Thelonious Monk Apartment

The great jazz musician and composer Thelonious Monk lived much of his life at 243 West 63rd Street, just off of West End Avenue. His ground-floor apartment was bursting with creative energy, and was just as messy apparently as most other Upper West Side apartments occupied by non-geniuses:
“Monk’s piano was notorious for its clutter. It occupied a significant portion of the kitchen and extended into the front room. The lid remained closed, since it doubled as a temporary storage space for music, miscellaneous papers, magazines, folded laundry, dishes, and any number of stray kitchen items,” a recent biography noted.

The city honored Monk, who died in 1982, by naming the cul-de-sac on the block where he lived “Thelonious Sphere Monk Circle.” But they misspelled his name on the street sign: Thelonious as “Thelonius.” After reports of the misspelling on a neighborhood blog, the DOT changed the street sign to the correct spelling.