Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village also contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village.
Its name comes from Groenwijck, Dutch for "Green District". In the 20th century, Greenwich Village was known as an artists' haven, the bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBTQ movement, and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat Generation and counterculture of the 1960s. Greenwich Village contains Washington Square Park, as well as two of New York City's private colleges, New York University and The New School. In later years it has been associated with hipsters.
Greenwich Village is part of Manhattan Community District 2, and is patrolled by the 6th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Greenwich Village has undergone extensive gentrification and commercialization; the four ZIP Codes that constitute the Village – 10011, 10012, 10003, and 10014 – were all ranked among the ten most expensive in the United States by median housing prices in 2014, according to Forbes, with residential property sale prices in the West Village neighborhood typically exceeding US in 2017.
Geography
Boundaries
The neighborhood is bordered by Broadway to the east, the North River to the west, Houston Street to the south, and 14th Street to the north. It is roughly centered on Washington Square Park and New York University. Adjacent to Greenwich Village are the neighborhoods of NoHo and the East Village to the east, SoHo and Hudson Square to the south, and Chelsea and Union Square to the north. The East Village was formerly considered part of the Lower East Side and has never been considered a part of Greenwich Village. The western part of Greenwich Village is known as the West Village; the dividing line of its eastern border is debated but commonly cited as Seventh Avenue. The Far West Village is another sub-neighborhood of Greenwich Village that is bordered on its west by the Hudson River and on its east by Hudson Street.Into the early 20th century, Greenwich Village was distinguished from the upper-class neighborhood of Washington Square—based on the major landmark of Washington Square Park or Empire Ward in the 19th century.
Encyclopædia Britannica's 1956 article on "New York " states that the southern border of the Village is Spring Street, reflecting an earlier understanding. Today, Spring Street overlaps with the modern, newer SoHo neighborhood designation, while the modern Encyclopædia Britannica cites the southern border as Houston Street.
Grid plan
As Greenwich Village was once a rural, isolated hamlet to the north of the 17th century European settlement on Manhattan Island, its street layout is more organic than the planned grid pattern of the 19th century grid plan. Greenwich Village was allowed to keep the 18th century street pattern of what is now called the West Village: areas that were already built up when the plan was implemented, west of what is now Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue, resulted in a neighborhood whose streets are dramatically different, in layout, from the ordered structure of the newer parts of Manhattan.Many of the neighborhood's streets are narrow and some curve at odd angles. This is generally regarded as adding to both the historic character and charm of the neighborhood. In addition, as the meandering Greenwich Street used to be on the Hudson River shoreline, much of the neighborhood west of Greenwich Street is on landfill, but still follows the older street grid. When Sixth and Seventh Avenues were extended in the early 20th century, they were built diagonally to the existing street plan, and many older, smaller streets had to be demolished.
Unlike the streets of most of Manhattan above Houston Street, streets in the Village are typically named, not numbered. While some of the formerly named streets are now numbered, they still do not always conform to the usual grid pattern when they enter the neighborhood. For example, West 4th Street runs east–west across most of Manhattan, but runs north–south in Greenwich Village, causing it to intersect with West 10th, 11th, and 12th Streets before ending at West 13th Street.
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 façade and aesthetics of the buildings during renovation.
Most of the buildings of Greenwich Village are mid-rise apartments, 19th century row houses, and the occasional one-family walk-up, a sharp contrast to the high-rise landscape in Midtown and Downtown Manhattan.
Political representation
Politically, Greenwich Village is in New York's 10th congressional district. It is also in the New York State Senate's 25th district, the New York State Assembly's 66th district, and the New York City Council's 3rd district.History
Early years
In the 16th century, Lenape referred to its farthest northwest corner, by the cove on the Hudson River at present-day Gansevoort Street, as Sapokanikan. The land was cleared and turned into pasture by the Dutch and their enslaved Africans, who named their settlement Noortwyck. In the 1630s, Governor Wouter van Twiller farmed tobacco on 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 New York City to the south on land that would eventually become the Financial District. In 1644, the eleven Dutch African settlers in the area were granted half freedoms after the first Black legal protest in America. All received parcels of land in what is now Greenwich Village, in an area that became known as the Land of the Blacks.The earliest known reference to the Village's name as "Greenwich" dates back to 1696, in the will of Yellis Mandeville of Greenwich, who before relocating to Manhattan had long resided by another settlement of that same name on Long Island; however, the Village was not mentioned in the city records until 1713. Sir Peter Warren began accumulating land in 1731 and built a frame house capacious enough to hold sittings of the New York General Assembly when smallpox rendered the city dangerous in 1739 and subsequent years; on one occasion in 1746, the house of Mordecai Gomez was used. Warren's 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 Greek federal style stretched to 11th street as well, the style being implemented in townhouses like the one at 11 West 11th Street.
Newgate Prison
From 1797 until 1829, the bucolic village of Greenwich was the location of New York State's first penitentiary, Newgate Prison, on the Hudson River at what is now West 10th Street, near the Christopher Street pier. The building was designed by Joseph-François Mangin, who would later co-design New York City Hall. Although the intention of its first warden, Quaker prison reformer Thomas Eddy, was to provide a rational and humanitarian place for retribution and rehabilitation, the prison soon became an overcrowded and pestilent place, subject to frequent riots by the prisoners which damaged the buildings and killed some inmates. By 1821, the prison, designed for 432 inmates, held 817 instead, a number made possible only by the frequent release of prisoners, sometimes as many as 50 a day. Since the prison was north of the New York City boundary at the time, being sentenced to Newgate became known as being "sent up the river". This term became popularized once prisoners started being sentenced to Sing Sing Prison, in the town of Ossining upstream of New York City.Isaacs-Hendricks House
The oldest house remaining in Greenwich Village is the Isaacs-Hendricks House, at 77 Bedford Street. When the Church of St. Luke in the Fields was founded in 1820, it stood in fields south of the road that led from Greenwich Lane 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 up 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.In 1825, the Commercial Advertiser was writing that "Greenwich is no longer a country village. Such has been the growth of our city that the building of one block more will connect the two places" of Greenwich and New York. Street By 1850, the city had developed entirely around Greenwich Village such that the two were no longer considered separate.
Reputation as urban bohemia
Greenwich Village historically was known as an important landmark on the map of American bohemian culture in the early and mid-20th century. The neighborhood was known for its colorful, artistic residents and the alternative culture they propagated. Due in part to the progressive attitudes of many of its residents, the Village was 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 continued into the 20th century, when small presses, art galleries, and experimental theater thrived. In 1969, enraged members of the gay community, in search for equality, started the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall Inn was later recognized as a National Historic Landmark for having been the location where the gay rights movement originated. On June 27, 2019, the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor was inaugurated at the Stonewall Inn; and on June 28, 2024, the Stonewall National Monument Visitors Center opened, as the first official national visitors center dedicated to the LGBTQ+ experience to open anywhere in the world. Numerous politicians and celebrities participated in the inauguration ceremonies, and the New York City Subway's Christopher Street–Sheridan Square station was renamed the Christopher Street–Stonewall station on the same day.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.
File:New_York_Studio_School_of_Drawing,_Painting_and_Sculpture_.jpg|left|thumb|Whitney Museum of American Art's original location, at 8–12 West 8th Street, between Fifth Avenue and MacDougal Street; currently home to the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture.
From the late 19th century until the present, the Hotel Albert 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's brother Albert Pinkham Ryder lived and painted there. Some other noted 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 Dalí, Philip Guston, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol. During the golden age of bohemianism, Greenwich Village became famous for such eccentrics as Joe Gould and Maxwell Bodenheim, dancer Isadora Duncan, writer William Faulkner, and playwright Eugene O'Neill. Political rebellion also made its home here, whether serious or frivolous.
File:Greenwich Village Halloween Parade.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade is the world's largest Halloween parade, with millions of spectators annually, and has its roots in New York's queer community.
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 showcase for aspiring playwrights and emerging voices.
In one of the many Manhattan properties that Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and her husband owned, Gertrude Whitney established the Whitney Studio Club at 8 West 8th Street in 1914, as a facility where young artists could exhibit their works. By the 1930s it had evolved into 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 Museum of Modern Art, founded 1928, and its 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 East 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.
On January 8, 1947, stevedore Andy Hintz was fatally shot by hitmen John M. Dunn, Andrew Sheridan, and Danny Gentile in front of his apartment. Before he died on January 29, he told his wife that "Johnny Dunn shot me." The three gunmen were immediately arrested. Sheridan and Dunn were executed.
The Village hosted the nation's first racially integrated nightclub, when 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 cabarets that Josephson had seen in Europe before World War I. Notable performers there included: Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Burl Ives, Lead Belly, 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 annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, initiated in 1974 by Greenwich Village puppeteer and mask maker Ralph Lee, is the world's largest Halloween parade and America's only major Halloween nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, two million in-person spectators, and a worldwide television audience of over 100 million. The parade has its roots in New York's queer community.