371 East 10th Street | Block : 393 | Lot #49

Description & Building Alterations

This six-story building was built as a tenement building.  The building has an irregular plan, differing from the dumbbell plan because of the width of the building.  The ground floor has been altered heavily.  The entrance door would have been at the level of the first floor windows and it would have been accessed by a stoop. Additionally, the building no longer has its cornice which detracts from the otherwise detailed ornament.  The straight lintels feature terracotta scallop shells along with egg and dart molding.  The arched windows also feature egg and dart molding and have cherub faces in the keystones.  The arched windows are connected at their spring points by a course of floral terracotta.  There are also triangular spandrel panels that feature cherub faces and square panels that feature an oval-shaped lattice pattern.

Famed 1940s and 50s child actor Bobby Driscoll (1947-1968) was found dead here on March 31, 1968. Known mainly for his films with Walt Disney Studios, his career declined as he came of age, and shortly thereafter he turned to narcotics and was sent to prison for illicit drug use. Following his release, he relocated to New York in 1965 and later became part of Andy Warhol’s Factory. In 1968 he was found dead at 371 East 10th Street, then an abandoned building, lying on a cot with two empty beer bottles and religious pamphlets scattered on the ground.  The autopsy revealed he had died from heart failure due to his previous drug use. There was no identification on the body, and photos shown around the neighborhood yielded no positive identification. His unclaimed body was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave in New York City’s potter’s field on Hart Island off the northeast coast of the Bronx.  In 1969 Driscoll’s mother sought the help of officials at the Disney studios to contact him for a hoped-for reunion with his father, who was nearing death. This resulted in a fingerprint match at the New York City Police Department, which located his burial on Hart Island. Though his name appears on his father’s gravestone at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside, California, his remains are still on Hart Island.