Patchin Place, near Jefferson Market Court House, consists "of a small number of three-storey terraced houses, set about with ailanthus trees, and lining both sides of a blind-alleyway opening on to West 10th Street" (Richard Graves, The Brothers Powys), built in 1848 by Aaron D. Patchin. Ezra Pound had once lived there, and Frances Gregg had come to visit him with Hilda Doolittle, before she knew John Cowper.
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This was the place where Miss Alyse Gregory, Editor of The Dial, the well-known literary magazine, lived and where she received one afternoon for tea an as yet not well-known English writer, Llewelyn Powys. They fell in love. In 1922 he came to share her flat and John Cowper had the use of an upper room in this same house, where his companion Phyllis Playter was able to come for a short stay in the summer of 1923. In October 1924, when Alyse and Llewelyn rented a farm in the Catskills, Phyllis came to live with him in this house until they themselves moved to upstate New York in March 1930. |
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Well, my dear, I haven't been so happy - not since last summer as I am now. The wheel is turning. (Letters to His Brother Llewelyn, 14 May 1923) |
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They've gone and put up iron gates at the entrance to Patchin Place — in the middle of the entrance — leaving the little openings by the new brick posts free. And they've pulled down the Prison — but so far not the Clock tower. In the foundations of this fallen Bastille, from where of so many Sundays we heard the imprisoned Baggages sing about heaven, is an iron clutcher with a dragonish dew-lap scooping earth and hissing with a steamy vibrant roar. I am deaf of one ear — but this noise is very strident. But do you know we can now see the Woolworth tower and also the Singer Tower from the entrance of Patchin Place...(Letters to His Brother Llewelyn, 14 November 1929)
