The Paley Family
George met Herman Paley when they were both working at Remicks Music Publishers. Herman was a graduate of City College and had been a high school teacher before becoming a songwriter. He was a trained pianist and had studied composition with Edward MacDowell, piano with Charles Hambitzer, and theory and harmony with Edward Kilenyi. Herman’s brother, Lou was a high school English teacher and lyricist. In 1915 they were living on 7th Avenue at 112th Street, not far from the Gershwins’ home, then on 111th Street.
In 1917, they moved to 18 West 8th Street downtown in the Village.
The middle shop to the right of Dominos is number 18 – not an apartment block any more.
In 1920, Lou married Emily Strunsky (soon to be Ira’s sister-in-law) and their parties on Saturday nights were legendary. Their guests included the playwright, S. N. Behrman, the lyricist, Howard Dietz (who lived below), composers Vincent Youmans and Buddy de Sylva, actors Sam Jaffe, John Huston and Edward G Robinson. And, of course, George would always play.
George absolutely adored Emily. He described her as “the perfect circle” and once told her “A warm day in June could take lessons from you.”
George’s painting of Emily
In 1994, Emily and Leonore’s father was immortalised in a mosaic mural in the subway station of Christopher Street/Sheridan Square, along with others who created institutions which illustrate Greenwich Village’s famed spirit of reform. He is called “Papa” Albert Strunsky, benevolent landlord.
Mabel Pleshette Schirmer
Mabel was Herman and Lou’s niece. She had studied with George’s piano teacher, Charles Hambitzer at George’s suggestion, and in 1925 she married Robert Schirmer of the music publishing family.
While George was working on the orchestration of Porgy and Bess, she would have lunch with him at his apartment on 72nd Street, just six blocks from her home at 169 East 78th Street between 3rd and Lexington Avenues.
She would sit and do petit point while he worked. When he finished for the day, they would take a walk in Central Park, just three long blocks west of George’s apartment.
At the beginning of 1937, George wrote to Mabel saying he hoped this year would be a better one for both of them. Sadly, it was not to be for him.
Kay Swift
Kay Swift was the first woman to write the score of a Broadway musical. She wrote “Fine and Dandy” with her husband James Paul Warburg, who wrote lyrics under the name Paul James. In April 1925, they were giving a party for the violinist, Jascha Heifetz at their home on 34-36 East 70th Street between Park and Madison Avenues when they first met George, who came with Pauline Heifetz, Jascha’s sister.
Kay and George became close quite quickly; they would play for dancing on two baby grands in her art deco black and white room. She helped George orchestrate the Cuban Overture and took notes for him during his lessons with Joseph Schillinger.
Their close relationship finally ended her marriage. She and James divorced in 1934 but George was still reluctant to marry her. She moved to 530 East 86th Street close to East End Avenue, then in a German neighbourhood. George did not like walking through this area when he visited, this being the mid-1930s.
Irving Berlin
George first met Irving while he was still working at Remicks. He played him some of his songs, but was still unsuccessful in getting them published. Irving was later one of several judges who gave an anthem by George the runner-up prize in a competition. At their next encounter, George was asked by the publisher, Max Dreyfus to write down a new song by Irving. After playing the song back to him, George asked if he could work as Irving’s musical secretary, but Irving wisely refused, not wishing to hinder George in his own career.
From 1921-6, Irving lived at 29 West 46th Street.
From 1947 to his death in 1989, he lived at Luxembourg House, 17 Beekman Place at East 50th Street.
Inside Irving’s theatre, the Music Box, there is this lovely plaque:
George said that Irving Berlin was the greatest songwriter that ever lived.
Harold Arlen
George first met Harold in 1929 when Strike Up The Band was in the try-out phase in Boston. George was Harold’s favourite composer and George said about Harold “he is the most original of all of us” after hearing Stormy Weather.
Harold appeared as the first guest composer on George’s radio show on 30 September 1934. Harold was then living in the penthouse of the Croydon Hotel at 12 E86th Street at Madison Avenue.
He also lived at 135 E55th Street between 3rd and Lexington.
Jerome Kern
At around 1914, Jerome Kern was living at 206 W92nd Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam.
George was the rehearsal pianist for Kern and Victor Herbert’s show, Miss 1917, and consequently tried to write in Kern’s style, he admired his work so much. George believed that Show Boat, written ten years later in 1927, was “the finest light opera achievement in the history of American music.”
Jerome gave George a photo of himself which he signed, “To George: With an admiration for him as an artist bounded only by affection for him as a man. Jerry.”
Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers grew up in an apartment in 161 W86th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus.
Here he is with George at a costume party where they went as the Marx Brothers. George looks more like Groucho than Groucho did!
Cole Porter
While working on a score for a nightclub revue in Paris, Cole Porter was invited to a party by Elsa Maxwell. The highlight of his evening was seeing Frances singing Gershwin songs accompanied by George. He asked her to appear in ‘La Revue des Ambassadeurs’ also called ‘In The Old Days And Today’, and wrote a special verse for her which led into a medley of her brothers’ songs: “I happen to be the sister/Of a rhythm twister/No doubt you know him as Mister/George Gershwin”. On the first night, accompanied again by George, she stopped the show.
Like Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers and many others, Cole Porter was a guest on George’s radio show, ‘Music by Gershwin’. He lived at the Waldorf Towers, entering on the left side of the Waldorf Hotel.
Conde Nast
Conde Nast was a publisher who launched his magazine empire in 1909 with the purchase of Vogue magazine. Kay Swift persuaded Conde Nast to let her host the opening night party for Porgy and Bess on 10 October 1935 at his apartment, 1040 Park Avenue at 86th Street. There were over 400 guests including the cast, plus Paul Whiteman’s orchestra, and an orchestra specialising in Latin rhythms. The party lasted all night and George was presented with a silver tray engraved with signatures of his many friends and colleagues.
Jules Glaenzer
Jules Glaenzer was the Vice-President of Cartier’s the jewellers. After the debut of An American in Paris in 1928, he held a reception at his apartment at 866 Lexington Avenue at 65th Street, and gave George a brass humidor. This was a box for keeping cigars moist – what a great present for George!
I love this charming apartment block which almost seems out of place on the busy street of shops that is Lexington Avenue.
Otto Hermann Kahn
Otto Kahn was an investment banker, collector, philanthropist and patron of the arts. At the reception given by Jules Glaenzer in 1928, he was given the honour of presenting George with the humidor. In 1913, he bought the property at 1 East 91st Street from Andrew Carnegie. This was an 80-room Italian Renaissance-palazzo style mansion and was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Noel Coward
On 8 January 1926, after hearing Stravinsky’s first concert with the Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, George went to a party given by Noel Coward in the apartment he had taken at 1 West 67th Street.
Noel had heard George playing the Rhapsody in Blue at a party at Jules Glaenzer’s apartment in 1924 and used some of it in his play The Vortex. George said of Noel “He’s the actor-author who takes a bow every time he is hissed.”
Carl Van Vechten
Carl Van Vechten was a music critic, novelist and photographer. His article in Vanity Fair was the first about George in a major publication. It was Carl who suggested to the singer, Eva Gauthier, that she include some Gershwin songs with Gershwin as her accompanist in the modern American song section of her Aeolian Hall recital in 1923. This was George’s first major public appearance as both composer and soloist.
Carl’s apartment at 151 East 19th Street was another party venue for the Gershwins and their friends, many of whom were celebrities. At one party, Adele Astaire danced, Marguerite d’Alvarez sang Gershwin songs, Paul Robeson sang spirituals, James Weldon Johnson recited The Creation and George played the Rhapsody.
This area was obviously popular with other artists, as the painter, George Bellows, and the co-founder, with Balanchine, of the New York City Ballet, Lincoln Kirstein, also lived in this street. I would also choose to live somewhere like this in New York as I love these small apartment buildings with window boxes and iron railings.
Another address for Carl is 150 West 55th Street.
Gershwin in New York 