Famous Residents
Although she was considered to be one of the wealthiest women of her day, and it has even been said that she had the means to buy Hoboken, Hetty Green, the "Witch of Wall Street" chose after her move from London to live in a small, cheap apartment at the Yellow Flats, where she rented a three-room apartment for $19 to $23 per month. To avoid establishing a residency permanent enough to attract the attention of tax officials in any state, Hetty took up several residences in Hoboken and Brooklyn Heights, which has resulted in a discrepancya between whether or not she lived in the apartments listed under the National Register of Historic Places. At the Yellow Flats, she listed her buzzer as C. Dewey, the name of her pet Skye terrier. It was also reported that she lived as a guest of the Yellow Flats buildings' janitor, Jacob Van Twisk.
At the end of his career in 1905, Blind Tom Wiggins, one of the most famous musical performers of his day who played at the White House for President James Buchanan and was highly regarded by Mark Twain, moved into an apartment in the Yellow Flats. Several years later, he died at the home of neighbor Mrs. Eliza Bethune Lerche.
Read more about this topic: Buildings At 1200-1206 Washington Street
Famous quotes containing the words famous and/or residents:
“That a famous library has been cursed by a woman is a matter of complete indifference to a famous library. Venerable and calm, with all its treasures safe locked within its breast, it sleeps complacently and will, so far as I am concerned, so sleep forever. Never will I wake these echoes, never will I ask for that hospitality again ...”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“In most nineteenth-century cities, both large and small, more than 50 percent—and often up to 75 percent—of the residents in any given year were no longer there ten years later. People born in the twentieth century are much more likely to live near their birthplace than were people born in the nineteenth century.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)