The Duke Ellington House

[929-935 St. Nicholas Avenue, Washington Heights, Manhattan. c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much, much larger view.]

Apartment 4A in no. 935, the building on the corner, was home to Duke Ellington from 1939 to 1961. The building has landmark status as the Duke Ellington House.

From 1957, here is Ellington in 4A, talking with Edward R. Murrow. And here are a few photographs of the apartment. Somewhere there’s a clip of Ellington in his kitchen (in this apartment?), boiling water in a white enamel pot as he talks to an interviewer (with the conversation overdubbed — in Italian, I think). You’ll just have to take my word for it. At home or on the road, hot water was Ellington’s breakfast beverage of choice. But he was not often home.

Noble Sissle also lived in the building.

Related reading
All OCA Ellington posts : More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

[Despite what the documentary says, Ellington did drink tea and coffee (the coffee with lemon). Also Coca-Cola with added sugar.]