The New York Times published a very nice obituary on Friday for Edith Evans Asbury, who died last week at her Greenwich Village home. Asbury’s career spanned six decades, and brought her face-to-face with some of the most influential people of the 20th century. It is as a relative footnote, then, that we mention a short time she spent in the Heights.
Asbury, then Edith Snyder Evans, came to New York in 1936 from Knoxville, TN with only a book of her clips, and her determination to snag a big-city newspaper job. While knocking on doors, she took up residence at 148 Columbia Heights with the Feinstone family.
Ezra Chaim Feinstone, known professionally as Ezra Stone (at left in photo), was a Broadway performer, who would appear that year in “O Evening Star” and “Brother Rat.” Two years later, Stone would land his signature role—that of the all-American teenager, Henry Aldrich, in “What A Life.” Starting in 1939, he reprised the role on the popular radio program “The Aldrich Family.”
Edith, meanwhile, landed her first big job at the New York Post, and was well on the way to her own illustrious career.
Stone died in 1994 at the age of 76.
