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The Generous Landlord
of Greenwich Village
by Rene Martino
"PAPA STRUNSKY"
This is the story of Albert Strunsky,
a Russian immigrant who became
a landlord in the Village and also the
archetype for the landlord who forsakes
rent for the brotherhood of his tenants.
Dr. Henrietta Stoner remembers
Strunsky.
"Strunsky was a character,", recalls Stoner,
a former Strunsky tenant. "But he was the most wonderful man in the world. If you
could not pay the rent, he'd settle for a radio, for a painting if you were an artist and
he liked your work. But there was more to him than just that.
"One winter," she goes on,
" Papa Strunsky had two artists in one of the heated apartments on Washington Square,
and they couldn't pay. He had his handyman Marshall, move their things to an unheated
place back on third street while they were out, and they came back to find that their
apartment was empty. They went looking for Strunsky to complain, and Marshall sent them
around to third street. They walked in, and there was Strunsky on his knees, putting wood
in their fireplace and lighting it. 'You couldn't pay in the heated room,' he
said, 'but since you got no place to go, you might as well stay here.' "
Born in Russia in the last century,
Strunsky established himself in the Village by 1910. He began by delivering wines to
restaurants. Later he invested in an entire block of apartment buildings on Washington
Square at MacDougal Street and south around to West Third Street. The Strunsky Kingdom is
gone now, replaced by the NYU Law Center and Vanderbilt Hall.
Lyricist Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin's
brother, married Strunsky's daughter Lenore in 1926, making Strunsky Ira's father In Law.
Papa Strunsky will always be a Greenwich
Village Treasure.
Copyright 1997 Rene Martino. All rights reserved.
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