"bouncing between residential hotels in Harlem and Midtown East - temporary lodgings close to the clubs where he played alto saxophone and pioneered bebop. But for the last four years of his life, Parker stayed in one place - the garden apartment of 151 Avenue B, on Tompkins Square Park, where he lived with his partner, Chan Richardson, and their children."
"The real-estate agent who toured her through the space showed her the closet where Parker had practiced and, as she told the New York Times in 2010, "I went into the closet and closed the door and I said to myself, 'I have to have this house.'" She paid $90,000 for it, according to a 2016 interview with the National Historic Trust about the property."
Charlie Parker spent most of his roughly 15 years in New York moving among short-term residences near Harlem and Midtown East clubs, but lived his last four years in the garden apartment at 151 Avenue B on Tompkins Square Park with partner Chan Richardson and their children. The five-unit Gothic Revival rowhouse, landmarked in 1999, was purchased in 1979 by jazz producer Judith Rhodes after she saw Parker's practice closet. Rhodes raised four children in a duplex, rented the upper floors, and paid $90,000 for the house. After Rhodes's death, her children listed the property for $7.2 million. The building had recently been converted to apartments in 1950 and housed five families.
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