Gramercy Park: Memories of a New York Girlhood

by Gladys Brooks

The author writes candidly and affectionately of her childhood in turn of the century New York, in a four-stories red brick house on Irving Place, a block from Gramercy Park. There she lived with her parents, young brother and sister. Her father was a nose and throat specialist whose patients included famous writers as well as stars from the opera and stage. Her mother was a lover of art, music and poetry who hosted Sunday evening salons but lay on her couch the rest of the time.

220 pages, hardcover

First published January 1, 1958

Reviews

[CLM · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story of the author's girlhood in NYC at the turn of the century will interest fans of Betsy-Tacy and Ruth Sawyer's Roller Skates. Because Gladys' father was the doctor for many artistic celebrities, she was exposed to such luminaries as Mark Twain, Lily Langtry, Enrico Caruso and Lillian Russell. Gladys'descriptions of her hurried dash to the Brearley School every morning will be familiar to anyone who is habitually late in the morning! For a moment, I almost caught myself wondering if we saw the same sympathetic policeman as we dashed through midtown - but it was 100 years ago and Brearley in a different location now...

This is the book that Jonathan Yardley alluded to in his recent article about Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.

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