“So, to quaint Old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for North windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents.” – O. Henry
Chapter 4 of the Strasbough, History of Greenwich Village book begins with this charming quote from the famed late nineteenth – early twentieth century short story writer. According to Strasbough’s A History of Greenwich Village, The Village was alive with transformation as early as the 1870’s, culminating with the Panic of 1893 as property values plummeted. An exodus of the more affluent residents left their houses and mansions behind but with many partitioned into affordable rooms and apartments perfectly suited to the bohemians that sought them out. Strasbough quotes a contemporary city guidebook that describes Greenwich Village like this:
“In many respects Bleecker Street is more characteristic of Paris than New York. It reminds one strongly of the Latin Quarter . . . It is the headquarters of Bohemianism.”
Later the guidebook describes a typical denizen of the new, bohemian Greenwich Village:
“That long-haired, queerly dressed young man, with a parcel under his arm, who passed you just then, is an artist, and his home is in the attic of that tall house from which you saw him pass out. It is a cheerless place, indeed, and hardly the home of a devotee of the Muse; but . . . so long as he has the necessaries of life and a lot of jolly good fellows to smoke and drink and chat with him in that lofty dwelling place of his, he is content to take life as he finds it.”
And so the stage was set for luminaries like Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol and so many other creative voices who have made Greenwich Village ground zero for social justice, change and a few jolly good fellows.
Thanks so much for stopping by. If you haven’t done so, please visit the Mystic Village Landing Page to read a brief summary of the Mystic Village concept and execution and how to purchase prints. You can also support the phenomenal preservation and educational work of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, GVSHP. You can also support the fine work of the Washington Square Park Conservancy.