news of York and the Eighty-Second Division’s heroics (Birdwell). York became the most well known and popular American Veteran of the First World War. He spoke at Carnegie Hall, and even had a film based on his life Sergeant York (1941) (Birdwell). Sergeant York won two Oscars and was the highest grossing film of 1941 (IMDb). In addition to his notoriety, Alvin York dedicated much of his post World War I life to public education though his Alvin C. York Foundation (Birdwell).

York Avenue is located in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, New York. The street is named after one of the most famous American World War I veterans, Alvin Cullum York. York is known for his bravery in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of 1918. After his service, York maintained a high level of notoriety including being the subject of the film with box-office success _Sergeant York_ (1941). 

York Avenue

Known as the "Little White House" of New York City, Gracie Mansion is the current home of the Mayor of New York City. The house was built in 1799 by Archibald Gracie, who was a Scottish born merchant, making quite a bit of money in the shipping business. The house was built on the East River in what is today called Carl Schurz Park at East End Avenue at 89th Street. It was designed in a Federalist style by an unknown architect. The house was later expanded by Gracie. It includes five bedrooms, three chimneys, and sits two stories high. Gracie was forced to sell the mansion after a series of financial setbacks after the War of 1812, which limited shipping across the Atlantic. The home sold in 1823 to Joseph Foulke, who owned the home until 1857 when Noah Wheaton purchased the property. Wheaton would maintain the house, though it began to fall into disrepair over the years, until 1896 when the City of New York acquired the property because of unpaid taxes. The City of New York did little to preserve Gracie Mansion for decades. Instead, it served as a place for concessions and restrooms for visitors to Carl Schurz Park. However, the City finally decided to renovate the house, and in 1923, it became the first location for the Museum of the City of New York. The Museum ultimately outgrew the mansion and moved to Fifth Avenue in 1932. After more renovations, Gracie Mansion served as a house museum, representing early Federalist architecture in New York City. In 1942, thanks to the efforts of Park Commissioner Robert Moses, Gracie Mansion became the home of the Mayor of New York. Mayors lived in their own homes before this. Fiorello H. La Guardia was the first mayor to take up residence in the home. At first, La Guardia refused to move into the home, but he was eventually forced to move in by Moses. The Mansion was expanded in 1960 with a wing added for guests and official business since the residence was too small to house the Mayor's family and entertain company. This new wing was named after Mayor Robert Wagner's wife, Susan, who initiated the plans for the additional wing and died while it was being built. Other additions and renovations have been completed on the house as mayors have moved in and out. Though many New York City mayors have decided to stay in their own homes, the house still serves as the official residence of the Mayor of New York City.

Gracie Mansion was built in 1799 for Archibald Gracie, a wealthy New York merchant, using the Federal Style of architecture. Gracie sold the house to Joseph Foulke in 1823 after suffering financial setbacks. The home was sold again in 1857 to Noah Wheaton. Then, in 1896, New York City acquired the property after the owner failed to pay taxes. It served as a restroom and concession stand for years until the city decided to invest money to refurbish the house. Following renovations, the historic mansion served as a museum until 1932. In 1942, it became the home of the Mayor of New York City, with Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia being the first to move in. 

Historic Walking Tour of Yorkville, Manhattan's Upper East Side

Former Apartment of Harper Lee

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information