Publicity still of James Dean for the film Rebel Without a Cause [Public domain via Wikimedia Commons]
A new plaque honoring James Dean is set to be installed at 19 West 68th Street, the former Upper West Side apartment where the actor lived in the early 1950s. The replacement comes after the original bronze plaque was stolen in June 2025.
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According to Russel Aaronson, who has lived in Dean’s former apartment for more than 50 years, the new plaque is made of aluminum, a material chosen to deter theft. “It’s less likely to be absconded for scrap metal like the last bronze one,” Aaronson said.
Val Holley, author of James Dean: The Biography (1995) and a neighbor of Dean’s former residence, contacted ILTUWS about plans for the new plaque. Holley was also the source for our story about the original Dean plaque being stolen. Days later, another community member reported that their plaque outside The Del Monte—an 1891 co-op at 102 West 75th Street honoring architect Gilbert A. Schellinger—had been forcibly removed in the middle of the night. No further reports of stolen memorials have surfaced since.
Holley also noted that the new plaque is an improvement on the stolen one. As a nearby neighbor, he has observed foreign tourists turning off Central Park West onto West 68th Street, searching intently until they locate #19. “I think it’s fitting and proper to have a Dean plaque at 19 W. 68th,” Holley said.
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Then Holley, in a true-blue biographer “bust out,” shared some remarkable insight: “The new plaque correctly says Dean lived there ‘from 1953.’ For the record, no one has ever been able to identify the exact date Dean moved in, but we do know his earliest telephone bill at that address covered September 24–30, 1953.”
Aaronson reflected on the significance of the apartment itself when we asked if tourism had slowed since the plaque was pried off: “The worldwide interest in ‘The Dean Digs’ is more popular than ever and is seeing another young generation trying to grasp what made Jimmy ‘tick’ and how he used his particular ‘technique,’ his persona, to shake the cage of an industry. Both back then and again today, within acting studios and classrooms, the quandary still remains: how does one replicate such an individualized, chameleonic approach time and time again? I dare say, an approach which he harvested and developed while occupying these ‘digs’ at 19 West 68th Street. This IS what makes this apartment a living, breathing museum.”
Documentarian Brian Vincent Kelly, who is working on a new James Dean documentary featuring Val Holley, also weighed in. Kelly and his wife Heather previously created Make Me Famous, a documentary about the 1980s New York art scene. He highlighted Dean’s perspective on the apartment: “If you press your head against the window in a certain way and squint through one eye, it has a grand view of Central Park.” Kelly noted that screenings of Dean films at the nearby New Plaza Cinema, including Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden, continue to draw local audiences, reflecting Dean’s lasting influence. “We often screen at New Plaza Cinema, 35 West 67th, which is just a block away from James Dean’s old apartment.”
New Plaza will be screening Giant on Nov. 29 at 12 p.m. with a Q&A afterward with film historian Foster Hirsch and Kelly, who also divulged that Foster Hirsch appears in his upcoming documentary.
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Dorothy Schultz, curator of the James Dean Museum, said the museum covered the cost of the plaque and emphasized the importance of preserving Dean’s memory. “Our mission at The James Dean Museum is to do everything we can to preserve Jimmy’s memory and continue his legacy. Jimmy’s apartment, which is so lovingly taken care of by Russell Aaronson, is one of the heartbeats in Jimmy’s story,” Schultz said. She also noted that the design of the new plaque reflects her artistic vision.The new aluminum plaque is expected to be installed soon.
On a street with vibrant artistic history, James Dean is, in many ways, the straw that stirs the drink. Speaking of Dean, Bob’s Big Boy, the burger joint that began in Glendale, California, in 1939, is celebrating the 70th anniversary of Rebel Without a Cause with a special banana-salad milkshake—a Dean delight from his formative days. The celebration will take place on November 2 in Burbank from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The milkshake will be available for a limited time through November 9.
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