There are two signs in front of 151 Avenue B, a row house in the East Village facing Tompkins Square Park. One is a bronze plaque identifying the building as a former home of the jazz legend Charlie Parker, who lived in the ground-floor apartment from 1950 to 1954.cThe other is a handwritten slip of paper taped to the window of that same apartment, warning, “Please Don’t Knock Before 2 P.M.” Both signs were put up by the building’s owner, Judy Rhodes, who worked hard to get the building declared a city landmark in 1999.
Bravo to her.
As for the “Don’t Knock” sign, Ms. Rhodes said she still favored the “jazz hours” she kept when she was a jazz producer, photographer and hard-core fan. “Nighttime is still the only time I can settle in and take care of my projects,” said Ms. Rhodes, 74, who since 1979 has lived in the apartment Parker inhabited with Chan Richardson and their children. In the life of the saxophonist nicknamed Bird, it was an atypically stable period. Here in this cozy apartment, Parker became a family man. He ate regular meals with the children, pushed them in swings out back and walked them to school. It was Bird’s sanctuary — he once practiced in the large walk-in closet. There is still plenty of bird song in the apartment. Ms. Rhodes has two pet parrots and she takes in injured pigeons she finds nearby and nurses them back to health. She releases the recuperated ones in Central Park or at a bird sanctuary upstate.
She took an interest in the jazz loft scene, befriending avant-garde musicians like Butch Morris, Mal Waldron and Bill Dixon, and producing concerts and booking musicians for jazz festivals and gigs at clubs like the Village Vanguard and Sweet Basil’s. At one point, she brought a Steinway piano into her front room and opened it as a rehearsal space, attracting artists like Art Blakey, Dewey Redman and Don Cherry. “They all thought it was hip to be in Bird’s house. Dewey used to stand in the closet, praying or something. Once when Don was here, he said he had a vision of Bird heading out in a tuxedo.”
There are constant visits from fans of Parker, a pioneer of the bebop style who died in 1955, his body ravaged by drug abuse and alcoholism. “One time,” she said, “a group of Japanese people came in and one of them fell to his knees, crying and kissing the floor.”
Bird lives.
She recalled learning in 1979 that the building was on the market, and the real estate agent who showed her the place pointed out Parker’s 'practice closet.' “I went into the closet and closed the door and I said to myself, ‘I have to have this house,’ ” she said. “I just really liked the idea of living in the place where Bird lived.” She paid $90,000 for the four-story row house, she said, and over the years invested much more in improvements to the Gothic Revival building, which is between Ninth and 10th Streets and was built in 1849.
The place has a Bohemian, jazzy feel, with plenty of African art, and walls covered with jazz photographs taken by Ms. Rhodes. There is still the faded birdcage-themed wallpaper Parker selected as a humorous nod to his nickname, and the same heavy cast-iron tub where Parker — and then Ms. Rhodes — bathed their children.
