Umberto Eco and Chesley Young at 2 Fifth Avenue

Eco Developed a friendship with the Youngs and was instrumental in arranging the disposition of their memory and mnemonics library including its collection of incunabula to the University of San Marino. Here he and Chesley are reviewing some of the works at the Young's lower Fifth Avenue home. (Photo circa 1980's)

Umberto Eco and Morris Young at 270 Riverside Drive

Eco has a brief mention in Houdini's Last Handcuffs. When visiting 270 (the location where Houdini's coming back to life occurs in the novel) Eco likened the Young's apartment there as Jorge Borges' "Library of Babel"--rooms and rooms of books seeming at first like an “infinite” number of galleries circling a “ventilation shaft”. The implication being, as Eco understood, that our apartment labyrinth was as a universe on its own, or at the very least, a stepping off point to other worlds of learning and mystery. (Photo circa 1980's)

Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson with Morris and Chesley Young

Eli and Morris served together overseas in WWII. After they returned home to New York City they remained friends and lived nearby to one another on Riverside Drive. Eli plays a role as a member of "The Inner Circle" in Houdini's Last Handcuffs, the historical fiction novel to be released by Vine Leaves Press in 2024. (Photo circa 1980's)