The Iceman Cometh: 'Give the poor feller a drink and keep him quiet''

Eugene Gladstone O’Neill was born on the 16th October, 1888, in the Barrett hotel which would later become part of Times Square. During the painful childbirth his mother was administered morphine and subsequently became addicted to it for several years.

In his youth O’Neill was sent away to the Catholic boarding school St. Aloysius Academy for Boys in the Riverdale area of the Bronx. Here he found solace in books from the realities of both the tough schooling and distant parents.

Although an...