Greenwich Village (), often simply called
"the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of
Lower Manhattan in
New York City. A large majority of the district is home to
upper middle class families. Greenwich Village, however, was known in the late 19th – earlier to mid 20th centuries as the
bohemian capital and the birthplace of the
Beat movement. What provided the initial attractive character of the community eventually contributed to its
gentrification and commercialization.
It has been conjectured that the name of the village is an Anglicized version of a
Dutch name
Groenwijck, meaning "
Pine District", rather than connected with
Greenwich,
London, England.
Location
Street in Greenwich Village
The neighborhood is bounded by
Broadway on the east, the
Hudson River on the west,
Houston Street on the
South, and
14th Street on the
North. The neighborhoods surrounding it are the
East Village to the east,
SoHo to the south, and
Chelsea to the north. The
East Village was formerly considered part of the
Lower East Side and never associated with Greenwich Village.
[, "When did the East Village become the East Village and stop being part of the Lower East Side?", Jesse McKinley, New York Times, June 1, 1995; accessed August 26, 2008.] The
West Village is the part of Greenwich Village west of 7th Avenue, though Realtors say the dividing line is 6th Avenue. The neighborhood is located in
New York's 8th congressional district, New York's 25th State Senate district, New York's 66th State Assembly district, and New York City Council's 3rd district.
Greenwich Village was better known as Washington Square based on the major landmark
Washington Square Park or Empire Ward
in the 19th century.
Encyclopedia Britannica's 1956 article on "New York (City)" (subheading "Greenwich Village") states that the southern border of the Village is Spring Street, reflecting an earlier understanding. The newer district of
SoHo has since encroached on the Village's historic border.
Grid plan
The intersection of West 4th and West 12th Streets
As Greenwich Village was once a rural
hamlet, to the North of the earliest European settlement on Manhattan Island, its street layout is more haphazard than the grid pattern of the 19th-century
grid plan (based on the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811). Greenwich Village was allowed to keep its street pattern in areas west of Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue) and Sixth Avenue that were already built up when the plan was implemented, which has resulted in a neighborhood whose streets are dramatically different, in layout, from the ordered structure of newer parts of town. Many of the neighborhood's streets are narrow and some curve at odd angles. Additionally, unlike most of Manhattan above Houston Street, streets in the Village typically are named rather than numbered. While some of the formerly named streets (including Factory, Herring and Amity Streets) are now numbered, even they do not always conform to the usual grid pattern when they enter the neighborhood. For example,
West 4th Street, which runs east-west outside of the Village, turns and runs north, crossing West 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th Streets.
A large section of Greenwich Village, made up of more than 50 northern and western blocks in the area up to 14th Street, is considered part of a Historic District by the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The District's convoluted borders run no farther south than 4th Street or St. Luke's Place, and no farther east than Washington Square East or University Place. Redevelopment in that area is severely restricted, and developers must preserve the main facade and aesthetics of the buildings even during renovation.
Most parts of Greenwich Village comprise mid-rise apartments, 19th-century row houses and the occasional one-family walk-up, a sharp contrast to the hi-rise landscape in
Mid- and
Downtown Manhattan, due to the lack of shallow
bedrock.
History
Map of old Greenwich Village. A section of Bernard Ratzer's map of New York and its suburbs, made circa 1766 for
Henry Moore, Royal Governor of New York, when Greenwich was more than two miles from the city.
Greenwich Village is located on what was once marshland. In the 16th century Native Americans referred to it as Sapokanikan ("tobacco field"). The land was cleared and turned into pasture by Dutch and
freed African settlers in the 1630s, who named their settlement Noortwyck. The English conquered the Dutch settlement of
New Netherland in 1664 and Greenwich Village developed as a hamlet separate from the larger (and fast-growing) New York City to the south. It officially became a village in 1712 and is first referred to as Grin'wich in 1713 Common Council records. In 1822, a
yellow fever epidemic in New York encouraged residents to flee to the healthier air of Greenwich Village, and afterwards many stayed.
Greenwich Village is generally known as an important landmark on the map of
bohemian culture. The neighborhood is known for its colorful, artistic residents and the alternative culture they propagate. Due in part to the progressive attitudes of many of its residents, the Village has traditionally been a focal point of new movements and ideas, whether political, artistic, or cultural. This tradition as an enclave of
avant-garde and
alternative culture was established by the beginning of the 20th century when small presses, art galleries, and experimental theater thrived.
In 1914, in one of the many
Manhattan properties
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and her husband owned, Gertrude Whitney established the
Whitney Studio Club at 8 West 8th Street in Greenwich Village as a facility where young artists could exhibit their works. The place would evolve to become her greatest legacy, the
Whitney Museum of American Art, on the site of today's
New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. The Whitney was founded in 1931, as an answer to the then newly founded (1928)
Museum of Modern Art's collection of mostly European
modernism and its neglect of
American Art. Gertrude Whitney decided to put the time and money into the museum after the New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art turned down her offer to contribute her twenty-five-year collection of
modern art works.
Cherry Lane Theatre is also located in Greenwich Village
In 1924 the
Cherry Lane Theatre was established. Located at 38 Commerce Street it is New York City's oldest continuously running
off-Broadway theater. A landmark in Greenwich Village’s cultural landscape, it was built as a farm silo in 1817, and also served as a tobacco warehouse and box factory before
Edna St. Vincent Millay and other members of the
Provincetown Players converted the structure into a theatre they christened the Cherry Lane Playhouse, which opened on
March 24,
1924, with the play
The Man Who Ate the Popomack. During the 1940s
The Living Theatre,
Theatre of the Absurd, and the Downtown Theater movement all took root there, and it developed a reputation as a place where aspiring
playwrights and emerging voices could showcase their work.
In 1936, the renowned
Abstract Expressionist artist and teacher
Hans Hofmann moved his
art school from E. 57th Street to 52 West 9th Street. In 1938, Hofmann moved again to a more permanent home at 52 West 8th Street. The school remained active until 1958 when Hofmann retired from teaching.
During the golden age of bohemianism, Greenwich Village became famous for such eccentrics as
Joe Gould (profiled at length by
Joseph Mitchell) and
Maxwell Bodenheim, dancer
Isadora Duncan, writer
William Faulkner, and playwright
Eugene O'Neill. Political rebellion also made its home here, whether serious (
John Reed) or frivolous (
Marcel Duchamp and friends set off balloons from atop Washington Square arch, proclaiming the founding of "The Independent Republic of Greenwich Village"). In Christmas 1949,
The Weavers played at the
Village Vanguard.
The Village again became important to the bohemian scene during the 1950s, when the
Beat Generation focused their energies there. Fleeing from what they saw as oppressive social conformity, a loose collection of writers, poets, artists, and students (later known as the
Beats) and the
Beatniks, moved to Greenwich Village, and to
North Beach in
San Francisco; in many ways creating the east coast-west coast predecessor to the
Haight-Ashbury-
East Village hippie scene of the next decade. The Village (and surrounding New York City) would later play central roles in the writings of, among others,
Jack Kerouac,
Allen Ginsberg,
William S. Burroughs,
James Baldwin,
Truman Capote,
Marianne Moore,
Maya Angelou,
Rod McKuen, and
Dylan Thomas who collapsed while drinking at the
White Horse Tavern on
November 5,
1953.
Off-Off-Broadway began in Greenwich Village in 1958 as a reaction to
Off-Broadway, and a "complete rejection of commercial theatre". Among the first venues for what would soon be called "Off-Off-Broadway" (a term supposedly coined by
critic Jerry Tallmer of the
Village Voice) were coffeehouses in Greenwich Village, particularly the
Caffe Cino at 31 Cornelia Street, operated by the eccentric
Joe Cino, who early on took a liking to actors and playwrights and agreed to let them stage plays there without bothering to read the plays first, or to even find out much about the content. Also integral to the rise of Off-Off-Broadway were
Ellen Stewart at
La MaMa, originally located at 321 E. 9th Street and
Al Carmines at the Judson Poets' Theater, located at
Judson Memorial Church on the south side of
Washington Square Park.
Greenwich Village played a major role in the development of the
folk music scene of the 1960s. Three of the four members of
The Mamas & the Papas met there. Guitarist and folk singer
Dave Van Ronk lived there for many years. Village resident
Bob Dylan was one of the foremost popular songwriters in the country, and often developments in New York City would influence the simultaneously occurring
folk rock movement in
San Francisco, and vice versa. Dozens of other cultural and popular icons got their start in the Village's nightclub, theater, and coffeehouse scene during the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, notably
Barbra Streisand,
Peter, Paul, and Mary,
Simon & Garfunkel,
Jackson Browne,
James Taylor,
Eric Andersen,
Joan Baez,
The Velvet Underground,
The Kingston Trio,
Richie Havens,
Maria Muldaur,
Tom Paxton,
Phil Ochs,
Joni Mitchell,
Laura Nyro,
Jimi Hendrix and
Nina Simone. The Greenwich Village of the 1950s and 1960s was at the center of
Jane Jacobs's book
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which defended it and similar communities, while critiquing common
urban renewal policies of the time.
Founded by New York based artist
Mercedes Matter and her students the
New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture is an art school formed in the mid 1960s. The school officially opened September 23 1964, it is still currently active and it is housed at 8 W. 8th Street, the site of the original
Whitney Museum of American Art.
Greenwich Village was also home to one of the many safe houses used by the radical
anti-war movement known as the
Weather Underground. On March 6, 1970, however, their safehouse was destroyed when an explosive they were constructing was accidentally detonated, costing three Weathermen (
Ted Gold,
Terry Robbins, and
Diana Oughton) their lives.
In recent days, the Village has maintained its role as a center for movements which have challenged the wider American culture: for example, its role in the
gay liberation movement. It contains
Christopher Street and the
Stonewall Inn, important landmarks, as well as the world's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore,
Oscar Wilde Bookshop, founded in 1967. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center - best known as simply "The Center" - has occupied the former Food & Maritime Trades High School at 208 West 13th Street since 1984. In 2006, the Village was the scene of
an assault involving seven lesbians and a straight man that sparked appreciable media attention, with strong statements both defending and attacking the parties.
Since the 1960s
Currently, artists and local historians bemoan the fact that the
bohemian days of Greenwich Village are long gone, because of the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood.
The artists have fled to first to
SoHo then to
TriBeCa and finally
Williamsburg and
Bushwick in
Brooklyn,
Long Island City,
and
DUMBO. Nevertheless, residents of Greenwich Village still possess a strong community identity and are proud of their neighborhood's unique history and fame, and its well-known liberal live-and-let-live attitudes.
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village is now home to many celebrities, including actresses/actors
Julianne Moore,
Liv Tyler,
Uma Thurman,
Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Leontyne Price,
Amy Sedaris, and
Barbara Pierce Bush, the daughter of former
U.S. President George W. Bush; Thurman and Bush both live on West Ninth Street. Alt-country/folk musician
Steve Earle moved to the neighborhood in 2005, and his album
Washington Square Serenade is primarily about his experiences in the Village. The Village also serves as home to
Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of
Vogue Magazine as well as
Calvin Trillin, a feature writer for
The New Yorker magazine.
Greenwich Village includes the primary campus for
New York University (NYU),
The New School, and
Yeshiva University's
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Parsons The New School for Design, a division of
The New School, is located at 66 Fifth Avenue on 13th Street in the newly renovated, award winning design of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center. The
Cooper Union is also located in Greenwich Village, at
Astor Place, near
St. Mark's Place on the border of the
East Village.
Pratt Institute established its latest Manhattan campus in an
adaptively reused Brunner & Tryon designed on 14th Street just east of Seventh Avenue,
The historic
Washington Square Park is the center and heart of the neighborhood, but the Village has several other, smaller parks: Father Fagan, Minetta Triangle, Petrosino Square, Little Red Square, and Time Landscape. There are also city playgrounds, including Desalvio, Minetta, Thompson Street, Bleecker Street, Downing Street, Mercer Street, and William Passannante Ballfield. Perhaps the most famous, though, is "The Cage", officially known as the
West 4th Street Courts. Sitting on top of the
West Fourth Street–Washington Square subway station at Sixth Avenue, the courts are easily accessible to
basketball and
American handball players from all over New York. The Cage has become one of the most important tournament sites for the city-wide "
Streetball" amateur basketball tournament.
The Village also has a bustling performing arts scene. It is still home to many
Off-Broadway and
Off-Off-Broadway theaters; for instance,
Blue Man Group has taken up residence in the Astor Place Theater.
The Village Gate, the
Village Vanguard and
The Blue Note hosted some of the biggest names in
jazz on a regular basis. Other music clubs included
The Bitter End, Cafe Au Go Go,
Cafe Wha? The Gaslight Cafe, and
Lion's Den. The village also has its own orchestra aptly named the
Greenwich Village Orchestra. Comedy clubs dot the Village as well, including
The Boston and
Comedy Cellar, where many American
stand-up comedians got their start.
Each year on October 31, it is home to
New York's Village Halloween Parade, the largest Halloween event in the country, drawing an audience of two million from throughout the region.
Several publications have offices in the Village, most notably the citywide newsweekly
The Village Voice, and the monthly magazines
Fortune and
American Heritage. The
National Audobon Society, having relocated its national headquarters from a mansion in
Carnegie Hill to a restored and very
green, former industrial building in
NoHo, relocated to smaller but even greener
LEED certified digs at , a short ways down Houston Street from the
Film Forum.
Preservation
Historically, local residents and preservation groups, including the
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), have been concerned about development in the Village and have fought to preserve the architectural and historic integrity of the neighborhood. In the 1960s,
Margot Gayle led a group of citizens to preserve the
Jefferson Market Courthouse (later reused as Jefferson Market Library)
while other citizen groups fought to keep traffic out of
Washington Square Park and
Jane Jacobs, using the Village as an example of a vibrant urban community, advocated to keep it that way.
Since then, preservation has been a part of the Village ethos. Preservation success stories abound in the neighborhood, which was landmarked in 1969 by the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Victories for preservationists, oftentimes spearheaded by
GVSHP, include the preservation of the Greenwich Village waterfront and
Meatpacking District; the inclusion of the
Far West Village in the Greenwich Village Historic District;
the creation of the Weehawken Street Historic District;
and the downzoning of the Far West Village.
Additionally, the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission began the process of landmarking the
South Village in June 2009.
More recent and on-going preservation issues in the Village include:
NYU’s expansion into the neighborhood;
[ ][ ] St. Vincent’s Hospital’s renovation plans;
[ ] overdevelopment in the Far West Village;
and threats to local theaters,
including the
Provincetown Playhouse,
the Yiddish Art Theater,
and the Variety Theater.
In media
90 Bedford Street, Winter 2006-2007
- In the movie Rear Window (1954) James Stewart's character lives in an apartment, in Greenwich Village.
- In the 1967 Audrey Hepburn movie Wait Until Dark, the main character, Susy Hendrix, lives in an apartment located at 4 St. Luke's Place in Greenwich Village.
- In the musical comedy, Wonderful Town, the main characters, Ruth and Eileen Sherwood, move from Columbus, Ohio to Greenwich Village to pursue their dreams. The apartment that they move into is located on Christopher Street.
- The building used for exterior shots of Carrie Bradshaw's apartment in Sex and the City is located at 66 Perry St (even though her address in the series is the fictional address of 245 East 73rd Street on the Upper East Side).
- The Greenwich Village KFC/Taco Bell infested with rats appeared on many TV networks worldwide.
- Greenwich Village is a playable multiplayer map in the 2003 video game Freedom Fighters.
Education
Greenwich Village residents are zoned to schools in the
New York City Department of Education.
Residents are jointly zoned to two elementary schools: PS3 Melser Charrette School and PS41 Greenwich Village School. Residents are zoned to Baruch Middle School 104.
Residents must apply to New York City high schools.
Greenwich Village also houses two major universities -
The New School and
New York University, as well as
Cooper Union, which is one of the most selective art schools in the world.
Notable residents
Sullivan St. was home to
Genovese crime family boss
Vincent "The Chin" Gigante. Born and raised in the Village he would spend most of his adult life there during the day. According to F.B.I. surveillance reports, after midnight, he would be driven to a townhouse at East 77th Street near Park Avenue where he actually lived. Popularly known as the "Oddfather," Gigante allegedly feigned senility by walking around the area in a bathrobe, in the hopes of eventually entering an insanity plea.
Justice
Sonia Sotomayor, former judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, later a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and current member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
See also
Notes and references
