Collyer Brothers Park

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This small city park's location was once occupied by the brownstone mansion of the Collyer Brothers, demolished for sanitation and safety reasons. Homer and Langley Collyer, the "Collyer Brothers", were already a legend in the neighborhood since about 1929 and became infamously known to the general public at their deaths in 1947. Their bizarre deaths and unorthodox lifestyle created sensational curiosity and headlines. Sons of a wealthy doctor and educated at Columbia University, they had lived as recluses in their family's Harlem home. Their hoarding and secretive behavior is regarded as a classic example of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Still today, NYFD firefighters refer to junk-packed buildings as "Collyer Mansions".