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The Broadway set designer Oliver Smith owned the elegant yellow mansion at 70 Willow Street just one block east of Columbia Heights near Orange Street. Among Smith’s friends was Truman Capote, who rented the basement apartment for 10 years, finishing Breakfast at Tiffany’s here as well as In Cold Blood and writing the essay “A House in the Heights,” which includes the quote found on a neighborhood guidepost, “I live in Brooklyn. By choice.”