New York City, New York story
A Heightened Choice
In Brooklyn Heights, there's a quiet house at 70 Willow Street that once held some of the most famous words in modern literature. For ten years, from 1955 to 1965, Truman Capote r…
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In Brooklyn Heights, there's a quiet house at 70 Willow Street that once held some of the most famous words in modern literature. For ten years, from 1955 to 1965, Truman Capote rented a garden apartment here. In this secluded spot, he finished Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood.
Capote's connection to this neighborhood was so strong that he wrote an essay called A House in the Heights, featuring the defiant line, I live in Brooklyn. By choice. While the house is a peaceful landmark today, it reminds us of the creative nightlife of the mid-century, where writers lived and worked in the shadow of the city, finding the quiet they needed to capture the noise of New York life on the page.
Updated June 2026