West Village


The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The West Village is bounded by the Hudson River to the west and 14th Street to the north. The eastern boundary is variously cited as Greenwich Avenue, Seventh Avenue, or Sixth Avenue, while the southern boundary is either Houston Street or Christopher Street.
The West Village is part of Manhattan Community District 2, and is patrolled by the 6th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Residential property sale prices in West Village are among the most expensive in the United States, typically exceeding US in 2017.

History

The designation "West Village" emerged amidst successful preservation efforts in the 1950s–1960s. Residents and preservationists began using the designation "West Village" to distinguish this section of Greenwich Village from the portion of the Village east of Seventh Avenue surrounding Washington Square Park and New York University, where developers found more success in the redevelopment and demolition of historic blocks.
Other names have been given to portions of the area as changes have come to the neighborhood. For instance, beginning in the early 1980s, residential development spread in the Far West Village between West Street and Hudson Street, from West 14th Street to West Houston Street, resulting in the area being given its own name.

Preservation

Historically, local residents and preservation groups have been concerned about development in the Village and have fought to preserve the architectural and historic integrity of the neighborhood. More than 50 blocks, bordering 14th Street to the north, comprise a historic district established by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The historic 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 this area is severely restricted, and developers must preserve the main facade and aesthetics of the buildings, even during renovation. This district—which was for four decades the city's largest—was created in 1969 by the then-four-year-old New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. However, preservationists advocated for the entire neighborhood to be designated a historic district; although it covers most of the West Village, the blocks closest to the Hudson River are excluded.
Advocates continued to pursue their goal of additional designation, spurred in particular by the increased pace of development in the 1990s. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the architectural and cultural character and heritage of the neighborhood, successfully proposed new districts and individual landmarks to the LPC. Those include:
File:173-176 Perry St jeh.JPG|thumb|250px|left|173 and 176 Perry Street, rare examples of modern architecture in the Far West Village.
In addition, several contextual rezonings were enacted in Greenwich Village in recent years to limit the size and height of allowable new development in the neighborhood, and to encourage the preservation of existing buildings. The following were proposed by the GVSHP and passed by the City Planning Commission:
  • Far West Village Rezoning, approved in 2005, was the first downzoning in Manhattan in many years, putting in place new height caps, thus ending construction of high-rise waterfront towers in much of the Village and encouraging the reuse of existing buildings.
  • Washington and Greenwich Street Rezoning, approved in 2010, was passed in near-record time to protect six blocks from out-of-scale hotel development and maintain the low-rise character.

    Reputation as urban bohemia

The West Village historically was known as an important landmark on the map of American bohemian culture in the early and mid-twentieth 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 into the 20th century, when small presses, art galleries, and experimental theater thrived. Known as "Little Bohemia" starting in 1916, West Village is in some ways the center of the bohemian lifestyle on the West Side, with classic artists' lofts in the form of the Westbeth Artists Community and Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi.
File:Greenwich Village Halloween Parade.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade is the world's largest Halloween parade and takes place in the West Village.
In 1924, the Cherry Lane Theatre was established 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.
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 on Grove Street. 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 first racially integrated night club in the United States, 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 Josephson had seen in Europe before World War I. 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, 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 nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, 2 million in-person spectators, and a worldwide television audience of over 100 million.

Geography

Boundaries

The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, West 14th Street to the north, Greenwich Avenue to the east, and Christopher Street to the south. Other popular definitions have extended the southern boundary as far south as Houston Street, and some use Seventh Avenue or Avenue of the Americas as the eastern boundary. The Far West Village extends from the Hudson River to Hudson Street, between Gansevoort Street and Leroy Street. Neighboring communities include Chelsea to the north, the South Village and Hudson Square to the south, and the Washington Square neighborhood of Greenwich Village to the east.

Street grid

The neighborhood is distinguished by streets that are "off the grid", being set at an angle to the other streets in Manhattan. These roads were laid out in an 18th-century grid plan, approximately parallel or perpendicular to the Hudson, long before the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 which created the main street grid plan for later parts of the city. Even streets that were given numbers in the 19th century to make them nominally part of the grid can be idiosyncratic, at best. West 4th Street, formerly Asylum Street, crosses West 10th, 11th and 12th Streets, ending at an intersection with West 13th Street. Heading north on Greenwich Street, West 12th Street is separated by three blocks from Little West 12th Street, which in turn is one block south of West 13th Street. Further, some of the smaller east–west residential streets are paved with setts, particularly in Far West Village and the Meatpacking District.
This grid is prevalent through the rest of Greenwich Village as well.