The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project has announced the digital publication of the Leonard Bernstein Residence at the Osborne Apartments to its online map, a dynamic continually-evolving catalogue of geographic locations significant to LGBT history.
This Saturday, August 25th, is the centennial of the great composer’s birth and an auspicious moment to consider his monumental contributions to American classical music. The Osborne Apartments, located at 205 West 57th Street in Manhattan, was designed by architect James E. Ware and built in 1883-85.
Leonard Bernstein, the great American composer of classical and Broadway music, conductor, and educator, was born on August 25, 1918, to Jewish immigrant parents in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and grew up in Boston. While studying music at Harvard, he met three of the musical figures who would have a great influence on his work and career – conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos and composers Aaron Copland (a life-long friend) and Marc Blitzstein. Bernstein had brief affairs with both Mitropoulos and Copland.