As always, in addition to a photograph from the Mystic Village project, the content for each posting will be a passage from the 400 Years, Strausbaugh book as I described on the Mystic Village landing page.
Fortuitously, the very opening of 400 Years of Greenwich Village is the perfect opening for the first Mystic Village post.
“Greenwich Village was a zone of rogues and outcasts from the start.
In 1640 the population of New Amsterdam, a rough outpost of the Dutch West India Company, was fewer than five hundred people, but it was astonishingly diverse, “the most motley assortment of souls in Christendom,” including Dutch and Walloons, French, Swedish, English, Germans,” one Cicero Alberto (known around town as ‘the Italian’),” and a Muslim Mulatto. The First Jews would arrive in 1654. Predominantly male, more employee than citizen, the residents were tough, contentious, and often drunk – drinking and whoring were the chief entertainments, and taverns occupied a quarter of the town’s buildings. New York’s enduring reputation as a wide-open party town goes back to its founding.”
As you can see, the very history of Greenwich Village starts off with a bang. And If you would like to support the preservation of Greenwich Village for future generations to enjoy, you can support the phenomenal preservation and educational work of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, GVSHP here. You can also support the fine work of the Washington Square Park Conservancy here.
And you can purchase beautiful Mystic Village prints at my online store here.