Thomas Merton, CH2-0476

Looking for musicians and writers in 1940 New York City telephone directories, I have had almost no luck. Did these people not have telephones?

But I have made one find. In 1939 and 1940, Thomas Merton, then a graduate student, lived in Greenwich Village at 35 Perry Street. And he had a phone. By September 1940 he was living at St. Bonaventure University. In December 1941 he left for the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky.

A related post
Thomas Merton and a snapshot

[The Perry Street address is well known to readers of Merton’s work. By the way: you don’t have to be Catholic or Christian or even a theist to love Thomas Merton.]