Greenwich Village
Encyclopedia
Greenwich Village,icon , ˈ , ˈ , ˈ .http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/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. Greenwich Village, however, was known in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries as an artists' haven, the bohemian
capital, and the East Coast birthplace of the Beat movement
. What provided the initial attractive character of the community eventually contributed to its gentrification
and commercialization.
The name of the village is Anglicized from the Dutch
name Groenwijck, meaning "Green District", into its cognate
Greenwich
, a borough of London
.
The neighborhood is bordered by Broadway to the East, the Hudson River
to the West, Houston Street to the South, and 14th Street
to the North. The neighborhoods surrounding it are the East Village
and NoHo
to the East, SoHo
to the south, and Chelsea
to the North. The East Village
was formerly considered part of the Lower East Side
and never associated with Greenwich Village. The West Village
is the area of Greenwich Village west of 7th Avenue, though realtors claim the dividing line is farther east at 6th Avenue. The Far West Village is a sub-neighborhood from the Hudson River to Hudson Street. The neighborhood is located in New York's 8th congressional district
, New York's 25th State Senate district, New York's 66th State Assembly district, and New York City Council's 3rd district.
Into the early 20th century, Greenwich Village was distinguished from the upper-class neighborhood of Washington Square based on the major landmark Washington Square Park
or Empire Ward in the 19th century.
Encyclopædia Britannicas 1956 article on "New York (City)" (subheading "Greenwich Village") states that the southern border of the Village is Spring Street, reflecting an earlier understanding (today, Spring Street might be considered the southern boundary of the neighborhood sometimes called the South Village
, though some cite Canal Street as the furthest extent of the South Village). The newer district of SoHo
has since encroached on the Village's historic border.
As Greenwich Village was once a rural hamlet, to the north of the earliest European settlement on Manhattan Island, its street layout is more haphazard than the grid pattern of the 19th-century grid plan
(based on the Commissioners' Plan of 1811
). Greenwich Village was allowed to keep its street pattern in areas west of Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue) and Sixth Avenue, which were already built up when the plan was implemented, resulting in a neighborhood whose streets are dramatically different, in layout, from the ordered structure of newer parts of town. Many of the neighborhood's streets are narrow and some curve at odd angles. In addition, unlike streets of most of Manhattan above Houston Street, streets in the Village typically are named rather than numbered. While some of the formerly named streets (including Factory, Herring and Amity Streets) are now numbered, even they do not always conform to the usual grid pattern when they enter the neighborhood. For example, West 4th Street, which runs east-west outside of the Village, turns and runs north, crossing West 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th Streets.
A large section of Greenwich Village, made up of more than 50 northern and western blocks in the area up to 14th Street, is part of a Historic District established by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
. The District's convoluted borders run no farther south than 4th Street or St. Luke's Place, and no farther east than Washington Square East or University Place. Redevelopment in that area is severely restricted, and developers must preserve the main facade and aesthetics of the buildings even during renovation.
Most parts of Greenwich Village comprise mid-rise apartments, 19th-century row houses and the occasional one-family walk-up, a sharp contrast to the hi-rise landscape in Mid-
and Downtown Manhattan.
In the 16th century, Native Americans referred to its farthest northwest corner, by the cove on the Hudson River at present-day Gansevoort Street, as Sapokanikan ("tobacco field"). The land was cleared and turned into pasture by Dutch and freed African
settlers in the 1630s, who named their settlement Noortwyck. In the 1630s, Governor Wouter van Twiller
farmed tobacco on 200 acre (0.809372 km²) here at his "Farm in the Woods". The English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland
in 1664 and Greenwich Village developed as a hamlet separate from the larger (and fast-growing) New York City to the south.
It officially became a village in 1712 and is first referred to as Grin'wich in 1713 Common Council records. Sir Peter Warren began accumulating land in 1731 and built a frame house capacious enough to hold a sitting of the Assembly when smallpox rendered the city dangerous in 1739. His house, which survived until the Civil War era, overlooked the North River
from a bluff; its site on the block bounded by Perry and Charles Streets, Bleecker and West 4th Streets, can still be recognized by its mid-19th century rowhouses inserted into a neighborhood still retaining many houses of the 1830–37 boom.
The oldest house remaining in Greenwich Village is the Isaacs-Hendricks House, at 77 Bedford Street (built 1799, much altered and enlarged 1836, third story 1928). When the Church of St. Luke in the Fields was founded in 1820 it stood in fields south of the road (now Christopher Street) that led from Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue) down to a landing on the North River. In 1822, a yellow fever
epidemic in New York encouraged residents to flee to the healthier air of Greenwich Village, and afterwards many stayed. The future site of Washington Square
was a potter's field
from 1797 to 1823 when 10 to 20,000 of New York's poor were buried here, and still remain. The handsome Greek revival rowhouses on the north side of Washington Square were built about 1832, establishing the fashion of Washington Square and lower Fifth Avenue for decades to come. Well into the 19th century, the district of Washington Square was considered separate from Greenwich Village.
Greenwich Village is generally known as an important landmark on the map of American bohemian
culture. The neighborhood is known for its colorful, artistic residents and the alternative culture they propagate. Due in part to the progressive attitudes of many of its residents, the Village has traditionally been a focal point of new movements and ideas, whether political, artistic, or cultural. This tradition as an enclave of avant-garde
and alternative culture
was established during the 19th century and into the 20th century, when small presses, art galleries, and experimental theater thrived.
The Tenth Street Studio Building
was situated at 51 West 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, the building was commissioned by James Boorman Johnston and designed by Richard Morris Hunt
. Its innovative design soon represented a national architectural prototype, and featured a domed central gallery, from which interconnected rooms radiated. Hunt's studio within the building housed the first architectural school in the United States
. Soon after its completion in 1857, the building helped to make Greenwich Village central to the arts in New York City, drawing artists from all over the country to work, exhibit, and sell their art. In its initial years Winslow Homer
took a studio there, as did Edward Lamson Henry
, and many of the artists of the Hudson River School
, including Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt
.
The Hotel Albert from the late 19th century through the 21st century has served as a cultural icon of Greenwich Village. Opened during the 1880s and originally located at 11th Street and University Place, called the Hotel St. Stephan and then after 1902, called The Hotel Albert while under the ownership of William Ryder it served as a meeting place, restaurant and dwelling for several important artists and writers from the late 19th century well into the 20th century. After 1902 the owner of the Hotel Albert's brother Albert Pinkham Ryder
lived and painted there. Some of the other famous guests who lived there include: Augustus St. Gaudens, Robert Louis Stevenson
, Mark Twain
, Hart Crane
, Walt Whitman
, Anaïs Nin
, Thomas Wolfe
, Robert Lowell
, Horton Foote
, Salvador Dali
, Philip Guston
, Jackson Pollock
, Andy Warhol
, and many others. During the golden age of bohemianism
, Greenwich Village became famous for such eccentrics as Joe Gould
(profiled at length by Joseph Mitchell) and Maxwell Bodenheim
, dancer Isadora Duncan
, writer William Faulkner
, and playwright Eugene O'Neill
. Political rebellion also made its home here, whether serious (John Reed) or frivolous (Marcel Duchamp
and friends set off balloons from atop Washington Square arch, proclaiming the founding of "The Independent Republic of Greenwich Village").
In 1924, the Cherry Lane Theatre
was established. Located at 38 Commerce Street it is New York City's oldest continuously running Off-Broadway
theater. A landmark in Greenwich Village’s cultural landscape, it was built as a farm silo in 1817, and also served as a tobacco warehouse and box factory before Edna St. Vincent Millay
and other members of the Provincetown Players
converted the structure into a theatre they christened the Cherry Lane Playhouse, which opened on March 24, 1924, with the play The Man Who Ate the Popomack. During the 1940s The Living Theatre
, Theatre of the Absurd
, and the Downtown Theater movement all took root there, and it developed a reputation as a place where aspiring playwrights and emerging voices could showcase their work.
In one of the many Manhattan
properties Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
and her husband owned, Gertrude Whitney established the Whitney Studio Club at 8 West 8th Street as a facility where young artists could exhibit their works in 1914. By the 1930s the place would evolve to become her greatest legacy, the Whitney Museum of American Art
, on the site of today's New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
. The Whitney was founded in 1931, as an answer to the then newly founded (1928) Museum of Modern Art
's collection of mostly European modernism
and its neglect of American Art
. Gertrude Whitney decided to put the time and money into the museum after the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
turned down her offer to contribute her twenty-five-year collection of modern art
works. In 1936, the renowned Abstract Expressionist artist and teacher Hans Hofmann
moved his art school
from E. 57th Street to 52 West 9th Street. In 1938, Hofmann moved again to a more permanent home at 52 West 8th Street. The school remained active until 1958 when Hofmann retired from teaching.
The Village hosted the first racially integrated night club in the United States,when the nightclub
Café Society
was opened in 1938 at 1 Sheridan Square by Barney Josephson. Café Society showcased African American
talent and was intended to be an American version of the political cabaret
s Josephson had seen in Europe before WWII. Notable performers there included among others: Pearl Bailey
, Count Basie
, Nat King Cole
, John Coltrane
, Miles Davis
, Ella Fitzgerald
, Coleman Hawkins
, Billie Holiday
, Lena Horne
, Burl Ives
, Leadbelly
, Anita O'Day
, Charlie Parker
, Les Paul
and Mary Ford
, Paul Robeson
, Kay Starr
, Art Tatum
, Sarah Vaughan
, Dinah Washington
, Josh White
, Teddy Wilson
, Lester Young
, and The Weavers
, who also in Christmas 1949, played at the Village Vanguard
.
The Village again became important to the bohemian scene during the 1950s, when the Beat Generation
focused their energies there. Fleeing from what they saw as oppressive social conformity, a loose collection of writers, poets, artists, and students (later known as the Beats
) and the Beatniks, moved to Greenwich Village, and to North Beach
in San Francisco, in many ways creating the east coast-west coast predecessor to the Haight-Ashbury-East Village
hippie scene of the next decade. The Village (and surrounding New York City) would later play central roles in the writings of, among others, Jack Kerouac
, Allen Ginsberg
, William S. Burroughs
, James Baldwin
, Truman Capote
, Marianne Moore
, Maya Angelou
, Rod McKuen
, and Dylan Thomas
, who collapsed at the Chelsea Hotel
and died at St. Vincents Hospital
at 170 West 12th Street, in the Village after drinking at the White Horse Tavern
on November 5, 1953.
Off-Off-Broadway
began in Greenwich Village in 1958 as a reaction to Off Broadway, and a "complete rejection of commercial theatre". Among the first venues for what would soon be called "Off-Off-Broadway" (a term supposedly coined by critic
Jerry Tallmer of the Village Voice) were coffeehouses in Greenwich Village, in particular, the Caffe Cino at 31 Cornelia Street, operated by the eccentric Joe Cino
, who early on took a liking to actors and playwrights and agreed to let them stage plays there without bothering to read the plays first, or to even find out much about the content. Also integral to the rise of Off-Off-Broadway were Ellen Stewart
at La MaMa, originally located at 321 E. 9th Street and Al Carmines
at the Judson Poets' Theater, located at Judson Memorial Church
on the south side of Washington Square Park
.
The Village had a cutting-edge cabaret and music scene. The Village Gate
, the Village Vanguard
and The Blue Note (since 1981), hosted some of the biggest names in jazz
on a regular basis. Greenwich Village also played a major role in the development of the folk music scene
of the 1960s. Music clubs included Gerde's Folk City
, The Bitter End
, Cafe Au Go Go
, Cafe Wha?
, The Gaslight Cafe
and the Bottom Line
. Three of the four members of The Mamas & the Papas
met there. Guitarist and folk singer Dave Van Ronk
lived there for many years. Village resident and cultural icon Bob Dylan
by the mid-60s became one of the foremost popular songwriters in the world, and often developments in Greenwich Village would influence the simultaneously occurring folk rock
movement in San Francisco and elsewhere, and vice versa. Dozens of other cultural and popular icons got their start in the Village's nightclub, theater, and coffeehouse scene during the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, notably besides Bob Dylan
, there were Jimi Hendrix
, Barbra Streisand
, Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Lovin' Spoonful
, Simon & Garfunkel, Jackson Browne
, James Taylor
, Eric Andersen
, Joan Baez
, The Velvet Underground
, The Kingston Trio
, Richie Havens
, Maria Muldaur
, Tom Paxton
, Phil Ochs
, Joni Mitchell
, Laura Nyro
, and Nina Simone
among others. The Greenwich Village of the 1950s and 1960s was at the center of Jane Jacobs
's book The Death and Life of Great American Cities
, which defended it and similar communities, while critiquing common urban renewal
policies of the time.
Founded by New York based artist Mercedes Matter
and her students the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
is an art school formed in the mid 1960s. The school officially opened September 23, 1964, it is still currently active and it is housed at 8 W. 8th Street, the site of the original Whitney Museum of American Art
.
Greenwich Village was also home to one of the many safe houses used by the radical anti-war movement known as the Weather Underground
. On March 6, 1970, however, their safehouse was destroyed when an explosive they were constructing was accidentally detonated, killing three Weathermen (Ted Gold
, Terry Robbins
, and Diana Oughton
).
In recent days, the Village has maintained its role as a center for movements that have challenged the wider American culture, for example, its role in the gay liberation
movement. It contains Christopher Street and the Stonewall Inn
, important landmarks, as well as the world's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, Oscar Wilde Bookshop
, founded in 1967. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center – best known as simply "The Center" – has occupied the former Food & Maritime Trades High School at 208 West 13th Street since 1984. In 2006, the Village was the scene of an assault involving seven lesbians and a straight man
that sparked appreciable media attention, with strong statements both defending and attacking the parties.
At the current time, artists and local historians mourn the fact that the bohemian
days of Greenwich Village are long gone, because of the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood. The artists fled first to SoHo
then to TriBeCa
and finally Williamsburg
and Bushwick
in Brooklyn
, Long Island City, and DUMBO
. Nevertheless, residents of Greenwich Village still possess a strong community identity and are proud of their neighborhood's unique history and fame, and its well-known liberal live-and-let-live attitudes.
Greenwich Village is still home to many celebrities, including many actresses/actors Emma Stone, Julianne Moore
, Uma Thurman
, Philip Seymour Hoffman
, Edward Norton
, Leontyne Price
, Amy Sedaris
, and Barbara Pierce Bush
, the daughter of former U.S. President
George W. Bush
; Thurman and Bush both live on West Ninth Street. American designer Marc Jacobs
as well as CNN anchor Anderson Cooper
lives in the neighborhood. Alt-country/folk musician Steve Earle
moved to the neighborhood in 2005, and his album Washington Square Serenade
is primarily about his experiences in the Village. The Village also serves as home to Anna Wintour
, the editor-in-chief of Vogue Magazine as well as Calvin Trillin
, a feature writer for The New Yorker
magazine.
Greenwich Village includes several college or post-baccaulaurate institutions. Since the 1830s New York University
(NYU) has had a campus there. In 1973 NYU moved its main campus from University Heights
in the West Bronx
to Greenwich Village. In 1976 Yeshiva University
's established Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
in the northern part of Greenwich Village. In the 1980s Hebrew Union College
built in Greenwich Village. The New School
, with its Parsons The New School for Design
, a division of The New School
, and the School's Graduate School expanded in the 2000s, with the newly renovated, award winning design of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at 66 Fifth Avenue on 13th Street. The Cooper Union
is also located in Greenwich Village, at Astor Place, near St. Mark's Place on the border of the East Village
. Pratt Institute
established its latest Manhattan campus in an adaptively reused
Brunner & Tryon
designed loft building on 14th Street, just east of Seventh Avenue. The university campus building expansion was followed by a gentrification
process in the 1980s.
The historic Washington Square Park
is the center and heart of the neighborhood, but the Village has several other, smaller parks: Father Fagan, Minetta Triangle, Petrosino Square, Little Red Square, and Time Landscape. There are also city playgrounds, including Desalvio, Minetta, Thompson Street, Bleecker Street, Downing Street, Mercer Street, Cpl. John A. Seravelli, and William Passannante Ballfield. Perhaps the most famous, though, is "The Cage", officially known as the West Fourth Street Courts. Sitting on top of the West Fourth Street – Washington Square subway station ( trains) at Sixth Avenue, the courts are easily accessible to basketball
and American handball
players from all over New York. The Cage has become one of the most important tournament sites for the city-wide "Streetball
" amateur basketball tournament. Since 1975 New York University's art collection has been housed at the Grey Art Gallery bordering Washington Square Park at 100 Washington Square East. The Grey Art Gallery is notable for its museum quality exhibitions of contemporary art.
The Village also has a bustling performing arts scene. It is still home to many Off Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway
theaters; for instance, Blue Man Group
has taken up residence in the Astor Place Theater. The Village Gate
(until 1992), the Village Vanguard
and The Blue Note are still presenting some of the biggest names in jazz
on a regular basis. Other music clubs include The Bitter End
, and Lion's Den
. The village also has its own orchestra aptly named the Greenwich Village Orchestra
. Comedy clubs dot the Village as well, including The Boston and Comedy Cellar
, where many American stand-up
comedians got their start.
Each year on October 31, it is home to New York's Village Halloween Parade
, the largest Halloween event in the country, drawing an audience of two million from throughout the region.
Several publications have offices in the Village, most notably the citywide newsweekly The Village Voice
, and the monthly magazines Fortune
and American Heritage
. The National Audubon Society
, having relocated its national headquarters from a mansion in Carnegie Hill to a restored and very green
, former industrial building in NoHo
, relocated to smaller but even greener LEED
certified digs at 225 Varick Street, a short ways down Houston Street from the Film Forum
.
(GVSHP), have been concerned about development in the Village and have fought to preserve the architectural and historic integrity of the neighborhood. In the 1960s, Margot Gayle
led a group of citizens to preserve the Jefferson Market Courthouse (later reused as Jefferson Market Library) while other citizen groups fought to keep traffic out of Washington Square Park
and Jane Jacobs
, using the Village as an example of a vibrant urban community, advocated to keep it that way.
Since then, preservation has been a part of the Village ethos. Preservation success stories abound in the neighborhood, which was landmarked in 1969 by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
. Victories for preservationists, oftentimes spearheaded by GVSHP
, include the preservation of the Greenwich Village waterfront and Meatpacking District; the inclusion of the Far West Village in the Greenwich Village Historic District; the creation of the Weehawken Street Historic District; and the downzoning of the Far West Village. Additionally, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
began the process of landmarking the South Village
in June 2009.
More recent and on-going preservation issues in the Village include: New York University
's (NYU) expansion into the neighborhood; St. Vincent’s Hospital’s rebuilding plans; overdevelopment in the Far West Village; and threats to local theaters, including the Provincetown Playhouse
, the Yiddish Art Theater, and the Variety Theater.
Greenwich Village is home to New York University
, which owns large sections of the area and most of the buildings around Washington Square Park. To the north is the campus of The New School
, which is houses in several buildings that are considered historical landmarks because of their innovative architecture. New School's Sheila Johnson Design Center also doubles as a public art gallery. Cooper Union
, one of the most selective art schools in the world, is located in the East Village
.
in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City 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...
. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class
Upper middle class
The upper middle class is a sociological concept referring to the social group constituted by higher-status members of the middle class. This is in contrast to the term "lower middle class", which is used for the group at the opposite end of the middle class stratum, and to the broader term "middle...
families. Greenwich Village, however, was known in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries as an artists' haven, the bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
capital, and the East Coast birthplace of the Beat movement
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...
. What provided the initial attractive character of the community eventually contributed to its 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...
and commercialization.
The name of the village is Anglicized from the Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
name Groenwijck, meaning "Green District", into its cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
, a borough of London
London Borough of Greenwich
The London Borough of Greenwich is an Inner London borough in south-east London, England. Taking its name from the historic town of Greenwich, the present borough was formed in 1965 by the amalgamation of the former area of the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich with part of the Metropolitan...
.
Location
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
to the West, 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. The neighborhoods surrounding it are the East Village
East Village, Manhattan
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...
and NoHo
NoHo
NoHo, for North of Houston Street is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, roughly bounded by Houston Street on the south, The Bowery on the east, Astor Place on the north, and Broadway on the west. NoHo is wedged between Greenwich Village, west of Broadway, and the East Village...
to the East, 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...
to the south, and Chelsea
Chelsea, Manhattan
Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, 30th Street to the north, the western boundary of the Ladies' Mile Historic District – which lies between the Avenue of the Americas and...
to the North. The East Village
East Village, Manhattan
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...
was formerly considered 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....
and never associated with Greenwich Village. The West Village
West Village, Manhattan
The West Village is the western portion of the Greenwich Village neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The area is usually defined as bounded by the Hudson River on the west and either Sixth Avenue or Seventh Avenue on the east, extending from 14th Street down to Houston Street...
is the area of Greenwich Village west of 7th Avenue, though realtors claim the dividing line is farther east at 6th Avenue. The Far West Village is a sub-neighborhood from the Hudson River to Hudson Street. The neighborhood is located in New York's 8th congressional district
New York's 8th congressional district
New York's Eighth Congressional District for the United States House of Representatives in New York City. It is split into two sections. The northern portion of it includes most of Manhattan's Upper West Side, and continues south to include most parts of Hell's Kitchen, East Village, Chelsea, SoHo,...
, New York's 25th State Senate district, New York's 66th State Assembly district, and New York City Council's 3rd district.
Into the early 20th century, Greenwich Village was distinguished from the upper-class neighborhood of Washington Square based on the major landmark Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
or Empire Ward in the 19th century.
Encyclopædia Britannicas 1956 article on "New York (City)" (subheading "Greenwich Village") states that the southern border of the Village is Spring Street, reflecting an earlier understanding (today, Spring Street might be considered the southern boundary of the neighborhood sometimes called the South Village
South Village
The South Village is a largely residential area in Lower Manhattan in New York City, directly below Washington Square Park. Known for its immigrant heritage and Bohemian history, the South Village overlaps areas of Greenwich Village and SoHo...
, though some cite Canal Street as the furthest extent of the South Village). The newer district of 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...
has since encroached on the Village's historic border.
Grid plan
Grid plan
The grid plan, grid street plan or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid...
(based on the Commissioners' Plan of 1811
Commissioners' Plan of 1811
The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was the original design plan for the streets of Manhattan, which put in place the grid plan that has defined Manhattan to this day....
). Greenwich Village was allowed to keep its street pattern in areas west of Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue) and Sixth Avenue, which were already built up when the plan was implemented, resulting in a neighborhood whose streets are dramatically different, in layout, from the ordered structure of newer parts of town. Many of the neighborhood's streets are narrow and some curve at odd angles. In addition, unlike streets of most of Manhattan above Houston Street, streets in the Village typically are named rather than numbered. While some of the formerly named streets (including Factory, Herring and Amity Streets) are now numbered, even they do not always conform to the usual grid pattern when they enter the neighborhood. For example, West 4th Street, which runs east-west outside of the Village, turns and runs north, crossing West 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th Streets.
A large section of Greenwich Village, made up of more than 50 northern and western blocks in the area up to 14th Street, is part of a Historic District established by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The Commission was created in April 1965 by Mayor Robert F. Wagner following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station the previous year to make way for...
. The District's convoluted borders run no farther south than 4th Street or St. Luke's Place, and no farther east than Washington Square East or University Place. Redevelopment in that area is severely restricted, and developers must preserve the main facade and aesthetics of the buildings even during renovation.
Most parts of Greenwich Village comprise mid-rise apartments, 19th-century row houses and the occasional one-family walk-up, a sharp contrast to the hi-rise landscape in Mid-
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...
and Downtown Manhattan.
History
Freedman
A freedman is a former slave who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves became freedmen either by manumission or emancipation ....
settlers in the 1630s, who named their settlement Noortwyck. In the 1630s, Governor Wouter van Twiller
Wouter 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...
farmed tobacco on 200 acre (0.809372 km²) here at his "Farm in the Woods". The English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland
New Netherland
New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the 17th-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the East Coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod...
in 1664 and Greenwich Village developed as a hamlet separate from the larger (and fast-growing) New York City to the south.
It officially became a village in 1712 and is first referred to as Grin'wich in 1713 Common Council records. Sir Peter Warren began accumulating land in 1731 and built a frame house capacious enough to hold a sitting of the Assembly when smallpox rendered the city dangerous in 1739. His house, which survived until the Civil War era, overlooked the North River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
from a bluff; its site on the block bounded by Perry and Charles Streets, Bleecker and West 4th Streets, can still be recognized by its mid-19th century rowhouses inserted into a neighborhood still retaining many houses of the 1830–37 boom.
The oldest house remaining in Greenwich Village is the Isaacs-Hendricks House, at 77 Bedford Street (built 1799, much altered and enlarged 1836, third story 1928). When the Church of St. Luke in the Fields was founded in 1820 it stood in fields south of the road (now Christopher Street) that led from Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue) down to a landing on the North River. In 1822, a yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
epidemic in New York encouraged residents to flee to the healthier air of Greenwich Village, and afterwards many stayed. The future site of Washington Square
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
was a potter's field
Potter's field
A potter's field was an American term for a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people. The expression derives from the Bible, referring to a field used for the extraction of potter's clay, which was useless for agriculture but could be used as a burial site.-Origin:The term comes from...
from 1797 to 1823 when 10 to 20,000 of New York's poor were buried here, and still remain. The handsome Greek revival rowhouses on the north side of Washington Square were built about 1832, establishing the fashion of Washington Square and lower Fifth Avenue for decades to come. Well into the 19th century, the district of Washington Square was considered separate from Greenwich Village.
Greenwich Village is generally known as an important landmark on the map of American bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
culture. The neighborhood is known for its colorful, artistic residents and the alternative culture they propagate. Due in part to the progressive attitudes of many of its residents, the Village has traditionally been a focal point of new movements and ideas, whether political, artistic, or cultural. This tradition as an enclave of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-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....
and alternative culture
Alternative culture
Alternative culture is a type of culture that exists outside or on the fringes of mainstream or popular culture, usually under the domain of one or more subcultures...
was established during the 19th century and into the 20th century, when small presses, art galleries, and experimental theater thrived.
The Tenth Street Studio Building
Tenth Street Studio Building
The Tenth Street Studio Building, constructed in New York City in 1857, was the first modern facility designed solely to serve the needs of artists...
was situated at 51 West 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, the building was commissioned by James Boorman Johnston and designed by Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture...
. Its innovative design soon represented a national architectural prototype, and featured a domed central gallery, from which interconnected rooms radiated. Hunt's studio within the building housed the first architectural school in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Soon after its completion in 1857, the building helped to make Greenwich Village central to the arts in New York City, drawing artists from all over the country to work, exhibit, and sell their art. In its initial years Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
took a studio there, as did Edward Lamson Henry
Edward Lamson Henry
Edward Lamson Henry , commonly known as E.L. Henry, was an American genre painter, born in Charleston, South Carolina.-Early life :...
, and many of the artists of the Hudson River School
Hudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
, including Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion...
.
The Hotel Albert from the late 19th century through the 21st century has served as a cultural icon of Greenwich Village. Opened during the 1880s and originally located at 11th Street and University Place, called the Hotel St. Stephan and then after 1902, called The Hotel Albert while under the ownership of William Ryder it served as a meeting place, restaurant and dwelling for several important artists and writers from the late 19th century well into the 20th century. After 1902 the owner of the Hotel Albert's brother Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality...
lived and painted there. Some of the other famous guests who lived there include: Augustus St. Gaudens, Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
, Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, Hart Crane
Hart Crane
-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
, Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin was a French-Cuban author, based at first in France and later in the United States, who published her journals, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death, her erotic literature, and short stories...
, Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...
, Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
, Horton Foote
Horton Foote
Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television...
, Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, Philip Guston
Philip Guston
Philip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, Andy Warhol
Andy 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...
, and many others. During the golden age of bohemianism
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
, Greenwich Village became famous for such eccentrics as Joe Gould
Joe Gould (Bohemian)
Joseph Ferdinand Gould was an American eccentric, also known as Professor Seagull. Often homeless, he pretended to be the author of the longest book ever written, an Oral History of the Contemporary World...
(profiled at length by Joseph Mitchell) and Maxwell Bodenheim
Maxwell Bodenheim
Maxwell Bodenheim was an American poet and novelist who was known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. His writing brought him international fame during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.-Biography:...
, dancer Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
, writer William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
, and playwright Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
. Political rebellion also made its home here, whether serious (John Reed) or frivolous (Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
and friends set off balloons from atop Washington Square arch, proclaiming the founding of "The Independent Republic of Greenwich Village").
In 1924, the Cherry Lane Theatre
Cherry Lane Theatre
The Cherry Lane Theatre , located at 38 Commerce Street in the borough of Manhattan, was New York City's oldest, continuously running off-Broadway theater...
was established. Located at 38 Commerce Street it is New York City's oldest continuously running Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-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...
theater. A landmark in Greenwich Village’s cultural landscape, it was built as a farm silo in 1817, and also served as a tobacco warehouse and box factory before Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
and other members of the Provincetown Players
Provincetown Players
The Provincetown Players was an amateur group of writers and artists who, at the early part of the 20th Century, wanted to see a change in American theatre and created a company committed to producing new plays by exclusively American playwrights...
converted the structure into a theatre they christened the Cherry Lane Playhouse, which opened on March 24, 1924, with the play The Man Who Ate the Popomack. During the 1940s The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group still existing in the U.S...
, Theatre of the Absurd
Theatre of the Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction, written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work...
, and the Downtown Theater movement all took root there, and it developed a reputation as a place where aspiring playwrights and emerging voices could showcase their work.
In one of the many 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...
properties Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was an American sculptor, art patron and collector, and founder in 1931 of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City...
and her husband owned, Gertrude Whitney established the Whitney Studio Club at 8 West 8th Street as a facility where young artists could exhibit their works in 1914. By the 1930s the place would evolve to become her greatest legacy, the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, on the site of today's New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of whom had become disenchanted with the fragmented...
. The Whitney was founded in 1931, as an answer to the then newly founded (1928) Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
's collection of mostly European modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and its neglect of American Art
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Gertrude Whitney decided to put the time and money into the museum after the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
turned down her offer to contribute her twenty-five-year collection of modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
works. In 1936, the renowned Abstract Expressionist artist and teacher Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
moved his art school
Art school
Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...
from E. 57th Street to 52 West 9th Street. In 1938, Hofmann moved again to a more permanent home at 52 West 8th Street. The school remained active until 1958 when Hofmann retired from teaching.
The Village hosted the first racially integrated night club in the United States,when the nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
Café Society
Café Society
Café society was the collective description for the so-called "Beautiful People" and "Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafes and restaurants in New York, Paris, and London beginning in the late 19th century...
was opened in 1938 at 1 Sheridan Square by Barney Josephson. Café Society showcased African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
talent and was intended to be an American version of the political cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
s Josephson had seen in Europe before WWII. Notable performers there included among others: Pearl Bailey
Pearl Bailey
Pearl Mae Bailey was an American actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968...
, Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, Burl Ives
Burl Ives
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....
, Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
, Anita O'Day
Anita O'Day
Anita O'Day was an American jazz singer.Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer"...
, Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, Les Paul
Les Paul
Lester William Polsfuss —known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations...
and Mary Ford
Mary Ford
Mary Ford , born Iris Colleen Summers, was an American vocalist and guitarist, comprising half of the husband-and-wife musical team Les Paul and Mary Ford. Between 1950 and 1954, the couple had 16 top-ten hits...
, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Kay Starr
Kay Starr
Kay Starr is an American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 50s. She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz"....
, Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
, Josh White
Josh White
Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....
, Teddy Wilson
Teddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...
, Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
, and The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
, who also in Christmas 1949, played at the Village Vanguard
Village Vanguard
The Village Vanguard is a jazz club located at in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. At first, it also featured other forms of music such as folk music and beat poetry, but it switched to an all-jazz format in 1957.-History:Over 100 jazz...
.
The Village again became important to the bohemian scene during the 1950s, when 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...
focused their energies there. Fleeing from what they saw as oppressive social conformity, a loose collection of writers, poets, artists, and students (later known as the Beats
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 Beatniks, moved to Greenwich Village, and to North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
in San Francisco, in many ways creating the east coast-west coast predecessor to the Haight-Ashbury-East Village
East Village, Manhattan
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...
hippie scene of the next decade. The Village (and surrounding New York City) would later play central roles in the writings of, among others, Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, 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...
, William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
, James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
, Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
, Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
, Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...
, Rod McKuen
Rod McKuen
Rod McKuen is an American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Throughout his career, McKuen produced a wide range of recordings, which included popular music, spoken word poetry, film soundtracks, and classical music...
, and Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
, who collapsed at the Chelsea Hotel
Hotel Chelsea
The Hotel Chelsea, also known as the Chelsea Hotel, or simply the Chelsea, is a historic New York City hotel and landmark, known primarily for its history of notable residents...
and died at St. Vincents Hospital
Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers ' was a healthcare system, anchored by its flagship hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, locally referred to as "St. Vincent's". St. Vincent's was founded in 1849 and closed in 2010...
at 170 West 12th Street, in the Village after drinking at the White Horse Tavern
White Horse Tavern (New York City)
The White Horse Tavern, located in New York City's borough of Manhattan at Hudson Street and 11th Street, is known for its 1950s and 1960s Bohemian culture. It is one of the few major gathering-places for writers and artists from this period in Greenwich Village that remains open...
on November 5, 1953.
Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway theatrical productions in New York City are those in theatres that are smaller than Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are often defined as theaters that have fewer than 100 seats, though the term can be used for any show in the New York City area that...
began in Greenwich Village in 1958 as a reaction to Off Broadway, and a "complete rejection of commercial theatre". Among the first venues for what would soon be called "Off-Off-Broadway" (a term supposedly coined by critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
Jerry Tallmer of the Village Voice) were coffeehouses in Greenwich Village, in particular, the Caffe Cino at 31 Cornelia Street, operated by the eccentric Joe Cino
Joe Cino
Joseph Cino , was an Italian-American theatrical producer and café-owner. The beginning of the Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement is generally credited to have begun at Cino’s Caffe Cino...
, who early on took a liking to actors and playwrights and agreed to let them stage plays there without bothering to read the plays first, or to even find out much about the content. Also integral to the rise of Off-Off-Broadway were Ellen Stewart
Ellen Stewart
Ellen 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,...
at La MaMa, originally located at 321 E. 9th Street and Al Carmines
Al Carmines
Reverend Alvin Allison "Al" Carmines, Jr. was a key figure in the expansion of Off-Off-Broadway theatre in the 1960s.Carmines was born in Hampton, Virginia...
at the Judson Poets' Theater, located at Judson Memorial Church
Judson Memorial Church
The Judson Memorial Church is located on Washington Square South between Thompson and Sullivan Streets, opposite Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City...
on the south side of Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
.
The Village had a cutting-edge cabaret and music scene. The Village Gate
The Village Gate
The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, New York.Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 158 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago School structure by architect Ernest Flagg was known at the time as...
, the Village Vanguard
Village Vanguard
The Village Vanguard is a jazz club located at in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. At first, it also featured other forms of music such as folk music and beat poetry, but it switched to an all-jazz format in 1957.-History:Over 100 jazz...
and The Blue Note (since 1981), hosted some of the biggest names in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
on a regular basis. Greenwich Village also played a major role in the development of the folk music scene
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
of the 1960s. Music clubs included Gerde's Folk City
Gerde's Folk City
Gerdes Folk City was a music venue in the West Village in New York City. Initially opened as a restaurant called Gerdes, by owner Mike Porco, it eventually began to present occasional incidental music. It was located at 11 West 4th Street , having moved in 1970 to 130 West 3rd Street before finally...
, The Bitter End
The Bitter End
The Bitter End is a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened its doors in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to The Other End during the 1970s...
, Cafe Au Go Go
Cafe Au Go Go
The Cafe au Go Go was a Greenwich Village night club located in the basement of 152 Bleecker Street. The club featured many well known musical groups, folksingers and comedy acts between the opening in February 1964 until closing in October 1969. Originally owned by Howard Solomon who sold the club...
, Cafe Wha?
Cafe Wha?
Cafe Wha? is a club in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York City that has been home to various musicians and comedians. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, Kool and the Gang, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Joan...
, The Gaslight Cafe
The Gaslight Cafe
The Gaslight Cafe was an American coffee house located in the basement of 116 MacDougal Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York...
and the Bottom Line
Bottom Line
The Bottom Line was a music venue at 15 West Fourth Street between Mercer Street and Greene Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...
. Three of the four members of The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...
met there. Guitarist and folk singer Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
lived there for many years. Village resident and cultural icon Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
by the mid-60s became one of the foremost popular songwriters in the world, and often developments in Greenwich Village would influence the simultaneously occurring folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
movement in San Francisco and elsewhere, and vice versa. Dozens of other cultural and popular icons got their start in the Village's nightclub, theater, and coffeehouse scene during the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, notably besides Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, there were Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...
, Simon & Garfunkel, Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
, James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, Eric Andersen
Eric Andersen
Eric Andersen is an American singer-songwriter.-Biography:In the early 1960s, Eric Andersen was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York...
, Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
, The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...
, Richie Havens
Richie Havens
Richard P. "Richie" Havens is an African American folk singer and guitarist. He is best known for his intense, rhythmic guitar style , soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.-Career:Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children...
, Maria Muldaur
Maria Muldaur
Maria Muldaur is a folk-blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s...
, Tom Paxton
Tom Paxton
Thomas Richard Paxton is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years...
, Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved considerable critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry, and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th...
, and Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
among others. The Greenwich Village of the 1950s and 1960s was at the center of 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...
's book The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, is a greatly influential book on the subject of urban planning in the 20th century...
, which defended it and similar communities, while critiquing common urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
policies of the time.
Founded by New York based artist Mercedes Matter
Mercedes Matter
Mercedes Matter née Carles was an American painter and draughtswoman. Her father was the American modernist painter Arthur Beecher Carles who had studied with Henri Matisse. Her mother, Mercedes de Cordoba, was a model for Edward Steichen...
and her students the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of whom had become disenchanted with the fragmented...
is an art school formed in the mid 1960s. The school officially opened September 23, 1964, it is still currently active and it is housed at 8 W. 8th Street, the site of the original Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
.
Greenwich Village was also home to one of the many safe houses used by the radical anti-war movement known as the Weather Underground
Weatherman (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
. On March 6, 1970, however, their safehouse was destroyed when an explosive they were constructing was accidentally detonated, killing three Weathermen (Ted Gold
Ted Gold
Theodore "Ted" Gold was a member of Weatherman.-Early years and education:Gold was a red diaper baby. He was the son of Hyman Gold, a prominent Jewish physician and a mathematics instructor at Columbia University who had both been part of the Old Left. His mother was a statistician who taught at...
, Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins
Terry Robbins was a U.S. leftist radical activist. A key member of the Students for a Democratic Society Ohio chapter, he led Kent State into its first militant student uprising in 1968. Robbins was credited for drawing inspiration from Bob Dylan’s song Subterranean Homesick Blues which later...
, and Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton
Diana Oughton was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society Michigan Chapter and later, a member of the 1960s radical group Weatherman. Oughton received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College. After graduation, Oughton went to Guatemala with the VISA program to teach the young and older...
).
In recent days, the Village has maintained its role as a center for movements that have challenged the wider American culture, for example, its role in the gay liberation
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
movement. It contains Christopher Street and the Stonewall Inn
Stonewall Inn
The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall is an American bar in New York City and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which are widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for gay and lesbian rights in the United...
, important landmarks, as well as the world's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, Oscar Wilde Bookshop
Oscar Wilde Bookshop
The Oscar Wilde Bookshop was the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors. It was founded by Craig Rodwell in 1967 as the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. Initially located at 291 Mercer Street, it moved in 1973 to Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, New York, United States...
, founded in 1967. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center – best known as simply "The Center" – has occupied the former Food & Maritime Trades High School at 208 West 13th Street since 1984. In 2006, the Village was the scene of an assault involving seven lesbians and a straight man
2006 Greenwich Village assault case
The 2006 Greenwich Village assault case was an altercation on August 18, 2006 between Dwayne Buckle and a group of seven young black lesbian friends from Newark, New Jersey, outside of the IFC Center movie theater in Greenwich Village...
that sparked appreciable media attention, with strong statements both defending and attacking the parties.
Since the 1960s
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
days of Greenwich Village are long gone, because of the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood. The artists fled first to 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...
then to 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 finally 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 ...
and Bushwick
Bushwick, Brooklyn
Bushwick is a neighborhood in the northern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood, formerly Brooklyn's 18th Ward, is now part of Brooklyn Community Board 4...
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...
, Long Island City, and DUMBO
DUMBO, Brooklyn
Dumbo, an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It encompasses two sections: one located between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, which connect Brooklyn to Manhattan across the East River, and another that continues...
. Nevertheless, residents of Greenwich Village still possess a strong community identity and are proud of their neighborhood's unique history and fame, and its well-known liberal live-and-let-live attitudes.
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....
, Uma Thurman
Uma Thurman
Uma Karuna Thurman is an American actress and model. She has performed in leading roles in a variety of films, ranging from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action movies. Among her best-known roles are those in the Quentin Tarantino films Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill...
, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
, Edward Norton
Edward Norton
Edward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
, Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
, Amy Sedaris
Amy Sedaris
Amy Louise Sedaris is an American actress, author, and comedian. She is known for playing the character Jerri Blank in the Comedy Central television series Strangers with Candy. Sedaris regularly collaborates with her older brother, humorist and author David Sedaris...
, and Barbara Pierce Bush
Barbara Pierce Bush
Barbara Pierce Bush is the elder of the sororal twin daughters of the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush, and the granddaughter of the 41st U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and his wife Barbara Bush, after whom she was named...
, the daughter of former U.S. President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
; Thurman and Bush both live on West Ninth Street. American designer Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs is an American fashion designer. He is the head designer for Marc Jacobs, as well as Marc by Marc Jacobs, a diffusion line, with more than 200 retail stores in 60 countries. He has been the creative director of the French design house Louis Vuitton since 1997...
as well as CNN anchor Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper
Anderson Hays Cooper is an American journalist, author, and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories...
lives in the neighborhood. Alt-country/folk musician Steve Earle
Steve Earle
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play....
moved to the neighborhood in 2005, and his album Washington Square Serenade
Washington Square Serenade
Washington Square Serenade is an album by alternative country singer Steve Earle. The album features the singer's wife, Allison Moorer on the track "Days Aren't Long Enough," and the Brazilian group Forro in the Dark on the track "City of Immigrants." The track "Way Down in the Hole," by Tom...
is primarily about his experiences in the Village. The Village also serves as home to Anna Wintour
Anna Wintour
Anna Wintour, OBE is the British-born editor-in-chief of American Vogue, a position she has held since 1988. With her trademark pageboy bob haircut and sunglasses, Wintour has become an institution throughout the fashion world, widely praised for her eye for fashion trends and her support for...
, the editor-in-chief of Vogue Magazine as well as Calvin Trillin
Calvin Trillin
Calvin Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist.-Biography:Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and was a member of Scroll and Key before graduating...
, a feature writer for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine.
Greenwich Village includes several college or post-baccaulaurate institutions. Since the 1830s New York University
New 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...
(NYU) has had a campus there. In 1973 NYU moved its main campus from University Heights
University Heights, Bronx
University Heights is a residential neighborhood of the West Bronx in New York City. The neighborhood is part of Bronx Community Board 5 and Bronx Community Board 7. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are: West 190th Street to the north, Jerome Avenue to the east, West...
in the West Bronx
West Bronx
The West Bronx is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The neighborhood lies west of the Bronx River and roughly corresponds to the western half of the borough....
to Greenwich Village. In 1976 Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
's established Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law is the law school of Yeshiva University, located in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The school is named for Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo. Cardozo's success as a young school has been remarkable, leading some to characterize Cardozo as a...
in the northern part of Greenwich Village. In the 1980s Hebrew Union College
Hebrew Union College
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...
built in Greenwich Village. The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
, with its Parsons The New School for Design
Parsons The New School for Design
Parsons The New School For Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is the art and design college of The New School university. It is located in New York City's Greenwich Village, and has produced artists and designers such as Marc Jacobs, Dean and Dan Caten, Norman Rockwell, Donna Karan, Jane...
, a division of The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
, and the School's Graduate School expanded in the 2000s, with the newly renovated, award winning design of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at 66 Fifth Avenue on 13th Street. The Cooper Union
Cooper 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...
is also located in Greenwich Village, at Astor Place, near St. Mark's Place on the border of the East Village
East Village, Manhattan
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...
. Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
established its latest Manhattan campus in an adaptively reused
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Along with brownfield reclamation, adaptive reuse is seen by many as a key factor in land conservation and the reduction of urban sprawl...
Brunner & Tryon
Arnold Brunner
Arnold William Brunner was an American architect who was born and died in New York City. Brunner was educated in New York and in Manchester, England. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied under William R. Ware. Early in his career, he worked in the architectural...
designed loft building on 14th Street, just east of Seventh Avenue. The university campus building expansion was followed by a 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...
process in the 1980s.
The historic Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
is the center and heart of the neighborhood, but the Village has several other, smaller parks: Father Fagan, Minetta Triangle, Petrosino Square, Little Red Square, and Time Landscape. There are also city playgrounds, including Desalvio, Minetta, Thompson Street, Bleecker Street, Downing Street, Mercer Street, Cpl. John A. Seravelli, and William Passannante Ballfield. Perhaps the most famous, though, is "The Cage", officially known as the West Fourth Street Courts. Sitting on top of the West Fourth Street – Washington Square subway station ( trains) at Sixth Avenue, the courts are easily accessible to basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
and American handball
American handball
American handball is a sport in which players hit a small rubber ball against a wall using their hands.- History :...
players from all over New York. The Cage has become one of the most important tournament sites for the city-wide "Streetball
Streetball
Streetball or street basketball is a variation of the sport of basketball, typically played on outdoor courts and featuring significantly less by way of formal structure and enforcement of the game's rules...
" amateur basketball tournament. Since 1975 New York University's art collection has been housed at the Grey Art Gallery bordering Washington Square Park at 100 Washington Square East. The Grey Art Gallery is notable for its museum quality exhibitions of contemporary art.
The Village also has a bustling performing arts scene. It is still home to many Off Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway theatrical productions in New York City are those in theatres that are smaller than Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are often defined as theaters that have fewer than 100 seats, though the term can be used for any show in the New York City area that...
theaters; for instance, Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group is an organization founded by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton. The organization produces theatrical shows and concerts featuring popular music, comedy and multimedia; recorded music and scores for film and television; television appearances for shows such as The Tonight...
has taken up residence in the Astor Place Theater. The Village Gate
The Village Gate
The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, New York.Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 158 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago School structure by architect Ernest Flagg was known at the time as...
(until 1992), the Village Vanguard
Village Vanguard
The Village Vanguard is a jazz club located at in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. At first, it also featured other forms of music such as folk music and beat poetry, but it switched to an all-jazz format in 1957.-History:Over 100 jazz...
and The Blue Note are still presenting some of the biggest names in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
on a regular basis. Other music clubs include The Bitter End
The Bitter End
The Bitter End is a nightclub in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened its doors in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to The Other End during the 1970s...
, and Lion's Den
Lion's Den (nightclub)
Lion's Den was a music club located at 214 Sullivan Street, between Bleecker Street and West 3rd Street, in the Greenwich Village section of New York City...
. The village also has its own orchestra aptly named the Greenwich Village Orchestra
Greenwich Village Orchestra
The Greenwich Village Orchestra is a semi-professional orchestra based in the heart of Greenwich Village. It is made up of volunteer musicians and performs six scheduled concerts per season from September to June...
. Comedy clubs dot the Village as well, including The Boston and Comedy Cellar
Comedy Cellar
The Comedy Cellar is a comedy club in Manhattan, where many top New York comedians perform. It was founded in 1982 by then standup comedian, and current television writer/producer Bill Grundfest...
, where many American stand-up
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
comedians got their start.
Each year on October 31, it is home to New York's Village Halloween Parade
New York's Village Halloween Parade
New York's Village Halloween Parade is an annual holiday parade and street pageant presented the night of every Halloween in New York City’s Greenwich Village...
, the largest Halloween event in the country, drawing an audience of two million from throughout the region.
Several publications have offices in the Village, most notably the citywide newsweekly The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The 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...
, and the monthly magazines Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
and American Heritage
American Heritage (magazine)
American Heritage is a quarterly magazine dedicated to covering the history of the United States for a mainstream readership. Until 2007, the magazine was published by Forbes. Since that time, Edwin S...
. The National Audubon Society
National Audubon Society
The National Audubon Society is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation. Incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world and uses science, education and grassroots advocacy to advance its conservation mission...
, having relocated its national headquarters from a mansion in Carnegie Hill to a restored and very green
Green building
Green building refers to a structure and using process that is environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition...
, former industrial building in NoHo
NoHo
NoHo, for North of Houston Street is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, roughly bounded by Houston Street on the south, The Bowery on the east, Astor Place on the north, and Broadway on the west. NoHo is wedged between Greenwich Village, west of Broadway, and the East Village...
, relocated to smaller but even greener 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....
certified digs at 225 Varick Street, a short ways down Houston Street from the Film Forum
Film Forum
Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater located at 209 West Houston Street in New York City. It began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a US$19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership,...
.
Preservation
Historically, local residents and preservation groups, including 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,...
(GVSHP), have been concerned about development in the Village and have fought to preserve the architectural and historic integrity of the neighborhood. In the 1960s, Margot Gayle
Margot Gayle
Margot McCoy Gayle was an American historic preservationist and author who helped save the Victorian cast-iron architecture in New York City's SoHo district.-Life and career:...
led a group of citizens to preserve the Jefferson Market Courthouse (later reused as Jefferson Market Library) while other citizen groups fought to keep traffic out of Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
and 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...
, using the Village as an example of a vibrant urban community, advocated to keep it that way.
Since then, preservation has been a part of the Village ethos. Preservation success stories abound in the neighborhood, which was landmarked in 1969 by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The Commission was created in April 1965 by Mayor Robert F. Wagner following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station the previous year to make way for...
. Victories for preservationists, oftentimes spearheaded by GVSHP
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,...
, include the preservation of the Greenwich Village waterfront and Meatpacking District; the inclusion of the Far West Village in the Greenwich Village Historic District; the creation of the Weehawken Street Historic District; and the downzoning of the Far West Village. Additionally, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The Commission was created in April 1965 by Mayor Robert F. Wagner following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station the previous year to make way for...
began the process of landmarking the South Village
South Village
The South Village is a largely residential area in Lower Manhattan in New York City, directly below Washington Square Park. Known for its immigrant heritage and Bohemian history, the South Village overlaps areas of Greenwich Village and SoHo...
in June 2009.
More recent and on-going preservation issues in the Village include: New York University
New 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...
's (NYU) expansion into the neighborhood; St. Vincent’s Hospital’s rebuilding plans; overdevelopment in the Far West Village; and threats to local theaters, including the Provincetown Playhouse
Provincetown Playhouse
The Provincetown Playhouse is a theater in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. It is named for the Provincetown Players, who converted the former bottling plant into a theater in 1918. Much of the original building was torn down in 2009 as New York University School of Law planned a new building on the...
, the Yiddish Art Theater, and the Variety Theater.
In media
- Village BarnVillage BarnVillage Barn was the first country music program on American network television. Broadcast by NBC-TV from May 24, 1948–September 1949 and from January 16–May 29, 1950, the live weekly variety series originated from The Village Barn, a country music nightclub in New York City's Greenwich...
(1948–50), the first country musicCountry musicCountry music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
show on network television (NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
) originated from a nightclub of the same name in the basement of 52 West 8th StreetElectric Lady StudiosElectric Lady Studios, at 52 West 8th Street, in New York City's Greenwich Village, is a recording studio originally built by Jimi Hendrix and designed by John Storyk in 1970...
. - In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear WindowRear WindowRear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder"...
(1954) James Stewart'sJames Stewart (actor)James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
character lives in a Greenwich Village apartment. - The ABCAmerican Broadcasting CompanyThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
sitcomSituation comedyA situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
Barney MillerBarney MillerBarney Miller is a situation comedy television series set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village. The series originally was broadcast from January 23, 1975 to May 20, 1982 on ABC. It was created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker...
(1975–82) was set at the fictional 12th precinct NYPD station in Greenwich Village. - The cover photo for The Freewheelin' Bob DylanThe Freewheelin' Bob DylanThe Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Columbia Records. Whereas his debut album Bob Dylan had contained only two original songs, Freewheelin initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies....
of Dylan and his then-girlfriend Suze RotoloSuze RotoloSusan Elizabeth Rotolo , known as Suze Rotolo , was an American artist, but is perhaps best known as Bob Dylan's girlfriend between 1961 and 1964 and a strong influence on his music...
was taken on Jones Street near West 4th Street in Greenwich Village, near their apartment. - The NBC Sitcom The Cosby ShowThe Cosby ShowThe Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992...
(1984–92) made several references to the Village during its run, and the townhouse used for exterior shots is on St. Luke's Place. - The NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
sitcomSituation comedyA situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
FriendsFriendsFriends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
(1994–2004) is set in the Village. Central Perk was apparently on Mercer or Houston Street, down the block from the Angelika Film CenterAngelika Film CenterAngelika Film Center is a movie theater chain in the United States that features independent and foreign films. It operates theaters in New York City and Texas. Its headquarters are in New York City.-History:...
; and PhoebePhoebe BuffayPhoebe Buffay-Hannigan is a fictional character on the U.S. television sitcom Friends , portrayed by Lisa Kudrow...
lived at 5 Morton Street. The building in the exterior shot of ChandlerChandler BingChandler Muriel Bing is a fictional character on the popular U.S. television sitcom Friends, portrayed by Matthew Perry.-Background:Chandler Muriel Bing was born on April 8, 1968, the son of an erotic novelist mother and a cross-dressing Las Vegas star and is of Scottish ancestry. Chandler was Ross...
, Joey, RachelRachel GreenRachel Karen Green is a fictional character on the popular U.S. television sitcom Friends, portrayed by Jennifer Aniston. Aniston received an Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe for her performances.-Background:...
, and MonicaMonica GellerMonica E. Geller Bing is a fictional character on the popular US television sitcom Friends, portrayed by Courteney Cox. Monica is known as the "Mother Hen" of the group and her Greenwich Village apartment was one of the group's main gathering places. She was also known for her obsessive personality...
's apartment building is at the corner of Grove and Bedford Streets in the West Village. One of the show' working titles was Once Upon a Time in the West Village. - In Wait Until DarkWait Until Dark (film)Wait Until Dark is a suspense-thriller film directed by Terence Young and produced by Mel Ferrer. It stars Audrey Hepburn as a young blind woman, Alan Arkin as a violent criminal searching for some drugs, and Richard Crenna as another criminal, supported by Jack Weston, Julie Herrod, and Efrem...
(1967), Susy Hendrix (Audrey HepburnAudrey HepburnAudrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
) lives at 4 St. Luke's Place. - O. HenryO. HenryO. Henry was the pen name of the American writer William Sydney Porter . O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.-Early life:...
's short story The Last Leaf is set in Greenwich Village. - Next Stop, Greenwich VillageNext Stop, Greenwich VillageNext Stop, Greenwich Village is a 1976 romantic comedy drama film, set in the early 1950s, written and directed by Paul Mazursky, featuring, amongst others, Lenny Baker, Shelley Winters, Ellen Greene, Lois Smith, and Christopher Walken. The film was generally well received by critics...
(1976) chronicles the story of a young Jewish boy in 1953 who moves to the Village, looking to break into acting. - In the Marvel ComicsMarvel ComicsMarvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
universe, Master of the Mystic Arts and Sorcerer SupremeSorcerer SupremeSorcerer Supreme or Sorceress Supreme is a title granted in the fictional Marvel Universe to the "practitioner of the mystic or magic arts who has greater skills than all others or commands a greater portion of the ambient magical energies than any other organism on a given world or dimension". By...
, Doctor StrangeDoctor StrangeDoctor Stephen Strange is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was co-created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, and first appeared in Strange Tales #110 ....
, lives in a brownstone mansion in Greenwich Village. Doctor Strange's Sanctum SanctorumSanctum SanctorumThe Sanctum Sanctorum is a fictional building in the Marvel Universe. It first appeared with Doctor Strange in his debut in Strange Tales #110 .-Location:...
is located at 177A Bleecker StreetBleecker StreetBleecker Street is a street in New York City's Manhattan borough. It is perhaps most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street is a spine that connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was once a major center for American bohemia.Bleecker...
. - In Wonderful TownWonderful TownWonderful Town is a musical with a book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein...
(1953), the Sherwood sisters leave 1935 Columbus, OhioColumbus, OhioColumbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
, for Greenwich Village to pursue their dreams of becoming a writer (Ruth) and an actress (Eileen). Their apartment said to be on Christopher StreetChristopher Street (Manhattan)Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th St. to the west of its intersection with 6th Ave. The Stonewall Inn is located on Christopher Street, and, therefore, the street was at the center of New York's...
, though the actual apartment of author Ruth McKenneyRuth McKenneyRuth McKenney was an American author and journalist, best remembered for My Sister Eileen, a memoir of her experiences growing up in Ohio and moving to Greenwich Village with her sister Eileen McKenney. This was later adapted as the musical Wonderful Town by Leonard Bernstein.-Early life:McKenney...
and her sister Eileen McKenneyEileen McKenneyEileen McKenney was the sister of the writer Ruth McKenney and the inspiration for Ruth's book My Sister Eileen . It was adapted as a Broadway play in 1940, filmed in 1942 and 1955 by Columbia Pictures, and adapted into the Broadway musical Wonderful Town...
was on Gay StreetGay Street (Manhattan)Gay Street, a short street that marks off one block of Greenwich Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. This street, originally a stable alley, was probably named for an early landowner, not for the sexuality of any denizens. Nor is it likely, as is , that its namesake was Sidney...
. - On Sex and the CitySex and the CitySex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...
(1998–2004), exterior shots of Carrie BradshawCarrie BradshawCarrie Preston is the fictional narrator and lead character of the HBO sitcom/drama Sex and the City, portrayed by actress Sarah Jessica Parker. She is a semi-autobiographical character created by Candace Bushnell, who published the book Sex and the City, based on her own columns in the New York...
's apartment building are of 66 Perry Street, even though her address is given as on the Upper East SideUpper East SideThe Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
. - The Pope of Greenwich VillageThe Pope of Greenwich VillageThe Pope of Greenwich Village is a 1984 American film starring Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Daryl Hannah, Geraldine Page, Kenneth McMillan and Burt Young. Page earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her two-scene role. The film was adapted by screenwriter Vincent Patrick...
(1984) centers on a maître d' (Mickey RourkeMickey RourkePhilip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
) in the Italian section of the Village. - The Real World: Back to New YorkThe Real World: Back to New YorkThe Real World: Back to New York is the tenth season of MTV's reality television series The Real World, which focuses on a group of diverse strangers living together for several months in a different city each season, as cameras follow their lives and interpersonal relationships...
, the 2001 season of the MTVMTVMTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
reality televisionReality televisionReality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
series The Real WorldThe Real WorldThe Real World is a reality television program on MTV originally produced by Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray. First broadcast in 1992, the show, which was inspired by the 1973 PBS documentary series An American Family, is the longest-running program in MTV history and one of the...
, was filmed in the Village. - The Greenwich Village KFCKFCKFC, founded and also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is a chain of fast food restaurants based in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States. KFC has been a brand and operating segment, termed a concept of Yum! Brands since 1997 when that company was spun off from PepsiCo as Tricon Global...
/Taco BellTaco BellTaco Bell is an American chain of fast-food restaurants based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., which serves American-adapted Mexican food. Taco Bell serves tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, other specialty items, and a variety of "Value Menu" items...
infested with rats appeared on many TV networks worldwide. - Greenwich Village is a playable multiplayer map in the Freedom FightersFreedom Fighters (video game)Freedom Fighters, originally titled Freedom: The Battle For Liberty Island, is a 2003 third-person shooter video game available for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox and Microsoft Windows that is set in an alternate history...
(2003) video game. - Greenwich Village is the setting for Disney's Wizards of Waverly PlaceWizards of Waverly PlaceWizards of Waverly Place is a Disney Channel Original Series that premiered on October 12, 2007. It won "Outstanding Children's Program" at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards in 2009...
. - Greenwich Village is the setting for the restaurant 22 Bleecker in the Catherine Zeta-JonesCatherine Zeta-JonesCatherine Zeta-Jones, CBE, is a British actress. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of United Kingdom and United States television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as the 1998 action film The Mask of...
, Aaron EckhartAaron EckhartAaron Edward Eckhart is an American film and stage actor. Born in California, he moved to England at the age of 13, when his father relocated the family. Several years later, he began his acting career by performing in school plays, before moving to Sydney, Australia, for his high school senior year...
and Abigail BreslinAbigail BreslinAbigail Kathleen Breslin is an American teen actress. She is one of the youngest actresses ever to be nominated for an Academy Award....
movie No ReservationsNo Reservations (film)No Reservations is a 2007 American romantic drama film directed by Scott Hicks. The screenplay by Carol Fuchs is an adaptation of an original script by Sandra Nettelbeck, which served as the basis for the 2001 German film Mostly Martha.-Plot:...
. - Chinese CoffeeChinese CoffeeChinese Coffee is a play by Ira Lewis which was made into an independent film and released in New York as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, starring Al Pacino and Jerry Orbach...
(2000), an independent film by Al PacinoAl PacinoAlfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
, which features Pacino and Jerry OrbachJerry OrbachJerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach was an American actor and singer. He was well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. As well, Orbach was a noted musical theatre star...
, is set in Greenwich Village in 1982.
Education
Greenwich Village residents are zoned to two elementary schools: PS3 Melser Charrette School and PS41 Greenwich Village School. Residents are zoned to Baruch Middle School 104. Residents apply to various New York City high schools.Greenwich Village is home to New York University
New 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...
, which owns large sections of the area and most of the buildings around Washington Square Park. To the north is the campus of The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
, which is houses in several buildings that are considered historical landmarks because of their innovative architecture. New School's Sheila Johnson Design Center also doubles as a public art gallery. Cooper Union
Cooper 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...
, one of the most selective art schools in the world, is located in the East Village
East Village, Manhattan
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...
.
Notable residents
Greenwich Village has long been a popular neighborhood for countless artists and other notable people.See also
- Cedar TavernCedar TavernThe Cedar Tavern was a bar and restaurant in New York City last at 82 University Place between 11th and 12th Streets. It was famous as a former hangout of many prominent Abstract Expressionist painters and beat writers...
- Gay Street, Manhattan
- 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,...
- The Church of the AscensionChurch of the Ascension (New York)The Church of the Ascension is an Episcopal church in the Diocese of New York, located at 36-38 Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan New York City. From an austere beginning as a bastion of the evangelical movement it has become internationally known for...
- Village Care of New YorkVillage Care of New YorkVillage Care of New York is a community-based, not-for-profit organization in New York City. The agency is dedicated to improving the lives of New Yorkers in need, especially the elderly and New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS....
- Village PeopleVillage PeopleVillage People is a concept disco group that formed in the United States in 1977, well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American cultural stereotypes, as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics....
- West Village
External links
- Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
- Village Voice
- Online guide for "The Village"
- Official Tourist map (controversially showing Greenwich Village to include the East Village
- Greenwich Village Historic District – map from the New York City Landmarks Preservation CommissionNew York City Landmarks Preservation CommissionThe New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The Commission was created in April 1965 by Mayor Robert F. Wagner following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station the previous year to make way for...
- Greenwich Village, by Anna Alice ChapinAnna Alice ChapinAnna Alice Chapin was an American author, born in New York City. She received a private education and studied music under Harry Rowe Shelley. Published in 1897, her first book, The Story of the Rhinegold, was written when she was 17 years old...
, 1919, from Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books... - Greenwich Village Trip Advisor
- Greenwich Village Live controlable webcam