Langley Collyer (1885–1947), circa 1942–43

Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881–March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer (October 3, 1885–March 1947) were two United States brothers who became famous because of their reclusiveness, filth and compulsive hoarding. The brothers are often cited as a paradigmatic example of compulsive hoarding associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, as well as disposophobia, or Collyer Brothers Syndrome, a fear of throwing anything away. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely-seen, unemployed men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively collected newspapers, books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items, with booby-traps set up in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders. Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived as hermits, surrounded by over one hundred tons of junk that they had amassed over several decades. Championship Manager is a series of British computer games, the first of which was released in 1992. ... Paul Collyer and Oliver Collyer are two English computer game designers and hackers. ... Image File history File links Collyer_03. ... Image File history File links Collyer_03. ... 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... March 21 is the 80th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81st in leap years). ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... 1885 (MDCCCLXXXV) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... Compulsive hoarding (or pathological hoarding) is a term which is used to describe extreme hoarding behaviour in humans. ... For other things named OCD, see OCD (disambiguation). ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Street sign at Fifth Avenue and East 57th street Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in New York City. ... The Borough of Manhattan, highlighted in yellow, lies between the East River and the Hudson River. ... Another search entry could be: Boobytrap, a Marvel Comics villain. ... For other uses, see Harlem (disambiguation). ... This article is about the building material and the dwelling. ... Junk may refer to: Junk (ship), sailing vessel of Chinese origin Junk (Transformers), fictional planet in the Transformers universe Junk (novel), by Melvin Burgess Junk (film), 2000 Japanese zombie film Waste, as in worthless material Hard drugs, junk being a slang term for that junk, slang for male genitals junk...

Family

View of Collyer Brothers' Brownstone on Fifth Avenue and 128th Street

The Collyer brothers were sons of Herman Livingston Collyer (1857–1923), a Manhattan gynecologist, and Susie Gage Frost (1856–1929); the Collyer family traced its roots to the Mayflower in the 17th century. They had a sister, Susan, who died as an infant in 1880. The family lived in a three-story townhouse at 2078 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 128th Street in Harlem, New York City, New York. The family was well educated and both sons attended Columbia University, which had just relocated to its present-day Morningside Heights campus, about a twenty-minute walk from the Collyer house. Much of the area was still semirural; the first New York City Subway, the IRT, opened only in 1904 and still had not been extended this far uptown. Homer obtained a degree in engineering, while Langley became an Admiralty lawyer, although he preferred being an inventor. Homer also played the piano and became a self-styled musician with long, flowing hair, which was a rarity in this era. Over the years, as both brothers' eccentricities intensified, Langley tinkered with various inventions, such as a device to vacuum the insides of pianos and a Model-T Ford adapted to generate electricity. File links The following pages link to this file: Collyer brothers ... File links The following pages link to this file: Collyer brothers ... The shamefulness associated with the examination of female genitalia has long inhibited the science of gynaecology. ... Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882) For other uses, see Mayflower (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Harlem (disambiguation). ... Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1613 Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area    - City 1,214. ... NY redirects here. ... Columbia University is a private university whose main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. ... Morningside Heights is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City and is bound by the Upper West Side, Morningside Park, Harlem, and Riverside Park (some now consider it part of the Upper West Side). ... The New York City Subway system is a rapid transit system operated by the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as MTA New York City Transit. ... The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was the operator of the original New York Subway line that opened in 1904 and additional rapid transit lines in the City of New York. ... Engineering is the design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. ... Admiralty law (usually referred to as simply admiralty and also referred to as maritime law or Law of the Sea) is a distinct body of law which governs maritime questions and offenses. ... English barrister 16th century painting of a civil law notary, by Flemish painter Quentin Massys. ... 1908 Ford Model T advertisement The Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie and the Flivver) was an automobile produced by Henry Fords Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1928. ...

Dr. Herman Collyer abandoned his family in 1909, and the two brothers, still in their twenties, continued living in the house with their mother. When Herman died in 1923, his wife inherited all of his furniture, medical equipment and books and moved them to the Harlem house. Their mother died in 1929 and the brothers inherited everything. But over the previous fifteen years or so, Harlem had changed drastically. When Dr. Collyer moved into the house at 2078 Fifth Avenue, the neighborhood had been a mixture of middle-class and well-to-do, whose townhouses had themselves gradually displaced much larger 19th-century estates owned by eminent figures such as James Roosevelt, father of Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, in 1910, a brief economic downturn prompted despairing real estate agents and landlords to rent to African Americans, who had previously been excluded. With the coming of World War I, the black population of New York quickly increased; this in conjunction with white flight made central Harlem virtually all black by the 1920s. By this time the Collyer brothers, though only in their forties, had long since ensconced themselves in their townhouse. As the neighborhood's character changed, the brothers became an anachronistic curiosity and withdrew from the world at large even further. James Roosevelt (July 16, 1828 - December 8, 1900) was a United States businessman and father of President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt. ... FDR redirects here. ... Combatants Allied Powers: Russian Empire France British Empire Italy United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary German Empire Ottoman Empire Bulgaria Commanders Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Ferdinand Foch Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Armando Diaz Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Franz... White flight is a colloquial term for the demographic trend of upper and middle class Americans (predominantly white) moving away from inner cities (predominantly non-white), finding new homes in nearby suburbs or even moving to new locales entirely. ...

Recluses

Burglars tried to break into the house because of unfounded rumors of valuables, and neighborhood youths had developed a fondness for throwing rocks at the windows. As the brothers' fears increased, so did their eccentricity. They boarded up the windows, and Langley set about using his engineering skills to set up booby traps. Their gas, telephone, electricity and water having been turned off because of their failure to pay the bills, the brothers took to warming the large house using only a small kerosene heater. For a while, Langley attempted to generate his own energy by means of a car engine. Langley began to wander outside at night; he fetched their water from a post in a park four blocks to the south (presumably Mount Morris Park, renamed Marcus Garvey Park in 1973). He also dragged home countless pieces of abandoned junk that aroused his interest. In 1933, Homer, already crippled by rheumatism, went blind. Langley devised a remedy, a diet of one hundred oranges a week, along with black bread and peanut butter. He also began to hoard newspapers, so that his brother could catch up with the news once his sight returned. Burglary is a crime related to United States burglary is a felony and involves trespassing, or entering a building with intent to commit any crime, not necessarily a felony or theft. ... This article is about an antipersonnel trap designed for use against humans. ... It has been suggested that RP-1 be merged into this article or section. ... Marcus Garvey Park is located in Harlem in the New York City borough of Manhattan. ... Marcus Garvey Park is located in Harlem in the New York City borough of Manhattan. ... Year 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Rheumatism or Rheumatic disorder is a non-specific term for medical problems affecting the heart, bones, joints, kidney, skin and lung. ...

Public scrutiny

The Collyer brothers were first mentioned in the newspapers in 1938, when they rebuffed a real estate agent who had been eyeing the house. The New York Times repeated neighborhood rumors that the brothers lived in some sort of "Orientalist splendor" and were sitting on vast piles of cash, afraid to deposit it in a bank. Neither rumor was true; the brothers were certainly not broke, although eventually they would have been since neither of them had worked for decades. They drew media attention again in 1942 when they got in trouble with the bank after refusing to pay the mortgage on their house. In 1942, the now-defunct New York Herald Tribune interviewed Langley. In response to a query about the bundles of newspapers, Langley replied, "I am saving newspapers for Homer, so that when he regains his sight he can catch up on the news." The Bowery Savings Bank began eviction procedures and sent over a cleanup crew. At this time, Langley began ranting at the workers, prompting the neighbors to summon the police. When the police attempted to force their way by smashing down the front door, they were stymied by a sheer wall of junk piled from the floor to the ceiling. Without comment, Langley made out a check for $6,700 (equivalent to about $90,000 in 2006), paying off the mortgage in full in a single payment. He ordered everyone off the premises, and withdrew from outside scrutiny once more, emerging only at night and when he wanted to file criminal complaints against housebreakers. The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. ... Orientalism is the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures, by Westerners. ... For other uses, see Bank (disambiguation). ... The New York Herald Tribune was a newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. ... The Bowery Savings Bank of New York City was chartered in May of 1834 and was changed in November of 1985 to The State Bowery Savings Bank. ...

Homer Collyer found dead

View of Interior

On March 21, 1947, an anonymous tipster phoned the 122nd police precinct and insisted there was a dead body in the house. A patrol officer was dispatched, but had a very difficult time getting into the house at first. There was no doorbell or telephone and the doors were locked; and while the basement windows were broken, they were protected by iron grillwork. Eventually an emergency squad of seven men had no choice but to begin pulling out all the junk that was blocking their way and throw it out onto the street below. (Manhattan's streets have no alleys, so all trash removal is done in front.) The brownstone's foyer was packed solid by a wall of old newspapers, folding beds and chairs, half a sewing machine, boxes, parts of a wine press and numerous other pieces of junk. A patrolman, William Baker, finally broke in through a window into a second-story bedroom. Behind this window lay, among other things, more packages and newspaper bundles, empty cardboard boxes lashed together with rope, the frame of a baby carriage, a rake, and old umbrellas tied together. After a two-hour crawl he found Homer Collyer dead, wearing just a tattered blue and white bathrobe. Homer's matted, grey hair reached down to his shoulders, and his head was resting on his knees. Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... March 21 is the 80th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81st in leap years). ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... An Alley in Melbourne A gate to an alley in Annapolis, Maryland An alley or alleyway is a narrow, pedestrian lane found in urban areas which usually run between or behind buildings. ... A modern machine (Singer Symphonie 300) A sewing machine is a mechanical (or electromechanical) device that joins fabric using thread. ...

Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Arthur C. Allen confirmed Homer's identity and said that the elder brother had been dead for no more than ten hours; consequently, Homer could not have been the source of the stench wafting from the house. Foul play was ruled out: Homer had died from the combined effects of malnutrition, dehydration and cardiac arrest. By this time, the mystery had attracted a crowd of about 600 onlookers, curious about the junk and the smell. But Langley was nowhere to be found. Malnutrition is a general term for the medical condition caused by an improper or insufficient diet. ... Dehydration (hypohydration) is the removal of water (hydro in ancient Greek) from an object. ...

In their quest to find Langley, the police began searching the house, an arduous task that required them to remove the large quantity of junk amassed in the house. Most of it was deemed worthless and set out curbside for the sanitation department to haul away; a few items were put into storage. The ongoing search turned up a further assortment of guns and ammunition. For weeks there was no sign of Langley.

House contents

Books and newspaper bundles

In total, police and workmen took 103 tons of garbage out of the house. What was salvageable from it fetched less than $2,000 at auction; the cumulative estate of the Collyer brothers was valued at $91,000, of which $20,000 worth was in the form of personal property (jewelry, cash, securities and the like). Eventually the house was torn down as a fire hazard. Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...

Items removed from the house included rope, baby carriages, a doll carriage, rakes, umbrellas, rusted bicycles, old food, potato peelers, a collection of guns, gas chandeliers, bowling balls, camera equipment, the folding top of a horse-drawn carriage, a sawhorse, three dressmaking dummies, painted portraits, pinup girl photos, plaster busts, Mrs. Collyer's hope chests, rusty bed springs, the kerosene stove, a checkerboard, a child's chair (the brothers had been lifelong bachelors and childless), more than 25,000 books (including thousands of books about medicine and engineering and more than 2,500 on law), human organs pickled in jars, eight live cats, a beaded lampshade, the chassis of the old Model-T Langley had been tinkering with, one British and six American flags, tapestries, hundreds of yards of unused silks and fabric, clocks, fourteen pianos (both grand and upright), a clavichord, two organs, banjos, violins, bugles, accordions, a gramophone and records, and, of course, countless bundles of newspapers and magazines, some of them decades old. Near the spot where Homer had died, police also found 34 bank account passbooks with a total of $3,007.18. The Tavern Scene from A Rakes Progress by William Hogarth. ... An umbrella is a device used to keep rain off a person. ... For other uses, see Bicycle (disambiguation). ... A potato peeler A potato peeler is a metal blade attached to a metal, plastic or wooden handle that is used for peeling vegetables, usually potatoes. ... A chandelier in the U.S. vice presidents ceremonial office in the Old Executive Office Building on the White House grounds. ... Closeup of a worn Brunswick bowling ball. ... A camera is a device used to capture images, usually photographs, either singly or in sequence such as with video cameras. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... It has been suggested that Portrait painting be merged into this article or section. ... A pin-up girl is a woman whose physical attractiveness would entice one to place a picture of her on a wall. ... // Gypsum plaster Plaster of Paris, or simply plaster, is a type of building material based on calcium sulfate hemihydrate, nominally (CaSOâ‚„)â‚‚*Hâ‚‚O. It is created by heating gypsum to about 150 ℃, 2(CaSOâ‚„ · 2Hâ‚‚O) → (CaSOâ‚„)â‚‚ · Hâ‚‚O + 3 Hâ‚‚O (released as steam). ... Hope Chest: The Fredonia Recordings 1982-1983 is a 1990 album by 10,000 Maniacs. ... Helical or coil springs designed for tension A spring is a flexible elastic object used to store mechanical energy. ... It has been suggested that RP-1 be merged into this article or section. ... 5 by 5 checkerboard pattern A checkerboard (or chequerboard) is a board on which American checkers is played. ... [1]#redirect Book ... Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, treatment and possible prevention of disease and injury. ... Engineering is the design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. ... // Balancing scales are symbolic of how law mediates peoples interests For other senses of this word, see Law (disambiguation). ... Trinomial name Felis silvestris catus (Linnaeus, 1758) The cat (or domestic cat, house cat) is a small carnivorous mammal. ... Look up bead in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Two lamps with lampshades. ... A chassis (plural: chassis) consists of a framework which supports an inanimate object, analogous to an animals skeleton; for example in the construction of an automobile or of a firearm. ... 1908 Ford Model T advertisement The Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie and the Flivver) was an automobile produced by Henry Fords Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1928. ... Flag ratio: 7:12; nicknames: Stars and Stripes, Old Glory The flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white; there is a blue rectangle in the upper hoist-side corner bearing 50 small, white, five-pointed stars... For other senses of this word, see silk (disambiguation). ... Sunday textile market on the sidewalks of Karachi, Pakistan. ... A clock (from the Latin cloca, bell) is an instrument for measuring time. ... A grand piano, with the lid up. ... A grand piano from Schiedmayer & Söhne, Stuttgart. ... The piano Piano is a common abbreviation for pianoforte, a large musical instrument with a keyboard (see keyboard instrument). ... Large five-octave unfretted clavichord by Paul Maurici, after J.A. Haas The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. ... A four-string banjo For other uses, see Banjo (disambiguation) The banjo is a stringed instrument of African origin, early or original examples sometimes being called the gourd banjo. One predecessor to the banjo is called the Akonting. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... The word bugle has two different meanings: A brass musical instrument, seeBugle (instrument) An often cultivated lamiaceae, Bugle (plant) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... This article is about the magazine as a published medium. ... A passbook, in finance, is a paper book used to record bank transactions on a savings account. ...

And in addition to the bundles of paper, there was a great deal of garbage. The house itself, having never been maintained, was also decaying: the roof was leaking and some walls had already caved in, showering bricks and mortar on the rooms below. Look up garbage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... An old brick wall in English bond laid with alternating courses of headers and Brick is an artificial stone made by forming clay into rectangular blocks which are hardened, either by burning in a kiln or sometimes, in warm countries, by sun-drying. ... Mortar holding weathered bricks. ...

Manhunt

On Saturday, March 30, false rumors circulated that Langley had been seen aboard a bus heading for Atlantic City, but a manhunt along the New Jersey shore turned up nothing. Two days later, the police continued searching the house, removing 3,000 more books, several outdated phone books, a horse's jawbone, a Steinway piano, an early X-ray machine, and even more bundles of newspapers. More than nineteen tons of junk had been removed, just from the ground floor of the three-story brownstone. Still unable to find Langley, the police continued to clear away the brothers' stockpile for another week, removing another 84 tons of rubbish from the house. Although a good deal of the junk had come from their father's medical practice, a considerable portion was discarded items, collected by Langley on his various forays over the years. In telephony, a telephone directory is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organisation that publishes the directory. ... Jawbone can refer to the following: part of the body Mandibula A blues musician Jawbone (musician) A musical instrument made from the jawbone of a horse. ... Steinway & Sons is a piano manufacturing firm, currently based in New York and Hamburg, Germany. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Langley Collyer found dead

On April 8, 1947, workman Artie Matthews found the dead body of Langley Collyer just ten feet from where Homer had died. His partially decomposed body was being eaten by rats. A suitcase and three huge bundles of newspapers covered his body. Langley had been crawling through their newspaper tunnel to bring food to his paralyzed brother when one of his own booby traps fell down and crushed him. Homer, blind and paralyzed, starved to death several days later. The stench detected on the street had been emanating from Langley, the younger brother. April 8 is the 98th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (99th in leap years). ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ...

Burial

Both brothers were buried with their parents at Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn. Cypress Hills Cemetery, was the first nonsectarian cemetery corporation organized in the Brooklyn/Queens area of New York City. ...

Legacy

The New York Times on March 26, 1947 wrote:

There is, admittedly, something unattractive about the avidity with which society now pores over every detail the Collyer brothers vigorously withheld from public scrutiny... It is almost as though society were taking revenge upon the brothers for daring to cut the thread that binds man to his fellows.

The Collyer brothers were first fictionalized by Marcia Davenport in her novel, My Brother's Keeper (Scribners, 1954), also published as a Popular Library paperback. Despite motion picture options spanning decades, the Davenport novel has never been filmed. American author and music critic Marcia Davenport was born Marcia Glick in New York City on June 9, 1903, the daughter of opera singer Alma Gluck and Bernard Glick, and she became the step-daughter of violinist Efrem Zimbalist when Gluck remarried. ... My Brothers Keeper is a novel by Marcia Davenport based on the true story of the Collyer brothers. ...

The Collyer Brothers at Home is a 1980 play by Mark St. Germain, and the brothers have also been the subjects of two other English plays: The Dazzle, by Richard Greenberg, loosely based on their lives, and Clutter: The True Story of the Collyer Brothers Who Never Threw Anything Out by Mark Saltzman. There is also a Swedish play called Samlarna (The Hoarders), by Lotta Lotass, which has not been translated to English (yet).

See also

• Edmund Trebus, British compulsive hoarder
• Hetty Green, Boston miser

Edmund Trebus (1918-2002) Edmund Trebus (November 11, 1918–September 29, 2002) was a Polish émigré to Britain and compulsive hoarder, who came to fame when he was featured on a British television documentary called A Life of Grime. ... Hetty Green (November 21, 1834–July 3, 1916) was an American businesswoman, remarkable for her famous frugality during the so-called Gilded Age as well as for being the first American woman to make a substantial impact on Wall Street. ...

References

• Franz Lidz, Ghosty Men: The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers, New York's Greatest Hoarders: An Urban Historical New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2003. ISBN 1-58234-311-X
• New York Times, August 16, 1923, page 15, "Obituary Herman L. Collyer"
• New York Times, April 5, 1939, page 26, "Gas company seizes meters of 'hermits'"
• New York Times, August 05, 1942, page 21, "Mortgage on recluses' home is foreclosed, but legendary brothers still hide within "
• New York Times, August 08, 1942, page 13, "Bank and Collyers declare a truce"
• New York Times, September 30, 1942, page 24, "Collyer mansion keeps its secrets"
• New York Times, October 02, 1942, page 27, "Order ejects Collyers"
• New York Times, November 19, 1942, page 27, "Collyers pay off $6,700 mortgage as evictors smash way into home"
• New York Times, November 21, 1942, page 24, "Collyers get deed to home"
• New York Times, February 03, 1943, page 21, "Collyers may lose house"
• New York Times, February 04, 1943, page 24, "Government gets Collyer property"
• New York Times, July 27, 1946, page 16, "Subpoena flushes Harlem recluse"
• New York Times, January 28, 1947, page 25, "Hermit brothers get $7,500 award"
• New York Times, March 22, 1947, page 01, "Homer Collyer, Harlem recluse, found dead at 70. Police require two hours to break into 5th Avenue home, booby-trapped with junk brother fails to appear investigators think, however, he may be 'Charles Smith' who summoned them. Homer Collyer found dead at 70 as police forced entrance into home of recluses. Homer Collyer was found dead yesterday in his decaying brownstone house at 2078 Fifth Avenue, but the legend of the two recluse Collyer brothers still lives on."
• New York Times, March 26, 1947, page C24, "The Collyer mystery. To patrolmen on the midnight-to-eight tour, who sometimes chatted with Langley Collyer on his nocturnal strolls, he seemed, for all his shabbiness, a well-mannered and cultured old gentleman. They probably never thought that some day the entire Police Department would be on the lookout for him."
• New York Times, March 27, 1947, page 56, "Langley Collyer is dead"
• New York Times, April 2, 1947, page 38, "53 attend burial of Homer Collyer; 2 Harlem Neighbors Present, but Langley Does Not Appear -- Police Press Search. Homer Collyer was buried yesterday in the family plot in Cypress Hills Cemetery, Queens."
• New York Times, April 9, 1947, page 1, "Body of Collyer Is Found Near Where Brother Died. Langley Collyer was found dead yesterday in his old brownstone home at 2078 Fifth Avenue. His body, wedged in a booby trap set to keep out intruders, was lying in the same room on the second floor where his blind brother, Homer, had been found dead on March 21.
• New York Times, April 12, 1947, page 15, "Langley Collyer buried"
• Time; April 7, 1947; page 27

External links

• Collyer mansion is a term used by firefighters to describe any overpacked home.
• Useless Information: Collyer brothers
• Findagrave: Homer Collyer
• Findagrave: Langley Collyer
• Obsessive Compulsive Foundation, Inc. Compulsive hoarding site

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