Fats Waller’s house

[173-19 Sayres Avenue, St. Albans, Queens, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Thomas “Fats” Waller bought this house in 1938 and was followed by other prominent Black Americans moving to previously segregated territory. Ed Kirkeby’s Waller biography Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Story of Fats Waller (1966) mentions Count Basie, Earl Bostic, Roy Campanella, Mercer Ellington, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Jackie Robinson, Cootie Williams (of the Duke Ellington band), and Lester Young as St. Albans residents. I’ll add the bassist Milt Hinton. Here’s a postcard from Mona Hinton, Mrs. Hinton, to our kids, mailed from Bern, Switzerland, with a St. Albans return address (173-05 113th Avenue, now Milt Hinton Place). And here’s a New York Times article, featuring the Hintons, about Black jazz musicians in Queens. A Wikipedia article about St. Albans adds more recent residents of note.

I’ll let this 2020 article from the Queens Chronicle tell the story of the Waller house. The house is still standing, and looking good. Here’s a photograph, showing what’s clearly a historical marker at the front door.

Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives : All OCA Fats Waller posts (Pinboard)