LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
PAST Out: What was "the house on Middagh Street? |
by Paula Martinac |
In the fall of 1940, George Davis, fiction editor of Harper's Bazaar magazine, signed a lease on a three-story house at 7 Middagh Street in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of New York City and invited some of his friends to form an artists' community there. A visitor later called the residence the "House of Genius," and another dubbed it "that queer aggregate of artists." For the talented writers and musicians who lived there in the early 1940smany of whom were gay or bisexualthe house was a temporary refuge from orthodoxy, a place to be as unconventional and openly "queer" as they liked. Davis began looking for an inexpensive house to rent outside of Manhattan in the summer of 1940. One night, he had a vivid dream about a 19th-century brownstone in Brooklyn. The next morning he took a subway to Brooklyn Heights and wandered around until he spied a "For Rent" sign at 7 Middagh (commonly pronounced "MID-dahg"). After some repairs to a building that visitors would later describe as "shabby," the first tenants moved inincluding poet W.H. Auden and his lover, poet Chester Kallman; novelist Carson McCullers; composer Benjamin Britten and his lover, tenor Peter Pears; and writers Jane and Paul Bowles. Because Davis had a full-time job, Auden assumed the role of house manager and father figure, collecting rent, preparing menus, and hiring and firing cooks and maids. Most of the tenants paid $25 a month for room and board, a modest sum even in the early 1940s. Meals were taken together with Auden presiding. According to resident Golo Mann (son of Thomas), Auden expressed "instant disapproval if anyone was late for a meal... [He] himself ate enormously at meal times and drank impressive amounts of cheap red wine." The house also became famous for its boisterous parties. One visitor recalled "a gay (in both senses of the word) occasion at which Auden and Gypsy Rose Lee [the exotic dancer] were present. (Gypsy did not strip, but Auden did plenty of teasing.)" In addition to musicians Britten and Pears, Auden and Carson both played the piano well, and evenings at Middagh Street often resounded with music and feverish intellectual conversation. With so many people coming and going, the household had its share of romantic intrigue. When Auden discovered that Kallman had been unfaithful with another poet, he caused a disturbance by starting to choke his lover in their bedroom. McCullers became obsessed with fellow tenant Gypsy Rose Lee, who was almost 6 feet tall and described as having a flirtatious manner. But there was also a great deal of serious work going on, with the residents sharing their compositions and collaborating with each other. Two of Auden's most famous collections, Another Time and The Double Man, were published while he lived on Middagh Street. Also, he and Britten joined forces on an operetta, Paul Bunyan, produced in early 1941. When she moved to Middagh Street, McCullers was struggling with a draft of a novel she called The Bride and Her Brother. After Thanksgiving dinner in 1940, McCullers heard the squeal of a fire engine near the house. She and Lee rushed outside, running toward the firehouse at the end of the street. Suddenly, McCullers had an epiphany; she caught Lee's arm, shouted for her to stop, and cried out, "Frankie is in love with her brother and the bride, and wants to become a member of the wedding!" Lee had no idea what McCullers was talking about, but the latter's now-classic novel got a new title that dayThe Member of the Wedding (1946). There was a long waiting list of artists who wanted to reside at the Middagh Street house, but the residents were picky about who could be admitted. Writer Jane Bowles (married platonically to writer Paul Bowles) once told a colleague that he wasn't famous enough to get in. Still, some residents found the frantic pace at the house distracting rather than energizing. Poet Louis MacNeice remembered trying in vain to concentrate while Britten and Pears were rehearsing in their room to one side of him and Lee was on the other side "like a whirlwind of laughter and sex." Britten eventually moved out, because, according to Pears, he disliked "bohemianism." And visitor Janet Flanner, a well-known foreign correspondent, said McCullers was enough "to drive any small town right off its rocker." In 1941, the atmosphere on Middagh Street began changing from what McCullers called "campy" to more respectableand much more straight. Renowned novelist Richard Wright (Native Son) and his wife moved in with their infant daughter, staying mostly to themselves and not partaking of community meals. By the end of the year, most of the original tenants had moved on to new phases of their lives. Torn down in 1945 to make way for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, 7 Middagh Street now exists only in memory. But the residentsinspired by each other and bolstered by living in a queer creative communityleft an indelible mark on the world of the arts. Paula Martinac is a Lambda Literary Award-winning author of seven books, including The Queerest Places: A Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic Sites. She can be reached care of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth or at POcolumn@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 01, February 1, 2002. |