How many grand pianos is too many?
The Collyer Brothers & thoughts on hoarding
Last week I read Homer and Langley, E. L. Doctorow’s 2008 novel that fictionalizes the lives of Homer and Langley Collyer, well-to-do New Yorkers who had hoarding disorder and were essentially killed by their collection in 1947. I really enjoyed the book, which was witty and elegiac and disturbingly relatable. Langley was a pianist, and a good chunk of his collection was devoted to broken and discarded musical instruments, including ten grand pianos. “They all have such different tonal effects,” Langley once explained, an honestly airtight point. (As someone who owns quite a few junky pianos, I can understand the Collyer brothers’ collection of musical instruments.)
The novel follows the broad strokes of the Collyer brothers’ lives, but departs from many of the details. The real-life Collyers had a privileged childhood, and, for a while, they seemed to be on the path to a conventional upper-middle-class existence. Both brothers attended Columbia University. Homer worked as a lawyer; Langley studied engineering and sold pianos. When their parents—first cousins who descended from Robert Livingston, a Scottish lord whose sons signed the Declaration of Independence—separated in 1919, Homer and Langley continued to live with their mother in their childhood home, a four-story brownstone at 2078 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of 128th Street. They inherited the home when their mother died in 1929.
The brownstone was enviable (four floors in New York City!!), but it wasn’t exactly a Gilded Age mansion. In 1909, 128th Street was a pretty far-flung address. This was a period when Brooklyn was still “the countryside,” Westchester was one big cow farm and the Hamptons was the place to be, if you wanted to relax on the beach between 11 AM and 1 PM and didn’t particularly care if your accommodations had running water. (No kidding: the old-money matrons made sure to ostracize parvenus who tried to linger on the beach outside of socially permitted hours. And many of them claimed that utilities were vulgar, probably because their old-money bank accounts weren’t liquid enough to allow them to install utilities in their own vacation homes.) The part of Fifth Avenue that housed Vanderbilts and Whitneys—the “Fifth Avenue” of Saks Fifth Avenue—was about 60 blocks south. If you wanted to rub shoulders with steel magnates or otherwise join “Society,” an address on 128th Street was about as helpful as an address in New Jersey.
According to Collyer family biographer Franz Lidz, real estate speculators around the turn of the 20th century were buying Harlem properties in anticipation of the Lenox Avenue subway line. It’s likely that Homer and Langley’s father Herman chose to move there for a similar reason. He probably assumed that the house would appreciate in value, building the family’s wealth and status. His children and grandchildren could marry well and think fondly of the shrewd old doctor and his wife, who bought a brownstone at the edge of town and planted the seeds of a dynastic line.
Of course, there would be no grandchildren. Nor would there be a house, in the end. (2078 Fifth Avenue would be deemed uninhabitable after the brothers’ deaths, and demolished.)
I’m mentioning this because many people who write about the Collyer brothers seem to exaggerate the family’s affluence. I might be doing that myself! So what if the Collyers were descendants of Robert Livingston? The guy had nine children!! David Crosby is a descendant of Robert Livingston!! Michael Douglas is a descendant of Robert Livingston!! There are probably descendants of Robert Livingston reading this newsletter right now!!
Even E. L. Doctorow seems to add an implicit digit or two to the Collyer’s net worth. In Homer and Langley, Doctorow moves the Collyer house forty or fifty blocks south, to some point on Fifth Avenue adjacent to Central Park. Now we’re in the old money. Here’s an address that you could conceivably parlay into an afternoon eating tea sandwiches with a minor Vanderbilt, if that’s what you really want.
It’s clear that, for whatever reason, the wealth or perceived wealth of the Collyer brothers makes the story more interesting to people. You can watch any episode of American Pickers and see rural sheds packed to the rafters with rusty bicycles and old gas station pumps. The hosts don’t scoff at this; they climb up the pile and cheerfully shout down offers for all the rusty canisters and chipped ceramic signs they can find. But, for some reason, a similar collection in a Fifth Avenue brownstone seems uniquely pathological. Maybe it violates the sanctity of the Fifth Avenue brownstone that we all own, in our dreams. (Mine has a pair of Lalanne sheep on every floor, and a hard maximum of two grand pianos.)
Anyway. In 1933, Homer lost his eyesight, and Langley quit his job to become his brother’s full-time caretaker. They never consulted doctors; they didn’t trust them. (Their father had been a doctor.) Langley believed that Homer’s eyesight would return if he ate 100 oranges per week. (Their realtor claimed that he never saw the brothers eat anything except peanut butter and black bread, which Langley bought day-old, twice per week.) Homer never left the house; Langley rarely left before midnight, when he would walk around New York City looking for objects to bring home. Their house fell into disrepair and became cluttered with the stuff Langley collected: grand pianos, bicycles, chandeliers, jars of human organs (which, to be fair, were from his father’s study), general refuse, etc. One of Langley’s favorite things to acquire was the daily newspapers. He told the Reading Eagle that he was saving them for Homer, so he could “catch up on the news” after his sight returned. Sometimes Homer had visions of red buildings, which Langley painted according to Homer’s description. He saved those, he said, for Homer to look at when he could see again. Langley read Homer novels, built him a crystal radio, and cut his food into little pieces that could be eaten with a spoon.
Although they owned valuable real property and seemed to have plenty of money in the bank, the brothers reportedly failed to pay their taxes or utility bills. They lived without electricity or water. One day, accompanied by police and reporters, Con Edison employees brought a police escort to remove their gas meters. Someone brought a camera to take photos of Langley arguing with the police. Langley tried to grab the meters from the workers’ hands, but someone hit him with a stick, and they took the meters anyway. Langley claimed that his accounts were up-to-date, and Con Edison only turned the utilities off because they didn’t approve of the life that the brothers led.
On another occasion, the bank threatened to foreclose their home, and Langley paid off the remainder of the mortgage in cash. In Doctorow’s book, Homer is the one who realizes that they have enough money to pay off the mortgage in full, but Langley doesn’t love the idea. “We lose the deduction on our federal taxes if we pay off the damn thing,” he protests. “Why are we talking about taxes since we don’t pay them,” Homer replies. In real life, the New York Sun once ran the headline: “Homer Collyer Touted as U.S. No. 1 Tax Pain.”
The brothers’ unusual life attracted press attention, which led to rumors that the Collyers’ home was filled with cash and valuables. (Although 120 tons of stuff was removed from the home after the Collyer’s death, most of it was worthless. The salvageable items altogether sold for just $2000 at auction. This included the chair that Homer died in, which was exhibited at Hubert’s Dime Museum until 1956.) Tourists came to gawk at the house; a few people tried to sneak inside. Langley began building booby traps, mostly tripwires that would collapse a mountain of trash on top of any intruder. In 1947, Langley accidentally set off one of his own traps, and was crushed to death under a pile of rusty bed springs, bales of newspaper, and wooden drawers. Without Langley to care for him, Homer—who at this point had very limited mobility, and was unable to walk or lie down—died of starvation. Their bodies were discovered after an anonymous tipster contacted the police to complain about bad smells emanating from the home.
Doctorow’s book is a pretty sympathetic depiction of the Collyer brothers’ lives. According to his telling, they were orphans whose disabilities alienated them from their wealthy peers. (In the book, Homer is blind, and Langley has scarred lungs and PTSD from his experiences fighting in World War I.) But they don’t need those elitist, stuck-up losers. They have a codependent relationship and enough money to pursue their personal interests. Homer’s interests are music; Langley is the collector. (This is artistic license. In real life, Langley was both the collector and the musician.) By the end of the book, the house is so packed with Langley’s collections that it’s almost unlivable, a warren of tripwires and tunnels. The dining room ceiling, eaten by rats, caves in. But the hoard is incidental to Homer’s relationship with his brother. In Homer’s telling, Langley’s acquisitions are impulsive, but always follow an internal logic.
Early in the novel, Langley installs an old car in the dining room—the first indication that his hoarding has become a serious problem. “I had never really liked the dining room, perhaps because it was windowless and situated on the colder north side of the house,” Homer reflects, early in the novel. “Apparently Langley had similar feelings because the dining room was where he elected to install the Model T Ford automobile.” (In real life, Langley kept the Model T in the basement. It had belonged to his father.)
The Collyers’ housekeeper is appalled. She calls the car “a chariot from Hell” and thanks God that the brothers’ parents aren’t alive to see this violation of their home. But Homer feels compelled to present a united front. “My brother is a brilliant man. There is some intelligent purpose behind this, I can assure you,” he says. But Langley’s motivation is elusive, both to Homer and to Langley himself. Once the car has been fully assembled in the dining room, Langley seems embarrassed by it. Eventually, he confesses: “You wouldn’t think this car was hideous to behold on the street. But here in our elegant dining room its true nature as a monstrosity is apparent.”
According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, you’re a collector if you’re proud of the things that you own, and a hoarder if you’re ashamed of them. Shame implies social censure. From that perspective, whether or not a group of things qualifies as a hoard is, to an extent, based on whether other people find value in your stuff. The Collyers’ housekeeper disapproves of the Model T, but Homer accepts the car and everything else that Langley brings into their home. Although Langley ultimately loathes the car—a regretful thing to bring into an “elegant” room—he suggests that there is no other way to reveal “its true nature” than to bring it indoors. He seems proud of himself for reaching this conclusion. The car stays in the house, and the nature of Langley’s collection remains ambiguous.
There is a logic to Langley’s conclusion about the nature of the Model T. At one time, the Model T was a very popular car. But, by the time Langley acquires one, it’s junk. (“If you were going to bring a car into the house, why not a modern up-to-date model?” Homer asks. Langley’s answer: “This was cheap, just a few dollars.”) Most mass-produced items follow the same cycle. Consider fast fashion: cheap clothes designed to fall apart before the wearer realizes how awful they are. Consider Wurlitzer electronic pianos. In the 1960s and 1970s, Wurlitzers were shiny and new and desirable. Fifteen years ago, people on forums were begging one another not to pay more than $200 or $300 for them. The piano itself didn’t change, but perceptions of it did. They were old, broken, and difficult to repair. They were relics of the 1970s. Retro junk.
I myself have purchased things because I thought they were a monstrosity: Bakelite ukuleles, terrible particleboard amplifiers with garish speaker cloth. I love my tacky retro things, but I try to keep my collection small and curated. I feel that people start to doubt your judgment if you own too many particleboard amplifiers. Like: are you too broke to buy an amp that sounds good? Or do you just not know what a good amp sounds like at all? (Maybe this is why the Collyers’ wealth made their collection so scandalous: the belief that hoarding is a desire for quantity over quality, a compensation for one’s inability to buy the correct things.)
One collection that brings me both joy and anxiety is my three Wurlitzer 700 keyboards. I like them because I think they’re funny: compact and grandmotherly in appearance, but with an ominously bassy sound and minimal sustain. They bring presence to a room, and the amp has drive and character. The problem is that they’re not that useful for playing or recording, and I don’t really have a good place to show them off aesthetically. Ideally, I would buy an old house from the 1890s with lots of wide hallways. I’d put one 700 in the entryway, one on the upstairs landing, and one in my bedroom. But that’s not going to happen, and in the meantime I barely have room for them. I’m sure I would buy a fourth one, if I found one for cheap, but I definitely would not have room for it. Sometimes I consider selling one or all of them, but I would prefer not to. I know there must be people out there who would appreciate the 700 as much as I do, but I’m not sure who they are, or if they would be the ones to buy them. It’s an old model, and hard to play, which makes it hard to love. When I sell them, I find myself apologizing for that, although its not my fault and I’m not actually sorry about it. I think they’re perfect the way they are.
Sources & further reading: Homer & Langley, E. L. Doctorow // Ghosty Men, Franz Lidz // Big Town, Big Time, Jay Maeder // Possessed: A Cultural History of Hoarding, Rebecca R. Falkoff // Stuff, Randy O. Frost // Speaking Ill of the Dead, Kara Hughes // “Weird Lives of Brothers Reveal Bond,” Reading Eagle // “Collyer Curiosa: A Brief History of Hoarding,” Scott Herring // “The Collyer Brothers and the Fictional Lives of Hoarders,” Patrick W. Moran // “The Legendary Collyer Brothers of Harlem NY,” Harlem World Magazine (with video)
Last week’s paid article was about photographing keyboards. Today we will be listing three newly-restored Wurlitzers, so I spent a lot of time in the past few days taking and editing photos. The article includes some tips on lighting and choosing backgrounds, including a discussion of direct vs. indirect sunlight:
You can soften and diffuse a light source by making it bigger. Consider a selfie taken in direct sunlight. The harsh shadows will emphasize every pore on your face, every scar, every blemish. The unlit part of your face will be concealed in deep shadow. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: many portraits have used harsh lighting for artistic effect. However, for most everyday purposes, indirect lighting is preferable. So, if you take the same selfie indoors, next to a large window, in a room drenched in bright but indirect sunlight, you’ll look great: skin blurred, features clearly visible, highlights and shadows balanced with the right amount of contrast. This is because the window is modifying a small light source (the pinprick of light that is the sun) into a large light source, one that is the size of the window itself.Thank you for subscribing to Keyboard Notes! If you liked this article, feel free to share it. See you next week!