Truman Capote’s House
Where Truman Capote finished “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”
The story
Before you is number seventy Willow Street. From 1955 to 1965 the writer Truman Capote lived here. The house was not his. It belonged to his friend Oliver Smith, a stage designer who won the Tony Award many times. Capote rented a few rooms from him on the lower floor. Yet, it is said, he would show guests around the whole house. He claimed it was his and that he had decorated every room himself. The writer George Plimpton later recalled this. Here Capote finished the novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” It came out in 1958, and its heroine, Holly Golightly, became famous. Here too he worked on “In Cold Blood,” a book about the real murder of a farm family in Kansas. It came out in 1966. In February 1959 Holiday magazine published Capote’s essay about Brooklyn Heights. It opens with the words: “I live in Brooklyn. By choice.” The writer goes on to describe the house, his favorite shops, and his neighbors. Look around you. By a count made in 1965, more than half the houses in Brooklyn Heights were built before the Civil War. On the twenty-third of November 1965, Brooklyn Heights was declared a historic district. It was the first such district in New York. Since then the law has protected the old houses here.
Visiting
70 Willow Street, Brooklyn Heights; the Clark Street subway station is close by. This is a private home and not open to visitors. Look from the street and do not disturb the residents.
Sources
- Poets & Writers — Truman Capote’s Brooklyn Heights Home
- Wikipedia — Brooklyn Heights: A Personal Memoir
- Wikipedia — Truman Capote
- NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission — Brooklyn Heights Historic District (1965)
- Wikipedia — Brooklyn Heights
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