East Village, Manhattan
Encyclopedia
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough
of Manhattan
in New York City
, lying east of Greenwich Village
, south of Gramercy
and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side
. Within the East Village are several smaller neighborhoods, including Alphabet City
and the Bowery
.
The area was once generally considered to be part of the Lower East Side
, but began to develop its own identity and culture in the 1960s, when many artists, musicians, students and hippie
s began to move into the area, attracted by cheap rents and the base of Beatniks that had lived there since the 1950s. The neighborhood has become a center of the counterculture
in New York, and is known as the birthplace and historical home of many artistic movements, including punk rock
and the Nuyorican
literary movement. It has also been the site of protests and riots.
The East Village is still known for its diverse community, vibrant nightlife and artistic sensibility, although in recent decades gentrification
has changed the character of the neighborhood somewhat.
and the Bowery
to the East River
, between 14th Street
and Houston Street.
. Petrus Stuyvesant received the deed to this farm in 1651, and his family held on to the land for over seven generations, until a descendant began selling off parcels of the property in the early 19th century. Wealthy townhouses dotted the dirt roads for a few decades until the great Irish and German immigration of the 1840s and 1850s.
Speculative land owners began building multi-unit dwellings on lots meant for single family homes, and began renting out rooms and apartments to the growing working class, including many immigrants from Germany
. From roughly the 1850s to first decade of the 20th century, the neighborhood has the largest urban populations of Germans outside of Vienna
and Berlin, and was known as Klein Deutschland ("Little Germany"). It was America's first foreign language neighborhood; hundreds of political, social, sports and recreational clubs were set up during this period, some of these buildings still exist. However, the vitality of the community was sapped by the General Slocum disaster on June 15, 1904, in which over a thousand German-American died.
Later waves of immigration also brough many Poles
and, especially, Ukrainians to the area. Since the 1890s there has been a large concentration roughly from 10th Street to 5th Street, between 3rd Avenue and Avenue A. The post-World War II diaspora
, consisting primarily of Western Ukrainian intelligentsia, also settled down in the area. Several churches, including St. George's Catholic Church
; Ukrainian restaurants and butcher shops; The Ukrainian Museum
; the Shevchenko Scientific Society
; and the Ukrainian Cultural Center are evidence of the impact of this culture on the area.
The area originally ended at the East River
, where Avenue C is now located, until landfill—including World War II debris and rubble shipped from London—was used to extend the shoreline outward to provide foundation for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive.
s into the neighborhood later attracted hippies, musicians and artists well into 1960s. The area was dubbed the "East Village", to dissociate it from the image of slums evoked by the Lower East Side. According to The New York Times
, a 1964 guide called Earl Wilson's New York wrote that "artists, poets and promoters of coffeehouses from Greenwich Village are trying to remelt the neighborhood under the high-sounding name of 'East Village.'"
Newcomers and real estate brokers popularized the new name, and the term was adopted by the popular media by the mid-1960s. In 1966 a weekly newspaper, The East Village Other, appeared and The New York Times declared that the neighborhood "had come to be known" as the East Village in the June 5, 1967 edition.
promoted a series of multimedia
shows, entitled "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable", and featuring the music of the Velvet Underground, in a Polish ballroom on St. Marks Place. On June 27, 1967, the Electric Circus
opened in the same space with a benefit for the Children's Recreation Foundation whose chairman was Bobby Kennedy
. The Grateful Dead, The Chambers Brothers
, Sly and the Family Stone and the Allman Brothers
were among the many rock bands
that performed there before it closed in 1971.
On March 8, 1968 Bill Graham
opened the Fillmore East
in what had been a Yiddish Theatre
on Second Avenue
at East 6th Street. The venue quickly became known as "The Church of Rock and Roll", with two-show concerts several nights a week. While booking many of the same bands that had played the Electric Circus, Graham particularly used the venue—and its West Coast counterpart—to establish new British bands like The Who
, Pink Floyd
, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
, Cream
, and Led Zeppelin
. The Fillmore East also closed in 1971.
CBGB
, the nightclub considered by some to be the birthplace of punk music, was located in the neighborhood, as was the early punk standby A7
. No Wave
and New York hardcore
also emerged in the area's clubs. Among the many important bands and singers who got their start at these clubs and other venues in downtown Manhattan were Patti Smith
, Arto Lindsay
, the Ramones
, Blondie
, Madonna
, Talking Heads
, Television
, the Plasmatics
, Glenn Danzig
, Sonic Youth
, the Beastie Boys
, Anthrax
, and The Strokes
.
Some icons of the punk scene remained in the neighborhood as it changed. Richard Hell
lives in the same apartment he has lived in since the 1970s, and Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators
owns and reigns over Manitoba's bar on Avenue B.
s, folk music
to punk rock
, anti-folk
to hip-hop
, advanced education to organized activism
, experimental theater to the Beat Generation
and the community of experimental musicians, composers and improvisers now loosely known as the Downtown Scene.
Club 57
, on St. Marks Place, was an important incubator for performance art
and visual art in the late 1970s and early 1980s; followed by Now Gallery
, 8BC
and ABC No Rio
.
During the 1980s the East Village art gallery scene helped to galvanize a new post-modern art in America; showing such artists as Kiki Smith
, Peter Halley
, Keith Haring
, Stephen Lack
, Greer Lankton
, Joseph Nechvatal
, Nan Goldin
, Jean-Michel Basquiat
, David Wojnarowicz
, James Romberger
, Rick Prol, and Jeff Koons
.
of Saturday Night Live
. It closed its doors in 2007, and was seen by many as another sign of the continued decline of the East Village performance and art scene, which has shifted in part to Williamsburg
in Brooklyn
. Rapture Cafe also shut down in April 2008, and the neighborhood lost an important performance space and gathering ground for the gay community. There are still some performance spaces, such as Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A, where downtown acts find space to exhibit their talent, and the poetry clubs.
From 2004 until 2009, the art gallery American Painting, located on East 6th St., between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, exhibited the works of several New York and American artists, namely, Andrei Kushnir, Michele Martin Taylor, Carol Spils, Barbara Nuss, Joachim Marx, Stevens Jay Carter and Michael Francis. One of their last exhibits, "East Village Afternoon," depicted local interiors, exteriors, and scenes of the changing neighborhood.
's musical Rent
, which captures the neighborhood in the early 1990s; it opened at the New York Theater Workshop in February 1996. Rent describes a city devastated by the AIDS epidemic, drugs and high crime, and follows several characters in their efforts to make livings as artists.
, has occurred in SoHo
, TriBeCa
and Williamsburg
in Brooklyn
. Over the course of time, it begins to change the essential character of the neighborhood, which becomes safer, more comfortable and less "edgy".
. They have undertaken a complete survey of the East Village, documenting the history of every single building in the area. This information will be made public in the fall of 2011. In the spring of 2011 the Landmarks Preservation Commission proposed two East Village Historic Districts, one small district covering the block of East 10th Street known as Tompkins Square North and one larger district focused around lower Second Avenue that would encompass 15 blocks and 330 buildings. The original proposal for the larger district excluded buildings such as the Pyramid Club
and the Russian Orthodox Cathedral on East 2nd Street. Thanks to efforts made by local community groups such as the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, East Village Community Coalition, Historic Districts Council
, and Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
, however, the proposed district now includes these worthy buildings. The districts are calendared to go up before the entire Landmarks Preservation Commission, but a hearing has yet to be scheduled.
Some of the individual sites that are already protected by landmark status are: PS 64/Old Charas Cultural Center, the former Yiddish Art Theater, Webster Hall
, which was designated a New York City landmark on March 18, 2008, and Stuyvesant Polyclinic, one of the East Village's earliest designated landmarks. Some specific sites that are still in need of landmark designation are: the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, 101 Avenue A, the current home of the Pyramid Club
, 128 East 13th Street, a former horse auction market and home to Frank Stella's studio, the 170-year old rowhouses at 326-328 East 4th Street, and the Congregation Mezritch Synagogue, the East Village's last operating tenement synagogue.
, particularly dormitories for undergraduate students, and this influx has given rise to conflict between the community and the university.
St. Ann's Church, a rusticated-stone structure with a Romanesque
tower on East 12th Street that dated to 1847, was sold to NYU to make way for a 26-story, 700 bed dormitory. After community protest about the destruction of the church, the university promised to protect and maintain the original facade, which it did, literally by having it stand alone in front of the new building, which is the tallest structure in the area. NYU's destruction or purchasing of many historic buildings, such as the Peter Cooper Post Office, have made it symbolic of change that many long-time residents fear is destroying what made the neighborhood interesting and attractive.
NYU has often been at odds with residents of both the East and West Villages; urban preservationist Jane Jacobs
battled the school in the 1960s. "She spoke of how universities and hospitals often had a special kind of hubris reflected in the fact that they often thought it was OK to destroy a neighborhood to suit their needs," said Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
.
, founded in 1859 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Cooper
and located on Cooper Square
, is one of the most selective colleges in the world, with tuition-free programs in engineering, art and architecture. Its Great Hall is famous as a platform for historic speeches, notably Abraham Lincoln
's Cooper Union speech
and its New Academic Building is the first in New York City to achieve LEED
Platinum Status.
The East Village contains several smaller vibrant communities, each with their own character.
comprises nearly two-thirds of the East Village, and was once the archetype of a dangerous New York City neighborhood. Its turn-around was cause for The New York Times to observe in 2005 that Alphabet City went "from a drug-infested no man's land to the epicenter of downtown cool." Its name comes from Avenues A
, B
, C, and D
, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter names. It is bordered by Houston Street to the south and 14th Street
to the north. Some landmarks with Alphabet City include Tompkins Square Park
and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
.
, and especially Nuyorican
, pronunciation of "Lower East Side
". The term was originally coined by poet/activist, Bittman "Bimbo" Rivas in his 1974 poem "Loisaida". Loisaida Avenue is now an alternative name for Avenue C in the Alphabet City
neighborhood of New York City, whose population has largely been Hispanic
(mainly Nuyorican
) since the late 1960s. During the 1980's many of the old, vacant, tenement buildings in this area became inhabited by squatters.
, and was known as a secluded rich enclave in Manhattan, but by the 1850s had become a place for boarding houses and a German immigrant community. It is named after St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, which was built on Stuyvesant Street
but is now on 10th Street
. St. Marks Place once began at the intersection of the Bowery
and Stuyvesant Street
, but today the street runs from Third Avenue
to Avenue A
. Japanese street culture and a Japanese expatriate scene forms in the noodle shops and bars that line the street, also home to an aged punk culture and CBGB
's new store. It is home to one of the only Automat
s in New York City (it has since closed).
St. Marks Place is along the "Mosaic Trail", a trail of 80 mosaic-encrusted lampposts that runs from Broadway down Eighth Street to Avenue A, to Fourth Street and then back to Eighth Street. The project was undertaken by East Village public art
ist Jim Power, known as the "Mosaic Man".
, former home to the punk-rock nightclub CBGB
, was once known for its many homeless shelters, drug rehabilitation centers and bars. The phrase "On The Bowery", which has since fallen into disuse, was a generic way to say one was down-and-out.
Today, the Bowery has become a boulevard of new luxury condominiums. It also is home to the Amato Opera
and the Bowery Poetry Club
, contributing to the neighborhood's reputation as a place for artistic pursuit. Artists Amiri Baraka
and Taylor Mead
hold regular readings and performances in the space.
The redevelopment of the avenue from flophouse
s to luxury condominiums has met with resistance from long-term residents, who agree the neighborhood has improved, but that its unique, gritty character is also disappearing.
is a 10.5 acre (42,000 m²) public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the west by Avenue A. St. Marks Place abuts the park to the west.
. On July 25, 1877, twenty thousand people gathered in Tompkins Square Park
to hear communist orators speak about revolution, the strike, and the policies of President Hayes. All speeches were repeated in German at a second stand, as the neighborhood had such a large German population at that time. David Conroy, Chairman of the Working Man's Organization in NYC and organizer of the rally, stated that the purpose of the meeting was to harmonize the differences between the strikers and the railroad companies, and to urge the citizen soldiery to refrain from acting against the strikers. Although the rally did not get out of hand, New York City police and National Guardsmen eventually charged the crowd with billy clubs, later claiming that the rally was not being held in a peaceful manner. In the wake of this “riot,” the City, in conjunction with the War Department, established an official city armory program led by the 7th Regiment.
's Tompkins Square Park
. Groups of "drug pushers, homeless people and young people known as 'skinhead
s'" had largely taken over the East Village park, but the neighborhood was divided about what, if anything, should be done about it. The local governing body, Manhattan Community Board 3
, adopted a 1 am curfew for the previously 24-hour park, in an attempt to bring it under control. On July 31, a rally against the curfew resulted in several clashes between protesters and police.
from Montgomery Street to East 12th Street. It was designed in the 1930s by Robert Moses
, who wanted to ensure there was parkland on the Lower East Side
. In 2010, construction was completed on the East River Promenade, which now runs from East 12th Street to Grand Street and continues to be expanded south.
in New York City—gardens run by local collectives within the neighborhood who are responsible for the gardens' upkeep—and an estimated 10 percent of those are located on the Lower East Side and East Village alone.
. Boros died April 27, 2007. The Tower was controversial in the neighborhood; some viewed it as a masterpiece, others as an eyesore. It was a makeshift tower, 65-feet in height, assembled out of wood planks. The suspended, hanging toys were an amalgamation of fanciful objects found on the street (Boros was a strong voice for reusing and recycling). The fantastical, childlike feeling of this installation was quite fitting considering that the garden boasts a children’s adventure playground and children’s garden. The tower appeared in the opening credits
for the television show
NYPD Blue
and also appears in the musical Rent
. In May 2008, it was dismantled. According to NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, the tower was rotting in sections that made it a safety hazard. Its removal was seen as another symbol of the fading past of the neighborhood.
is located on 2nd Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue, and is the second oldest non-sectarian cemetery in New York City. The cemetery was opened in 1831 and at one point contained ex-U.S. President James Monroe
. Among those interred there are Stephen Allen
, mayor (1821–1824); James Lenox
, whose personal library became a part of the New York Public Library; Isaac Varian
, mayor (1839–1841); Marinus Willet, Revolutionary War hero; and Preserved Fish
, a well-known New York merchant.
Nearby, on Second Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets, is the oldest public cemetery in New York City not affiliated with any religion, the New York Marble Cemetery
. It is open the fourth Sunday of every month.
in its calculation, the neighborhood was 35% Asian, 28% non-Hispanic white, 27% Hispanic and 7% black.
On October 9, 1966, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
, held the first recorded outdoor chanting session of the Hare Krishna mantra outside of the Indian subcontinent at Tompkins Square Park
. This is considered the founding of the Hare Krishna religion in the United States, and the large tree close to the center of the Park is demarcated as a special religious site for Krishna adherents. The late poet Allen Ginsberg
, who lived and died in the East Village, attended the ceremony.
There are several Roman Catholic churches in the East Village that have fallen victim to financial hardship particularly in the past decade. Unable to maintain their properties, the Roman Catholic Church has shuttered many of them—including St. Mary's Help of Christians on East 12th Street, as well as St. Ann's. There has recently been much controversy over St. Brigid's
, the historical parish on Tompkins Square Park
.
Libraries
Museums
Poetry
Music
Theaters and performance spaces
Other
Local news
Movie theaters
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, lying east of Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York 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...
, south of Gramercy
Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park is a small, fenced-in private park in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park and the Gramercy Park Historic District...
and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side
Lower East Side, Manhattan
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
. Within the East Village are several smaller neighborhoods, including Alphabet City
Alphabet City, Manhattan
Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the Lower East Side and East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is also known as Loisaida, a Spanglish adaptation of 'Lower East Side'. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter...
and the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
.
The area was once generally considered to be part of the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
, but began to develop its own identity and culture in the 1960s, when many artists, musicians, students and hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s began to move into the area, attracted by cheap rents and the base of Beatniks that had lived there since the 1950s. The neighborhood has become a center of the counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
in New York, and is known as the birthplace and historical home of many artistic movements, including punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and the Nuyorican
Nuyorican
Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora located in or around New York State especially the New York City metropolitan area, or of their descendants...
literary movement. It has also been the site of protests and riots.
The East Village is still known for its diverse community, vibrant nightlife and artistic sensibility, although in recent decades gentrification
Gentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
has changed the character of the neighborhood somewhat.
Boundaries
Definitions vary, but generally the East Village is considered to be the area east of BroadwayBroadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
and the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
, between 14th Street
14th Street (Manhattan)
14th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street rivals the size of some of the well-known avenues of the city and is an important business location....
and Houston Street.
Background
The area that is today known as the East Village was originally a farm owned by Dutch Governor-General Wouter van TwillerWouter van Twiller
Wouter van Twiller was an employee of the Dutch West India Company and the Director-General of New Netherland from 1633 until 1638...
. Petrus Stuyvesant received the deed to this farm in 1651, and his family held on to the land for over seven generations, until a descendant began selling off parcels of the property in the early 19th century. Wealthy townhouses dotted the dirt roads for a few decades until the great Irish and German immigration of the 1840s and 1850s.
Speculative land owners began building multi-unit dwellings on lots meant for single family homes, and began renting out rooms and apartments to the growing working class, including many immigrants from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. From roughly the 1850s to first decade of the 20th century, the neighborhood has the largest urban populations of Germans outside of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Berlin, and was known as Klein Deutschland ("Little Germany"). It was America's first foreign language neighborhood; hundreds of political, social, sports and recreational clubs were set up during this period, some of these buildings still exist. However, the vitality of the community was sapped by the General Slocum disaster on June 15, 1904, in which over a thousand German-American died.
Later waves of immigration also brough many Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
and, especially, Ukrainians to the area. Since the 1890s there has been a large concentration roughly from 10th Street to 5th Street, between 3rd Avenue and Avenue A. The post-World War II diaspora
Ukrainian diaspora
The Ukrainian diaspora is the global community of ethnic Ukrainians, especially those who maintain some kind of connection, even if ephemeral, to the land of their ancestors and maintain their feeling of Ukrainian national identity within their own local community.-1608 To 1880:After the loss...
, consisting primarily of Western Ukrainian intelligentsia, also settled down in the area. Several churches, including St. George's Catholic Church
St. George's Church (New York City)
St. George's Church is a Ukrainian Catholic church located in the East Village, Manhattan of New York City on E. 7th Street at the southeast corner of Hall Place.-Buildings:...
; Ukrainian restaurants and butcher shops; The Ukrainian Museum
The Ukrainian Museum
The Ukrainian Museum, founded in 1976 by the Ukrainian National Women's League of America , is located at 222 East 6th Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, an claims to be the largest American museum dedicated to the cultural...
; the Shevchenko Scientific Society
Shevchenko Scientific Society
The Shevchenko Scientific Society is a Ukrainian scientific society devoted to the promotion of scholarly research and publication. Unlike the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine the society is a public organization that was reestablished in Ukraine in 1989 after almost 50 years of exile...
; and the Ukrainian Cultural Center are evidence of the impact of this culture on the area.
The area originally ended at the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
, where Avenue C is now located, until landfill—including World War II debris and rubble shipped from London—was used to extend the shoreline outward to provide foundation for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive.
A new neighborhood
Until the mid-1960s, the area was simply the northern part of the Lower East Side, with a similar culture of immigrant, working class life. In the 1950s the migration of BeatnikBeatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
s into the neighborhood later attracted hippies, musicians and artists well into 1960s. The area was dubbed the "East Village", to dissociate it from the image of slums evoked by the Lower East Side. According to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, a 1964 guide called Earl Wilson's New York wrote that "artists, poets and promoters of coffeehouses from Greenwich Village are trying to remelt the neighborhood under the high-sounding name of 'East Village.'"
Newcomers and real estate brokers popularized the new name, and the term was adopted by the popular media by the mid-1960s. In 1966 a weekly newspaper, The East Village Other, appeared and The New York Times declared that the neighborhood "had come to be known" as the East Village in the June 5, 1967 edition.
The music scene develops
In 1966 Andy WarholAndy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
promoted a series of multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
shows, entitled "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable", and featuring the music of the Velvet Underground, in a Polish ballroom on St. Marks Place. On June 27, 1967, the Electric Circus
Electric Circus (nightclub)
The Electric Circus was a nightclub and discotheque located at 19-25 St. Marks Place between Second and Third Avenues in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, from 1967 to September 1971. The club was created by Jerry Brandt, Stanton J. Freeman and their partners and designed...
opened in the same space with a benefit for the Children's Recreation Foundation whose chairman was Bobby Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
. The Grateful Dead, The Chambers Brothers
The Chambers Brothers
The Chambers Brothers is a soul-music group, best known for its 1968 hit record, the 11-minute long song "Time Has Come Today". The group was part of the wave of new music that integrated American blues and gospel traditions with modern psychedelic and rock elements, spawning a heady mix...
, Sly and the Family Stone and the Allman Brothers
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman , who were supported by Dickey Betts , Berry Oakley , Butch Trucks , and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe"...
were among the many rock bands
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
that performed there before it closed in 1971.
On March 8, 1968 Bill Graham
Bill Graham (promoter)
Bill Graham was an American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death.-Early life:...
opened the Fillmore East
Fillmore East
The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time...
in what had been a Yiddish Theatre
Yiddish theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and...
on Second Avenue
Second Avenue (Manhattan)
Second Avenue is an avenue on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan extending from Houston Street at its south end to the Harlem River Drive at 128th Street at its north end. A one-way street, vehicular traffic runs only downtown. A bicycle lane in the left hand portion from 55th...
at East 6th Street. The venue quickly became known as "The Church of Rock and Roll", with two-show concerts several nights a week. While booking many of the same bands that had played the Electric Circus, Graham particularly used the venue—and its West Coast counterpart—to establish new British bands like The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Experience were an English-American psychedelic rock band that formed in London in October 1966. Comprising eponymous singer-songwriter and guitarist Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the band was active until June 1969, in which...
, Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
, and Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
. The Fillmore East also closed in 1971.
CBGB
CBGB
CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...
, the nightclub considered by some to be the birthplace of punk music, was located in the neighborhood, as was the early punk standby A7
A7 (bar)
A7 was a club in New York City, United States. From 1981 to 1984, it was the unofficial headquarters of the New York hardcore scene. The tiny space was located on the southeast corner of East 7th Street and Avenue A in Manhattan's East Village. Many bands which later became hardcore icons began at A7...
. No Wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
and New York hardcore
New York hardcore
New York hardcore refers to hardcore punk and metalcore music created in New York City and to the subculture associated with that music. New York hardcore grew out of the hardcore scene established in Washington, D.C., by bands such as Bad Brains and Minor Threat. Hardcore '81 is an album by the...
also emerged in the area's clubs. Among the many important bands and singers who got their start at these clubs and other venues in downtown Manhattan were Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
, Arto Lindsay
Arto Lindsay
Arthur Morgan Lindsay is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He is a 1974 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida....
, the Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
, Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
, Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
, Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
, Television
Television (band)
Television was an American rock band, formed in New York City in 1973. They are best known for the album Marquee Moon and widely regarded as one of the founders of "punk" and New Wave music. Television was part of the early 1970s New York underground rock scene, along with bands like the Patti...
, the Plasmatics
Plasmatics
The Plasmatics were an American heavy metal and punk band formed by Yale University art school graduate Rod Swenson with Wendy O. Williams. The band was a controversial group known for wild live shows that broke countless taboos...
, Glenn Danzig
Glenn Danzig
Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig (born Glenn Allen Anzalone; June 23, 1955 is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, entrepreneur, and a progenitor of the horror punk subgenre of music. He is a founder of bands the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig...
, Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, the Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....
, Anthrax
Anthrax (band)
Anthrax is an American heavy metal band from New York City, formed in 1981. Founded by guitarists Scott Ian and Danny Lilker, the band has since released ten studio albums and 20 singles, and an EP featuring Public Enemy. The band was one of the most popular of the 1980s thrash metal scene...
, and The Strokes
The Strokes
The Strokes are an American indie rock band formed in 1999 in New York City. Consisting of Julian Casablancas , Nick Valensi , Albert Hammond, Jr. , Nikolai Fraiture and Fabrizio Moretti ....
.
Some icons of the punk scene remained in the neighborhood as it changed. Richard Hell
Richard Hell
Richard Hell is a singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer.Richard Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion. He was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins...
lives in the same apartment he has lived in since the 1970s, and Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators
The Dictators
The Dictators are an American punk rock band formed in New York City in 1973. Critic John Dougan said that they were "one of the finest and most influential proto-punk bands to walk the earth." The Dictators are represented in the "Punk Wing" of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in Cleveland, Ohio...
owns and reigns over Manitoba's bar on Avenue B.
The art scene
Over the last 100 years, the East Village and the Lower East Side have contributed significantly to American arts and culture in New York. The neighborhood has been the birthplace of cultural icons and movements from the American gangster to the Warhol SuperstarWarhol superstar
Warhol superstars were a clique of New York City personalities promoted by Andy Warhol during the 1960s and early 1970s. These personalities appeared in Warhol's artworks and accompanied him in his social life...
s, folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
to punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, anti-folk
Anti-folk
Anti-folk is a music genre that takes the earnestness of politically charged 1960s folk music and subverts it. The defining characteristics of this anti-folk are difficult to identify, as they vary from one artist to the next...
to hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, advanced education to organized activism
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
, experimental theater to the Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
and the community of experimental musicians, composers and improvisers now loosely known as the Downtown Scene.
Club 57
Club 57
Club 57 was a nightclub located at 57 St. Mark's Place in the East Village, New York City during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was a hangout and venue for performance- and visual-artists and musicians, including Madonna, Keith Haring, Cyndi Lauper, Charles Busch, Klaus Nomi, The B-52s, Futura...
, on St. Marks Place, was an important incubator for performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
and visual art in the late 1970s and early 1980s; followed by Now Gallery
Now Gallery
Now Gallery was a New York City art gallery based in East Village, Manhattan active in 1983 - 1989. An artist himself, director and owner Jacek Tylicki, has been recognized as an important promoter of emerging artists....
, 8BC
8BC
8BC was a non-profit performance space and art gallery located in the East Village neighborhood of New York, New York, United States. Founded in 1983, the space was closed by 1985.-History:...
and ABC No Rio
ABC No Rio
ABC No Rio is a social center located at 156 Rivington Street on New York City's Lower East Side that was founded in 1980. It features a gallery space, a zine library, a darkroom, a silkscreening studio, and public computer lab...
.
During the 1980s the East Village art gallery scene helped to galvanize a new post-modern art in America; showing such artists as Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...
, Peter Halley
Peter Halley
-Early Life and Career:Halley first came to prominence as a result of the geometric paintings rendered in intense day-glo colours that he produced in the early 1980s. His practice as an artist is usually associated with minimalism, neo-geo, and neo-conceptualism...
, Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
, Stephen Lack
Stephen Lack
Stephen Lack is a Canadian painter and a film actor best known for his role as the lead character, Cameron Vale, in David Cronenberg's film Scanners.-Life:...
, Greer Lankton
Greer Lankton
Greer Lankton was an American artist, whose work was dedicated to creating life-like, posable dolls and figures. Greer Lankton was born Greg Lankton in Flint, Michigan, to a Presbyterian minister and his wife. It was during her rough childhood as a feminine boy that she began creating dolls."It...
, Joseph Nechvatal
Joseph Nechvatal
Joseph Nechvatal is a post-conceptual art digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses.-Life and work:Joseph Nechvatal was born in Chicago...
, Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin
Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
, Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
, David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s.-Biography:...
, James Romberger
James Romberger
James Romberger is an American fine artist and cartoonist known for his depictions of New York City's Lower East Side.Romberger's pastel drawings of the ravaged landscape of the Lower East Side and its citizens are in many public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art...
, Rick Prol, and Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
.
Decline of the art scene
The East Village's performance and art scene has declined since its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s. One club that had opened to try to resurrect the neighborhood's past artistic prominence was Mo Pitkins' House of Satisfaction, part-owned by Jimmy FallonJimmy Fallon
James Thomas "Jimmy" Fallon, Jr. is an American actor, comedian, singer, musician and television host. He currently hosts Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a late-night talk show that airs Monday through Friday on NBC...
of Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
. It closed its doors in 2007, and was seen by many as another sign of the continued decline of the East Village performance and art scene, which has shifted in part to Williamsburg
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant to the south, Bushwick to the east and the East River to the west. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 90th ...
in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. Rapture Cafe also shut down in April 2008, and the neighborhood lost an important performance space and gathering ground for the gay community. There are still some performance spaces, such as Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A, where downtown acts find space to exhibit their talent, and the poetry clubs.
From 2004 until 2009, the art gallery American Painting, located on East 6th St., between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, exhibited the works of several New York and American artists, namely, Andrei Kushnir, Michele Martin Taylor, Carol Spils, Barbara Nuss, Joachim Marx, Stevens Jay Carter and Michael Francis. One of their last exhibits, "East Village Afternoon," depicted local interiors, exteriors, and scenes of the changing neighborhood.
Rent
The East Village is the setting for Jonathan LarsonJonathan Larson
Jonathan Larson was an American composer and playwright noted for the serious social issues of multiculturalism, addiction, and homophobia explored in his work. Typical examples of his use of these themes are found in his works, Rent and tick, tick... BOOM!...
's musical Rent
Rent (musical)
Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème...
, which captures the neighborhood in the early 1990s; it opened at the New York Theater Workshop in February 1996. Rent describes a city devastated by the AIDS epidemic, drugs and high crime, and follows several characters in their efforts to make livings as artists.
Gentrification
As has often been the pattern in Manhattan, a neighborhood that is "discovered" by artists and bohemians and then becomes "hip", will often begin to attract more affluent residents, which drives up the price of housing, and begins to drive out some of the very people who "turned over" the neighborhood. This process, called gentrificationGentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
, has occurred in SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
, TriBeCa
TriBeCa
Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street", and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street...
and Williamsburg
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant to the south, Bushwick to the east and the East River to the west. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 90th ...
in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. Over the course of time, it begins to change the essential character of the neighborhood, which becomes safer, more comfortable and less "edgy".
Preservation
Many local community groups actively worked and are working to gain individual and district landmark designations for the East Village to preserve and protect the architectural and cultural identity of the neighborhood. One such group is the Greenwich Village Society for Historic PreservationGreenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve the architectural heritage and cultural history of several neighborhoods of New York City: Greenwich Village, the East Village, the Far West Village, the South Village, Gansevoort Market,...
. They have undertaken a complete survey of the East Village, documenting the history of every single building in the area. This information will be made public in the fall of 2011. In the spring of 2011 the Landmarks Preservation Commission proposed two East Village Historic Districts, one small district covering the block of East 10th Street known as Tompkins Square North and one larger district focused around lower Second Avenue that would encompass 15 blocks and 330 buildings. The original proposal for the larger district excluded buildings such as the Pyramid Club
Pyramid Club
__notoc__The Pyramid Club is a nightclub in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City. After opening in 1979, the Pyramid helped define the East Village drag and gay scenes of the 1980s...
and the Russian Orthodox Cathedral on East 2nd Street. Thanks to efforts made by local community groups such as the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, East Village Community Coalition, Historic Districts Council
Historic Districts Council
The Historic Districts Council was founded in 1971 as a coalition of community groups from the city’s designated historic districts—of which there were only 18 at the time—primarily to work on special projects and networking...
, and Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve the architectural heritage and cultural history of several neighborhoods of New York City: Greenwich Village, the East Village, the Far West Village, the South Village, Gansevoort Market,...
, however, the proposed district now includes these worthy buildings. The districts are calendared to go up before the entire Landmarks Preservation Commission, but a hearing has yet to be scheduled.
Some of the individual sites that are already protected by landmark status are: PS 64/Old Charas Cultural Center, the former Yiddish Art Theater, Webster Hall
Webster Hall
Webster Hall is a nightclub located at 125 East 11th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues, near Astor Place, in Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1886, its current incarnation was opened by the Ballinger Brothers in 1992...
, which was designated a New York City landmark on March 18, 2008, and Stuyvesant Polyclinic, one of the East Village's earliest designated landmarks. Some specific sites that are still in need of landmark designation are: the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, 101 Avenue A, the current home of the Pyramid Club
Pyramid Club
__notoc__The Pyramid Club is a nightclub in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City. After opening in 1979, the Pyramid helped define the East Village drag and gay scenes of the 1980s...
, 128 East 13th Street, a former horse auction market and home to Frank Stella's studio, the 170-year old rowhouses at 326-328 East 4th Street, and the Congregation Mezritch Synagogue, the East Village's last operating tenement synagogue.
New York University
Along with gentrification, the East Village has seen an increase in the number of buildings owned and maintained by New York UniversityNew York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, particularly dormitories for undergraduate students, and this influx has given rise to conflict between the community and the university.
St. Ann's Church, a rusticated-stone structure with a Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
tower on East 12th Street that dated to 1847, was sold to NYU to make way for a 26-story, 700 bed dormitory. After community protest about the destruction of the church, the university promised to protect and maintain the original facade, which it did, literally by having it stand alone in front of the new building, which is the tallest structure in the area. NYU's destruction or purchasing of many historic buildings, such as the Peter Cooper Post Office, have made it symbolic of change that many long-time residents fear is destroying what made the neighborhood interesting and attractive.
NYU has often been at odds with residents of both the East and West Villages; urban preservationist Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs, was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities , a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States...
battled the school in the 1960s. "She spoke of how universities and hospitals often had a special kind of hubris reflected in the fact that they often thought it was OK to destroy a neighborhood to suit their needs," said Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve the architectural heritage and cultural history of several neighborhoods of New York City: Greenwich Village, the East Village, the Far West Village, the South Village, Gansevoort Market,...
.
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and ArtCooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
, founded in 1859 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper
Peter Cooper was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and candidate for President of the United States...
and located on Cooper Square
Cooper Square
__notoc__Cooper Square is a junction of streets in lower Manhattan, New York City located at the confluence of the neighborhoods of The Bowery to the south, NoHo to the west and southwest, Greenwich Village to the west and northwest, the East Village to the north and east, and the Lower East Side...
, is one of the most selective colleges in the world, with tuition-free programs in engineering, art and architecture. Its Great Hall is famous as a platform for historic speeches, notably Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
's Cooper Union speech
Cooper Union speech
The Cooper Union Speech, or Address, was delivered by Abraham Lincoln on February 27, 1860, at Cooper Union, in New York City. Lincoln was not yet the Republican nominee for the presidency, as the convention was scheduled for May. It is considered one of his most important speeches...
and its New Academic Building is the first in New York City to achieve LEED
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....
Platinum Status.
Neighborhoods within the East Village
Alphabet City
Alphabet CityAlphabet City, Manhattan
Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the Lower East Side and East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is also known as Loisaida, a Spanglish adaptation of 'Lower East Side'. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter...
comprises nearly two-thirds of the East Village, and was once the archetype of a dangerous New York City neighborhood. Its turn-around was cause for The New York Times to observe in 2005 that Alphabet City went "from a drug-infested no man's land to the epicenter of downtown cool." Its name comes from Avenues A
Avenue A (Manhattan)
Avenue A runs from north to south and is the westernmost of the avenues to be defined by letters instead of using the numbering system in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Avenue A runs from Houston Street to 14th Street, where it continues into a loop road in Stuyvesant Town, connecting to...
, B
Avenue B (Manhattan)
Avenue B runs from south to north and is two blocks east of 1st Avenue in Alphabet City, a district within the East Village. Avenue B runs from Houston Street to 14th Street, where it continues into a loop road in Stuyvesant Town, to be connected with Avenue A. Below Houston Street, Avenue B...
, C, and D
Avenue D (Manhattan)
Avenue D is the easternmost named avenue in the East Village neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, though several thoroughfares are closer to the East River. This area is also known as Alphabet City. Avenue D runs between East 12th Street and Houston Street, and continues south...
, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter names. It is bordered by Houston Street to the south and 14th Street
14th Street (Manhattan)
14th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street rivals the size of some of the well-known avenues of the city and is an important business location....
to the north. Some landmarks with Alphabet City include Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Nuyorican Poets Café
The Nuyorican Poets Café is a non-profit organization in Alphabet City, Manhattan. It is a bastion of the Nuyorican art movement in New York City, USA, and has become a forum for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy and theatre.-History:...
.
Loisaida
Loisaida is a term derived from the LatinoLatino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
, and especially Nuyorican
Nuyorican
Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora located in or around New York State especially the New York City metropolitan area, or of their descendants...
, pronunciation of "Lower East Side
Lower East Side, Manhattan
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
". The term was originally coined by poet/activist, Bittman "Bimbo" Rivas in his 1974 poem "Loisaida". Loisaida Avenue is now an alternative name for Avenue C in the Alphabet City
Alphabet City, Manhattan
Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the Lower East Side and East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is also known as Loisaida, a Spanglish adaptation of 'Lower East Side'. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter...
neighborhood of New York City, whose population has largely been Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
(mainly Nuyorican
Nuyorican
Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora located in or around New York State especially the New York City metropolitan area, or of their descendants...
) since the late 1960s. During the 1980's many of the old, vacant, tenement buildings in this area became inhabited by squatters.
St. Marks Place
Eighth Street becomes St. Marks Place east of Third Avenue. It once had the cachet of Sutton PlaceSutton Place, Manhattan
Sutton Place is the name given to one of the most affluent streets in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States, situated on the border between the Midtown and Upper East Side neighborhoods...
, and was known as a secluded rich enclave in Manhattan, but by the 1850s had become a place for boarding houses and a German immigrant community. It is named after St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, which was built on Stuyvesant Street
Stuyvesant Street (Manhattan)
Stuyvesant Street is one of the oldest streets in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs diagonally from 9th Street at Third Avenue to 10th Street near Second Avenue, all within the East Village, Manhattan neighborhood. The majority of the street is included in the St...
but is now on 10th Street
10th Street (Manhattan)
10th Street is an east-west street from the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan to Avenue D in the East Village. East of Sixth Avenue it changes heading, from east-northeast to east-southeast. Traffic is eastbound as far as Tompkins Square Park, of which it marks...
. St. Marks Place once began at the intersection of the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
and Stuyvesant Street
Stuyvesant Street (Manhattan)
Stuyvesant Street is one of the oldest streets in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs diagonally from 9th Street at Third Avenue to 10th Street near Second Avenue, all within the East Village, Manhattan neighborhood. The majority of the street is included in the St...
, but today the street runs from Third Avenue
Third Avenue (Manhattan)
Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, running from Cooper Square north for over 120 blocks. Third Avenue continues into The Bronx across the Harlem River over the Third Avenue Bridge north of East 129th Street to East Fordham Road at...
to Avenue A
Avenue A (Manhattan)
Avenue A runs from north to south and is the westernmost of the avenues to be defined by letters instead of using the numbering system in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Avenue A runs from Houston Street to 14th Street, where it continues into a loop road in Stuyvesant Town, connecting to...
. Japanese street culture and a Japanese expatriate scene forms in the noodle shops and bars that line the street, also home to an aged punk culture and CBGB
CBGB
CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...
's new store. It is home to one of the only Automat
Automat
An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drink are served by coin-operated and bill-operated vending machines.-Concept:Originally, the machines took only nickels...
s in New York City (it has since closed).
St. Marks Place is along the "Mosaic Trail", a trail of 80 mosaic-encrusted lampposts that runs from Broadway down Eighth Street to Avenue A, to Fourth Street and then back to Eighth Street. The project was undertaken by East Village public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
ist Jim Power, known as the "Mosaic Man".
The Bowery
The BoweryBowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
, former home to the punk-rock nightclub CBGB
CBGB
CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...
, was once known for its many homeless shelters, drug rehabilitation centers and bars. The phrase "On The Bowery", which has since fallen into disuse, was a generic way to say one was down-and-out.
The Bow’ry, The Bow’ry!
They say such things,
and they do strange things
on the Bow’ry
—From the musical A Trip to ChinatownA Trip to ChinatownA Trip to Chinatown is a musical comedy in three acts by Charles H. Hoyt with music by Percy Gaunt and lyrics by Hoyt, that became a silent film featuring Anna May Wong half a century later. In addition to the Gaunt and Hoyt score, many songs were interpolated into the score at one time or another...
, 1891
Today, the Bowery has become a boulevard of new luxury condominiums. It also is home to the Amato Opera
Amato Opera
The Amato Opera was an opera company located in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. The company was produced by the husband and wife team of Anthony and Sally Amato and presented opera on a small scale with a reduced orchestra at low prices...
and the Bowery Poetry Club
Bowery Poetry Club
The Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space founded by Bob Holman in 2002. Located at 308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston Streets in Manhattan's East Village, the BPC provides a home base for established and upcoming artists...
, contributing to the neighborhood's reputation as a place for artistic pursuit. Artists Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka , formerly known as LeRoi Jones, is an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism...
and Taylor Mead
Taylor Mead
Taylor Mead is an American writer, actor, and performer. Mead appeared in several of Andy Warhol's underground films including Tarzan and Jane Regained.....
hold regular readings and performances in the space.
The redevelopment of the avenue from flophouse
Flophouse
A flophouse , doss-house or dosshouse is a place that offers very cheap lodging, generally by providing only minimal services.-Characteristics:...
s to luxury condominiums has met with resistance from long-term residents, who agree the neighborhood has improved, but that its unique, gritty character is also disappearing.
Parks and green space
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square ParkTompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
is a 10.5 acre (42,000 m²) public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the west by Avenue A. St. Marks Place abuts the park to the west.
Tompkins Square Park Communist Rally
In July of 1877, railroad workers received their second wage cut of the year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. On July 14, railroad employees in Martinsburg, West Virginia, began what came to be known as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877Great railroad strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States and ended some 45 days later after it was put down by local and state militias, and federal troops.-Economic conditions in the 1870s:...
. On July 25, 1877, twenty thousand people gathered in Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
to hear communist orators speak about revolution, the strike, and the policies of President Hayes. All speeches were repeated in German at a second stand, as the neighborhood had such a large German population at that time. David Conroy, Chairman of the Working Man's Organization in NYC and organizer of the rally, stated that the purpose of the meeting was to harmonize the differences between the strikers and the railroad companies, and to urge the citizen soldiery to refrain from acting against the strikers. Although the rally did not get out of hand, New York City police and National Guardsmen eventually charged the crowd with billy clubs, later claiming that the rally was not being held in a peaceful manner. In the wake of this “riot,” the City, in conjunction with the War Department, established an official city armory program led by the 7th Regiment.
Tompkins Square Park Police Riot
The Tompkins Square Park Police Riot was a defining moment for the neighborhood. In the late hours of August 6 into the morning hours of August 7, 1988 a riot broke out in Alphabet CityAlphabet City, Manhattan
Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the Lower East Side and East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is also known as Loisaida, a Spanglish adaptation of 'Lower East Side'. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter...
's Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
. Groups of "drug pushers, homeless people and young people known as 'skinhead
Skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture that originated among working class youths in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, and then spread to other parts of the world. Named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, the first skinheads were greatly influenced by West Indian rude boys and British mods,...
s'" had largely taken over the East Village park, but the neighborhood was divided about what, if anything, should be done about it. The local governing body, Manhattan Community Board 3
Manhattan Community Board 3
The Manhattan Community Board 3 is a local government unit in the New York City borough of Manhattan, encompassing the neighborhoods of Alphabet City, East Village, Lower East Side, Chinatown and Two Bridges...
, adopted a 1 am curfew for the previously 24-hour park, in an attempt to bring it under control. On July 31, a rally against the curfew resulted in several clashes between protesters and police.
East River Park
The park is 57 acres (230,671 m²) and runs between the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and the East RiverEast River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
from Montgomery Street to East 12th Street. It was designed in the 1930s by Robert Moses
Robert Moses
Robert Moses was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of...
, who wanted to ensure there was parkland on the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
. In 2010, construction was completed on the East River Promenade, which now runs from East 12th Street to Grand Street and continues to be expanded south.
Community gardens
There are reportedly over 640 community gardensCommunity gardening
A community garden is a single piece of land gardened collectively by a group of people.-Purpose:Community gardens provide fresh produce and plants as well as satisfying labor, neighborhood improvement, sense of community and connection to the environment...
in New York City—gardens run by local collectives within the neighborhood who are responsible for the gardens' upkeep—and an estimated 10 percent of those are located on the Lower East Side and East Village alone.
Tower of Toys on Avenue B
The Avenue B and 6th Street Community Garden is one of the neighborhood's more notable for a now removed outdoor sculpture, the Tower of Toys, designed by artist and long-time garden gate-keeper, Eddie BorosEddie Boros
Eddie Boros was a New York house painter and artist, famous primarily for building the "Tower of Toys" in a community garden in Manhattan's East Village.-Biography:...
. Boros died April 27, 2007. The Tower was controversial in the neighborhood; some viewed it as a masterpiece, others as an eyesore. It was a makeshift tower, 65-feet in height, assembled out of wood planks. The suspended, hanging toys were an amalgamation of fanciful objects found on the street (Boros was a strong voice for reusing and recycling). The fantastical, childlike feeling of this installation was quite fitting considering that the garden boasts a children’s adventure playground and children’s garden. The tower appeared in the opening credits
Opening credits
In a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There...
for the television show
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue is an American television police drama set in New York City, exploring the internal and external struggles of the fictional 15th precinct of Manhattan...
and also appears in the musical Rent
Rent (musical)
Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème...
. In May 2008, it was dismantled. According to NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, the tower was rotting in sections that made it a safety hazard. Its removal was seen as another symbol of the fading past of the neighborhood.
Toyota Children's Learning Garden
Located at 603 East 11th Street, the Toyota Children's Learning Garden is not technically a community garden, but it also fails to fit in the park category. Designed by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, the garden opened in May 2008 as part of the New York Restoration Project and is designed to teach children about plants.Marble Cemeteries
The New York City Marble CemeteryNew York City Marble Cemetery
The New York City Marble Cemetery is an historic cemetery founded in 1831, and located at 52-74 East Second Street between First and Second Avenues in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...
is located on 2nd Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue, and is the second oldest non-sectarian cemetery in New York City. The cemetery was opened in 1831 and at one point contained ex-U.S. President James Monroe
James Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
. Among those interred there are Stephen Allen
Stephen Allen
Stephen Allen was the Mayor of New York for three terms from December 1821 through 1824.Under the new constitution the Mayor was appointed by the Common Council, as opposed to the governor, leading to Allen being the first elected Mayor.Feb 1824 Allen declined a directorship on New York and Sharon...
, mayor (1821–1824); James Lenox
James Lenox
James Lenox was an American bibliophile and philanthropist. His collection of paintings and books eventually became known as the Lenox Library and later became part of the New York Public Library in 1895.-Biography:...
, whose personal library became a part of the New York Public Library; Isaac Varian
Isaac Varian
Isaac Leggett Varian was a New York state legislator and a Mayor of New York.-Political career:Varian was a prominent Democrat and led Tammany Hall from 1835 until 1842...
, mayor (1839–1841); Marinus Willet, Revolutionary War hero; and Preserved Fish
Preserved Fish
Preserved Fish was a prominent New York City shipping merchant in the early 19th century. He served as president of the Bank of America, which was unrelated to the current institution of that name, and an early broker of the New York Stock & Exchange Board...
, a well-known New York merchant.
Nearby, on Second Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets, is the oldest public cemetery in New York City not affiliated with any religion, the New York Marble Cemetery
New York Marble Cemetery
The New York Marble Cemetery is an historic cemetery founded in 1830, and located in the interior of the block bounded by East Second and 3rd Streets, Second Avenue, and The Bowery, in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is entered through an alleyway with an iron gate at...
. It is open the fourth Sunday of every month.
Ethnicity and religion
According to 2000 census figures provided by the New York City Department of City Planning, which includes the Lower East SideLower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
in its calculation, the neighborhood was 35% Asian, 28% non-Hispanic white, 27% Hispanic and 7% black.
On October 9, 1966, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
International Society for Krishna Consciousness
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness , known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava religious organization. It was founded in 1966 in New York City by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada...
, held the first recorded outdoor chanting session of the Hare Krishna mantra outside of the Indian subcontinent at Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
. This is considered the founding of the Hare Krishna religion in the United States, and the large tree close to the center of the Park is demarcated as a special religious site for Krishna adherents. The late poet Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, who lived and died in the East Village, attended the ceremony.
There are several Roman Catholic churches in the East Village that have fallen victim to financial hardship particularly in the past decade. Unable to maintain their properties, the Roman Catholic Church has shuttered many of them—including St. Mary's Help of Christians on East 12th Street, as well as St. Ann's. There has recently been much controversy over St. Brigid's
Saint Brigid's Roman Catholic Church, New York
St. Brigid's Roman Catholic Church, or St. Brigid's, or Famine Church, is a church located on 123 Avenue B and East Seventh Street, on the eastern edge of Tompkins Square Park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village of Manhattan. Associated with the church is the parish school...
, the historical parish on Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
.
Cultural institutions
- New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
Tompkins Square branch - The Fales Library of New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
Museums
- Museum of Jewish HeritageMuseum of Jewish HeritageThe Museum of Jewish Heritage, located in lower Manhattan, is a living memorial to those who perished in the Holocaust. The Museum honors those who died by celebrating their lives – cherishing the traditions that they embraced, examining their achievements and faith, and affirming the vibrant...
- New Museum of Contemporary ArtNew Museum of Contemporary ArtThe New Museum, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to presenting contemporary art from around the world...
- The Ukrainian MuseumThe Ukrainian MuseumThe Ukrainian Museum, founded in 1976 by the Ukrainian National Women's League of America , is located at 222 East 6th Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, an claims to be the largest American museum dedicated to the cultural...
Poetry
- Nuyorican Poets CafeNuyorican Poets CaféThe Nuyorican Poets Café is a non-profit organization in Alphabet City, Manhattan. It is a bastion of the Nuyorican art movement in New York City, USA, and has become a forum for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy and theatre.-History:...
– music, poetry, readings, slams - Bowery Poetry ClubBowery Poetry ClubThe Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space founded by Bob Holman in 2002. Located at 308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston Streets in Manhattan's East Village, the BPC provides a home base for established and upcoming artists...
– music, poetry, readings, slams - Poetry Project – at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
Music
- Bowery BallroomBowery BallroomThe Bowery Ballroom is a music venue in the Bowery section of New York City. The structure, at 6 Delancey Street, was built just before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. It stood vacant until the end of WWII, when it became a high-end retail store. The neighborhood subsequently went into decline...
– concerts and shows - Mercury Lounge – live music
- Sidewalk Cafe – performance and live music
- The Stone – experimental music
Theaters and performance spaces
- Amato OperaAmato OperaThe Amato Opera was an opera company located in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. The company was produced by the husband and wife team of Anthony and Sally Amato and presented opera on a small scale with a reduced orchestra at low prices...
- Bouwerie Lane TheatreBouwerie Lane TheatreThe Bouwerie Lane Theatre is a former bank building which became an Off-Broadway theatre, located at 330 Bowery at Bond Street in Manhattan, New York City....
- Danspace ProjectDanspace ProjectDanspace Project was founded in 1974 to provide a performance venue for contemporary dance. Its performances are held in St. Mark's Church in the East Village area of the Manhattan borough of New York City.-History and mission:...
– at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery - La MaMa E.T.C. – avant-gardeAvant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
theater - Metropolitan PlayhouseMetropolitan PlayhouseThe Metropolitan Playhouse of New York, recipient of a 2011 Obie Award and grant from the Village Voice, is a producing theater in New York City. Founded in 1992, the theater is devoted to presenting plays that explore American culture, including seldom-produced American classics and new plays...
- The Ontological-Hysteric TheaterRichard ForemanRichard Foreman is an American playwright and avant-garde theater pioneer. He is the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.-Life :...
– at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery - The Pearl Theatre Company
- Performance Space 122Performance Space 122Performance Space 122, generally known as P.S. 122, is a not-for-profit arts organization and one of the longest standing venues dedicated to contemporary performance art in New York City. Founded in 1979 in the abandoned Public School 122 building at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street in the East...
- Stomp!Stomp!"Stomp!" is a song released by The Brothers Johnson in 1979. It reached number one on the Dance singles chart.. It reached number one on the R&B singles chart and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1980. It was a bigger success in the UK, where it peaked at number 6 on the...
- long running Off-BroadwayOff-BroadwayOff-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
performance - Theatre for a New Audience
Other
- Cooper UnionCooper UnionThe Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
– speeches, presentations, public lectures and readings - Greenwich Village Society for Historic PreservationGreenwich Village Society for Historic PreservationThe Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve the architectural heritage and cultural history of several neighborhoods of New York City: Greenwich Village, the East Village, the Far West Village, the South Village, Gansevoort Market,...
Neighborhood festivals
- Mayday Festival - May 1; yearly.
- Charlie Parker Jazz FestivalCharlie Parker Jazz FestivalCharlie Parker Jazz Festival is a free, two-day festival in New York City that celebrates the life and musical genius of Charlie Parker. Produced by the nonprofit organization City Parks Foundation, the longstanding jazz festival takes place every August in the neighborhoods that Parker both...
- August; yearly.http://www.cityparksfoundation.org/index1.aspx?BD=19702 - HOWL! Festival - September; yearly.http://www.howlfestival.com/http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/tompkinssquarepark/events/142562
- East Village Radio Festival - September 6, 2008 http://xlr8r.com/news/2008/08/east-village-radio-festival-food
- Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade - October; yearly.http://www.firstrunfriends.org/resources.shtml
- East Village Theater Festival - August 3–23, 2009.http://www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/EVTF
- FAB! Festival & Block Party - Last weekend in September annually, Sept 25, 2010 http://www.fabnyc.org
Media
Radio- East Village RadioEast Village RadioEast Village Radio is an Internet radio station which broadcasts from a storefront studio in the East Village of Manhattan, in New York City. EVR serves both as a voice for the local downtown cultural scene and as a forum for the community at large...
Local news
- The Village VoiceThe Village VoiceThe Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
- The VillagerThe VillagerThe Villager is a weekly newspaper serving Downtown Manhattan. It was founded in 1933 by Walter and Isabel Bryan. In 2001, 2004 and 2005, The Villager won the Stuart Dorman Award, honoring New York State's best weekly newspaper, in the New York Press Association's Better Newspaper Contest.The...
- EastVillageFeed.com
Movie theaters
- Anthology Film ArchivesAnthology Film Archives__notoc__Anthology Film Archives is a film archive and theater located at 32 Second Avenue on the corner of East Second Street in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City devoted to the preservation and exhibition of experimental film. It is the only non-profit organization of its...
- Landmark's Sunshine Theater
- Village East Cinema
- City Cinema Village East
- Two Boots Pioneer Theater
Notable residents past and present
- Ryan AdamsRyan AdamsDavid Ryan Adams is an American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter, from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Initially part of the group Whiskeytown, Adams left the band and released his first solo album Heartbreaker in 2000...
– alt-country musician - Darren AronofskyDarren AronofskyDarren Aronofsky is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. He attended Harvard University to study film theory and the American Film Institute to study both live-action and animation filmmaking...
– filmmaker - W. H. AudenW. H. AudenWystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
– poet - Jean-Michel BasquiatJean-Michel BasquiatJean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
– artist - Walter BowartWalter BowartWalter Howard Bowart was an American leader in the counterculture movement of the 1960s, founder and editor of the first underground newspaper in New York City, the East Village Other, and author of the book Operation Mind Control.-Life and career:Born Walter Howard Kirby in Omaha, Nebraska,...
– co-founder and editor of the East Village OtherEast Village OtherThe East Village Other , was an American underground newspaper in New York City, New York, published biweekly during the 1960s. EVO was among the first countercultural newspapers to emerge, following the Los Angeles Free Press, which had begun publishing a few months earlier... - David BowesDavid BowesDavid Bowes is an American painter, born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1957, and first recognized during the early 1980s in New York's East Village....
– painter - Chris CainChris CainChris Cain is an American blues and jazz guitarist with an international following.He began playing professionally as a teenager in local clubs, at festivals, and at private events....
– bassist for the indie-rock band We Are ScientistsWe Are ScientistsWe Are Scientists is a New York-based indie rock band that formed in Berkeley, California in 2000. Originally formed of Keith Murray on drums, Chris Cain playing bass guitar and Scott Lamb providing vocals and guitar, before Michael Tapper became drummer and Keith became vocalist and guitarist... - Julian CasablancasJulian CasablancasJulian Fernando Casablancas is an American singer-songwriter and musician of The Strokes. Casablancas pursued a solo career during The Strokes' hiatus, releasing the album Phrazes for the Young on November 3, 2009....
– musician - Alexa ChungAlexa ChungAlexa Chung is an English television presenter, model and contributing editor at British Vogue.She currently hosts Gonzo with Alexa Chung for MTV UK, and is scheduled to host Thrift America for PBS in 2011...
; model, tv presenter. - David CrossDavid CrossDavid Cross is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian perhaps best known for his work on HBO's sketch comedy series Mr...
– actor, comedian - Justin Townes EarleJustin Townes EarleJustin Townes Earle , son of Steve Earle, stepson of Allison Moorer, and named for songwriter Townes Van Zandt is an AMA winning, Americana musician based in Nashville, Tennessee. Earle is signed to Bloodshot Records and has four released albums from 2007–2010...
- Candy DarlingCandy DarlingCandy Darling was an American actress, best known as a Warhol Superstar. A male-to-female transsexual, she starred in Andy Warhol's films Flesh and Women in Revolt , and was a muse of the protopunk band The Velvet Underground.-Early life:Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery in Forest...
– actress, Warhol superstarAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art... - Rosario DawsonRosario DawsonRosario Isabel Dawson is an American actress, singer, and writer. She has appeared in films such as Kids, Men in Black II, 25th Hour, Sin City, Clerks II, Rent, Death Proof, The Rundown, Eagle Eye, Alexander, Seven Pounds, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Unstoppable.-Early...
– actress, singer and writer - Negin FarsadNegin FarsadNegin Farsad is an Iranian-American comedian, writer and actor based in New York City. She has also produced and directed feature films and television programming, most notably the documentary Nerdcore Rising, which follows around Damian Hess a.k.a. MC Frontalot, on his 2006 Nerdcore Rising...
– writer, director, comedian - Steven Fishbach – runner-up of Survivor: Tocantins
- Barbara FeinmanBarbara Feinman MillineryBarbara Feinman Millinery is a custom hattery in New York City's East Village.Feinman hats are made by two other milliners using a 100 year-old sewing machine and various materials.-Feinman:...
– milliner - Lady GagaLady GaGaStefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
– singer, songwriter - Allen GinsbergAllen GinsbergIrwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
– Beat GenerationBeat generationThe Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
poet - Nan GoldinNan GoldinNancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
– photographer - Ayun HallidayAyun HallidayAyun Halliday is a writer and actor.She is best known as the author and illustrator of the long-running zine The East Village Inky...
– actress and writer - Keith HaringKeith HaringKeith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
– artist - Randy HarrisonRandy HarrisonRandolph Clarke Harrison is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Justin Taylor on the Showtime drama Queer as Folk.-Early life and college:...
– actor - Richard HellRichard HellRichard Hell is a singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer.Richard Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion. He was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins...
– musician, author - Abbie HoffmanAbbie HoffmanAbbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....
– 1960s political activist - Harold HunterHarold Hunter__notoc__Harold Atkins Hunter was an American professional skateboarder and actor. He was best known on screen for his part in Larry Clark's 1995 film Kids, playing the role of Harold....
– skateboarder, actor - Tom KalinTom KalinTom Kalin is an award-winning screenwriter, film director, producer, and professor of experimental film at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee.His debut feature, Swoon, is considered an integral part of the New Queer Cinema...
– filmmaker - Agim KabaAgim KabaAgim Kaba is an Albanian actor, artist and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his Daytime Emmy-nominated role of Aaron Snyder on As the World Turns. He is of Albanian descent.-Early life:...
– actgor, artist and director - Allan Katzman – co-founder and editor of the East Village OtherEast Village OtherThe East Village Other , was an American underground newspaper in New York City, New York, published biweekly during the 1960s. EVO was among the first countercultural newspapers to emerge, following the Los Angeles Free Press, which had begun publishing a few months earlier...
- Kathy KempKathy KempKathy Kemp is an American Women's clothing designer, and owner of Anna Store in the East Village neighborhood of New York City. A Pennsylvania native, she moved to New York in 1995 to start her company. Her background in anthropology and years of watching people try on clothes have afforded her...
– fashion designer and entrepreneur - Vashtie Kola – director
- Greg KotisGreg KotisGreg Kotis is a New York-based playwright, who specializes in dark, disturbing comedies with socially relevant themes.-Earlier career:Kotis studied political science at the University of Chicago. He dropped out when took a course on the Short Comic Scene, he realised that he wanted to be part of...
– playwright - Paul KrassnerPaul KrassnerPaul Krassner is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958...
– publisher of The RealistThe RealistThe Realist was a pioneering magazine of "social-political-religious criticism and satire," intended as a hybrid of a grown-ups version of Mad and Lyle Stuart's anti-censorship monthly The Independent. Edited and published by Paul Krassner, and often regarded as a milestone in the American... - Tuli KupferbergTuli KupferbergNaphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg was an American counterculture poet, author, cartoonist, pacifist anarchist, publisher and co-founder of the band The Fugs.-Biography:...
– Beat GenerationBeat generationThe Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
poet, and one of the original Fugs - Stephen LackStephen LackStephen Lack is a Canadian painter and a film actor best known for his role as the lead character, Cameron Vale, in David Cronenberg's film Scanners.-Life:...
– actor, painter - Ronnie LandfieldRonnie LandfieldRonnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
– painter - Greer LanktonGreer LanktonGreer Lankton was an American artist, whose work was dedicated to creating life-like, posable dolls and figures. Greer Lankton was born Greg Lankton in Flint, Michigan, to a Presbyterian minister and his wife. It was during her rough childhood as a feminine boy that she began creating dolls."It...
– artist and dollmaker
- Phoebe LegerePhoebe LegerePhoebe Hemenway Legere is a Multi-Format Artist: she is a composer, soprano, pianist and accordionist; a painter, a poet, and a film maker.Legere has recorded for Mercury Records in England and Epic, Island, Funtone, ESP Disk and Einstein records in the United States. Legere has released ten CDs...
– musician and artist - John LeguizamoJohn LeguizamoJonathan Alberto "John" Leguizamo is an Colombian-American actor, producer, voice artist, and comedian.-Early life:...
– actor and monologist - Frank LondonFrank LondonFrank London is a New York City-based trumpeter, bandleader, and composer active in klezmer and world music. He also plays various other wind instruments and keyboards, and occasionally sings backup vocals. With The Klezmatics, he won a Grammy award in Contemporary World Music for "Wonder Wheel...
– composer, musician - John LurieJohn LurieJohn Lurie is an American actor, musician, painter and producer. He is co-founder of The Lounge Lizards, a jazz ensemble. Lurie has acted in 19 films including Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, composed and performed music for 20 television and film works, and he produced and starred in...
– musician, painter, actor, producer - MadonnaMadonna (entertainer)Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
– singer - Handsome Dick Manitoba – singer, saloon owner
- Cookie MuellerCookie MuellerDorothy Karen "Cookie" Mueller was an underground American actress, writer and Dreamlander, who starred in many of filmmaker John Waters' early films, including Multiple Maniacs,...
– actress, model - Joseph NechvatalJoseph NechvatalJoseph Nechvatal is a post-conceptual art digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses.-Life and work:Joseph Nechvatal was born in Chicago...
– digital artist - Conor OberstConor OberstConor Mullen Oberst is an American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes. He has also played in several other bands, including Desaparecidos, Norman Bailer , Commander Venus, Park Ave., Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, and Monsters of Folk.-Musical career:Oberst began...
– musician - Claes OldenburgClaes OldenburgClaes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
– sculptor - Tom OtternessTom OtternessTom Otterness is an American sculptor whose works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums in New York---most notably in Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City and in the 14th Street/8th Avenue subway station---and other cities around the world...
– sculptor - Iggy PopIggy PopIggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
– performer, musician - Jim Power – artist, the "Mosaic Man"
- Daniel RadcliffeDaniel RadcliffeDaniel Jacob Radcliffe is an English actor who rose to prominence playing the titular character in the Harry Potter film series....
– actor - Joey RamoneJoey RamoneJoey Ramone was an American vocalist and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist in the punk rock band the Ramones. Joey Ramone's image, voice and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.-Early life:Joey Ramone was born Jeffry Hyman to parents Noel and Charlotte Hyman...
– musician - Bill RaymondBill RaymondBill Raymond is an actor who has appeared in film, television and theatre since the 1960s.-Life and career:He featured in the second and fifth seasons of the HBO drama The Wire as "The Greek", the mysterious head of an international criminal organization. Other TV appearances include Miami Vice,...
– actor - Lou ReedLou ReedLewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
– musician and songwriter - Joel ResnicoffJoel ResnicoffJoel Hirsch Resnicoff was an American artist and fashion illustrator, who incorporated expressionistic art into commercial fashion illustrations, stating his belief that "commercial art is the art of the century." His work did not fit easily into any one category, and "the figures in his...
– artist and fashion illustrator. - James RombergerJames RombergerJames Romberger is an American fine artist and cartoonist known for his depictions of New York City's Lower East Side.Romberger's pastel drawings of the ravaged landscape of the Lower East Side and its citizens are in many public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art...
– artist. - Mark RonsonMark RonsonMark Daniel Ronson is an English DJ, guitarist, music producer, artist and co-founder of Allido Records. He currently works with his band under the music alias of Mark Ronson & The Business Intl....
– musician - Jerry RubinJerry RubinJerry Rubin was an American social activist during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman.-Early life:...
– 1960s political activist - Arthur Russell – musician
- Ed SandersEd SandersEd Sanders is an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author and publisher and has been a longtime member of the band The Fugs. He has been called a bridge between the Beat and Hippie generations.-Biography:...
– New York SchoolNew York SchoolThe New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
poet and one of the original Fugs - Chloë SevignyChloë SevignyChloë Stevens Sevigny is an American film actress, fashion designer and former model. Sevigny gained reputation for her eclectic fashion sense and developed a broad career in the fashion industry in the mid 1990s, both for modeling and for her work at New York's Sassy magazine, which labeled her...
– actress - Jack SmithJack Smith (film director)Jack Smith was an American filmmaker, actor, and pioneer of underground cinema...
– filmmaker, artist - Kiki SmithKiki SmithKiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...
– sculptor - Regina SpektorRegina SpektorRegina Ilyinichna Spektor is a Russian American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered in New York City's East Village.-Early life:...
– singer-songwriterSinger-songwriterSinger-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and pianistPianistA pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:... - Bobby SteeleBobby SteeleBobby Steele is an American punk rock musician. He is the current guitar player, songwriter, and sole original member of punk band The Undead. He has been a member of multiple other bands, most notably, as the second guitarist of The Misfits...
– musician - Ellen StewartEllen StewartEllen Stewart was an American theater director and producer and the founder of La MaMa, E.T.C. . In the 1950s she worked as a fashion designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.-Biography:Ellen Stewart was either born in Alexandria, Louisiana or Chicago,...
– founder of La MaMa, E.T.C.La MaMa Experimental Theatre ClubLa MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an off-off Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and named in reference to her. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the theatre grew out of Stewart's tiny basement boutique for her fashion designs; the boutique's space acted as a theatre for...
(Experimental Theatre Club) in 1961. - Rachel TrachtenburgRachel TrachtenburgRachel Sage Piña-Trachtenburg is an American musician, radio personality, model, singer, political and animal activist and actress from New York City. Trachtenburg is most notable for her key role as drummer and backup vocalist of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, a family band consisting...
– singer and musician - Marguerite Van CookMarguerite Van CookMarguerite Van Cook is an artist, writer, musician/singer and filmmaker. She was born in England and now resides in New York in the Lower East Side/East Village. She attended Portsmouth College of Art and Design, Northumbria University Graphic and Fine Arts programs, BMCC, Columbia University for...
– artist, musician, writer, producer. - Rachel WeiszRachel WeiszRachel Hannah Weisz born 7 March 1970)is an English-American film and theatre actress and former fashion model. She started her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she co-founded the theatrical group Cambridge Talking Tongues...
– actress - John ZornJohn ZornJohn Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
– composer, musician
See also
- East Side (Manhattan)East Side (Manhattan)The East Side of Manhattan refers to the side of Manhattan Island which abuts the East River and faces Brooklyn and Queens. Fifth Avenue, Central Park, and lower Broadway separate it from the West Side....
- East Side Hebrew InstituteEast Side Hebrew InstituteThe East Side Hebrew Institute was a traditional Jewish day school, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in New York City. It was "once one of the major institutions of the Jewish East Side".-The Talmud Torah:...
- East River (New York)
- First HousesFirst HousesFirst Houses is a public housing project in Manhattan in New York City. The project consists of 122 three-room or four-room apartments in 8 four-story or five-story buildings, and is located on the south side of East 3rd Street between First Avenue and Avenue A, and on the east side of Avenue A...
- Ninth PrecinctNinth PrecinctThe Ninth Precinct is a police precinct in New York City. It is one of the 76 New York City Police Department patrol areas. Its boundaries are East 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the west, East Houston Street to the south and the East River to the east....
- Stuyvesant TownStuyvesant TownStuyvesant Town—Peter Cooper Village is a large private residential development on the East Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, and one of the most iconic and successful post-World War II private housing communities...