A block or two from the center of Nyack on South Broadway stands the home of the late Carson McCullers. From 1945 until her death in 1967, she lived and wrote in this home. “The Member of the Wedding,” “Ballad of the Sad Cafe,” and “Clock Without Hands” were all written here.
The three-story, 6,000-square-foot Victorian will soon be reborn as the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians. Columbus State University of Columbus, Georgia, recently announced that Dr. Mary Mercer, a physician and friend of McCullers, who died in 2013, gifted the university with the house, some of McCullers’ possessions and $350,000 for the center’s operating expenses and program development.
The house will be used for lodging for study-away programs in the New York City area. The center’s director has stated that “the center is dedicated to preserving McCullers’ legacy, nurturing American writers and musicians, educating young people and fostering the literary and musical life of Columbus, Georgia, and the American South.”