Collyer Curiosa: A Brief History of Hoarding

Abstract

It's stuff of legend and legend of stuff. With a front-page head line heralding Collyer, Harlem Recluse, Found Dead at 70, New Yor Times reported on 22 March 1947, that the circumstances sur rounding death of 70-year-old Homer, blind as poet he was named for, were as as life two eccentric brothers lived on upper reaches of Fifth Avenue, in middle of Harlem.1 Tipped by an anonymous phone caller day before, police found Col Iyer's emaciated corpse in his Harlem brownstone located on corner of Fifth Avenue and 128th Street. Days later, officers discovered rotting body of his brother, Langley, lying several feet from where Homer had died. Buried beneath mountains of material, Langley had been crushed to death by fallen stacks of bundled newspapers, one of many booby traps that he had rigged to ward off priers. Their bodies included, over one hundred tons of material ranging from several grand pianos to scads of pinup posters were excavated from dilapidated mansion. Con demned as unsafe, house was razed, and city would later dedicate lot as Collyer Brothers Park. This sensational story of two elderly white men living and dying in a predominantly black neighborhood has sparked fascination and anxiety from mid-1930s to present day, and following pages argue that Collyers were pivotal in advancing a sea change in a curious identity category—the hoarder—that proved inextricable from their mysterious household effects as well as unfashionable district of Harlem. I'll