By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — He might have raised eyebrows when he moved in, but now he could get a corner named after him.
A former neighbor of Miles Davis, the legendary trumpeter and composer who redefined American music with such albums as "Kind of Blue" and "The Birth of the Cool," wants to name the corner of West 77th Street and West End Avenue named after Davis.
"He was a nice neighbor," said Shirley Zafirau, who's lived on West 77th Street since 1963 and is leading the effort to honor Davis. "He was a very complex personality. He wanted this bad, tough image out there, maybe to keep people away, but he was a wonderful neighbor."
Zafirau wants people to know that Davis spent many years on the block, a time she recalls fondly. She said Davis would sit on a stone wall in front of his house and ask her, "Hey, how's it going?" in his distinctive growl. In the summer, Davis and musician friends would jam in the back garden, Zafirau said.
Davis lived at 312 West 77th Street for about 25 years starting in 1958. He recounted in his autobiography the slights he endured as one of the first African-Americans to buy an entire brownstone on the Upper West Side.
In "Miles, The Autobiography" Davis tells the story of a repairman who he had hired knocking on his door, seeing Davis, and asking where the owner of the property was. "He just refused to believe a black person could own a house like that in that particular neighborhood. If you're black you get it in all kinds of ways," wrote Davis.
"Miles was always very sensitive to racial and social issues," said biographer Ashley Khan, author of "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece."
"That (incident) for him was very telling, and it was very telling of the time," Kahn said. "Even in a place as progressive as New York he was breaking a color barrier by purchasing a brownstone on the Upper West Side."
But it's also true that Davis felt comfortable on the Upper West Side, Kahn said, where there was a sense of community.
The brownstone was the birthplace of many of Davis' most famous works, Kahn said. Davis and piano player Bill Evans worked through ideas for "Kind Of Blue" at the brownstone before heading to recording sessions at an E. 30th Street studio. The album "Bitches Brew" was conceived in the brownstone's basement.
Davis biographer Jack Chambers, author of "Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis," said the years Davis spent on West 77th Street were his "most productive as an artist and his happiest as a married man."
Davis was married to the dancer Frances Taylor when he moved to West 77th Street.
Later when Davis moved to Long Island and then to Malibu,Calif., he missed the bustle of the city, Chambers said. Davis once said, "New York is great. I've got so much noise. Subways. Horns. I can't stand nothin' quiet. I go nuts."
Zafirau brought her request to Community Board 7's transportation committee meeting Tuesday. Chairman Andrew Albert told Zafirau to get the backing of the current owners of 312 West 77th Street, then present the idea at Community Board 7's full board meeting on Nov. 3.
Plans to name streets after famous figures sometimes get a cool reception.
Community Board 7 voted against a bid to rename Central Park West and West 72nd Street after John Lennon last year after neighbors complained it could turn their street into a tourist circus.
