David Berkowitz's childhood home

This is David Berkowitz's childhood home.

It is located at 1105 Stratford Avenue in the Bronx, New York.

The serial killer, who murdered six people between 1976 and 1977, grew up on the top floor of this building with his adoptive parents, Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz.

Berkowitz said that his bedroom window (circled in red) faced the street corner, giving him an expansive view of his neighborhood, the Bronx, and the shoreline of Queens.

In one of his prison letters, the "Son of Sam" reminisced about how he spent a great deal of time in his childhood bedroom, gazing out at the city landscape around him.

He also recalled how he would sometimes poke his head out the window so that he could look south and watch traffic moving along the busy Bruckner Expressway.

Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco on June 1st, 1953. However, his biological mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Broder, quickly put him up for adoption.

His birth was the result of an extramarital affair between his single mother and a married businessman named Joseph Klineman. The surname Falco originated from Broder's estranged husband, who had left her for another woman 13 years prior.

Klineman, who denied being Richard's father, reportedly forced Broder to give him up for adoption.

A few days after his birth, "Baby Richard" was adopted by Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz, a middle-aged Jewish couple that owned a hardware store in the Bronx.

From that point on, he became officially known as David Berkowitz.

Growing up, Berkowitz was somewhat troubled, as he had a desire to steal things and start fires. He also reportedly poisoned his parents' parakeet because he felt jealous about how much attention it was receiving.

His personal issues worsened after his adoptive mother, Pearl, died from breast cancer when he was 14 years old. Pearl's death came as a huge shock to the teenager, as her illness had been kept a secret from him.

Berkowitz struggled to establish relationships with members of the opposite sex.

His first sexual encounter was with a sex worker, which occurred during a three-year stint in the US Army.

After leaving the army, he felt hopeless and directionless, as he had no job, no place of his own, no relationship, and no solid plans for the future. These personal issues were compounded when he tracked down his biological mother and learned about the true circumstances surrounding his birth.

As a child, he had been told that his mother died during childbirth—a tragedy that he personally blamed himself for. However, he was now having to face the unfathomable truth that he had been unwanted.

When Berkowitz finally met his birth mother, he was hoping that she would take him in and make him feel like family. Although she did not reject him outright, she did make it obvious that she wanted to keep him at arm's length.

He was further hurt by the revelation that he had an older half-sister who had not been put up for adoption.

By the time Berkowitz reached his mid-twenties, his bitterness toward women and the world in general was consuming him. Frustrated and angry, he began to lash out against society by lighting a series of 1,400 fires, all of which he meticulously cataloged in a notebook.

However, burning things wasn't enough, and his destructive behavior soon escalated.

Although Berkowitz initially claimed that a demonic dog had instructed him to kill people, he later admitted that this was a lie that he had concocted for his insanity defense.

In reality, his murders were the result of a bitter revenge fantasy that had been snowballing inside his head for a very long time.

This is evidenced by the fact that he stabbed his first victim roughly one month before he moved to Yonkers and met the supposed "demon dog".

Photos

Photos of the apartment building and other related images.

1105 Stratford Avenue

This Google Street View image of 1105 Stratford Avenue was captured in February 2022.

In his prison journal, Berkowitz wrote that his childhood bedroom was on the top floor, at the corner of the eastern side of the building.

In one entry, he recalled how he had to stick his head out the window and look right to see the Bruckner Expressway.

Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz

A childless Jewish couple named Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz adopted Berkowitz.

The family lived in a three-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor.

Berkowitz was overprotective of Pearl and would sometimes pretend to be sick so that he could stay home from school and spend time with her.

Their relationship was described as intense. In his prison journal, he admitted that he wasn't the best son.

Pearl's untimely death came as a huge shock to him, as he was never told about her cancer diagnosis. Suddenly, he had lost the one "stabilizer" in his life.

Following his mother's death, his adoptive father, Nathan, began seeing another woman. Shortly afterwards, they moved to an apartment building in Co-Op City.

Berkowitz, however, did not like his father's second wife. Consequently, he soon moved out and found a place of his own.