Blog Posts by Subject: Greenwich Village

Last week, I promised you an exclusive Reader's Den interview with this month's author of Brava, Valentine: Here is the wonderful Adriana Trigiani.

The month of love may have just ended, but things are getting a bit romanticized for the March 2011 edition of The Reader’s Den. Get ready to discuss Brava, Valentine by Adriana Trigiani. An Italian-American woman born in Queens, Valentine struggles to balance love, work, and family in this heartfelt and touching novel.

Last week I finished an amazing book about Greenwich Village in the 1960s called A Freewheelin' Time. This weekend, I found out that the author of the book, Suze Rotolo, passed away on Friday. Her death also coincides with the 50 year anniversary of Bob Dylan's first arrival in Greenwich Village. I figured that such a synchronicity calls for a blog post!

Seeking further enlightenment into the city we call home, I recently took a class on the literary and cultural history of New York City. Among the many themes common to New York City novels we discussed was the portrayal of the city itself as a character with power to shape the lives of its citizens.

A book maven visits the Jefferson Market Library.

Nikko's been coming to Jefferson Market for nearly half his life! A media omnivore, the library is his Netflix alternative.

Robert A Caro’s tome The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York is a thick, unwieldy book at 1344 pages. It sits on my shelf with yellowed pages. I bought it shortly after I moved to New York City 30 years ago. I enjoy history and learned after I moved here that Robert Moses was an important piece of the NYC history puzzle. The book upon first reading was lost to me. I had no real understanding of New York City at that point and Robert Moses’ story was simply too complex and out of context for me. When I think about the enormity of Caro’s book I think of the enormity of the personage of Robert Moses himself. I have started The Power Broker a couple of 

Amazing to think how something beautiful can come from something corrupt.  The inspiring Jefferson Market Library (born a courthouse) had just such a beginning. You may have heard of Boss Tweed?  William Marcy "Boss" Tweed was a 19th century politician who swindled New York City out of millions of dollars.  By the 1860s, Tweed became head of Tammany Hall, a powerful group of Democratic politicians.  He organized his associates into the Tweed Ring, which sponsored schemes for city improvements.  Millions of dollars went into the pockets of Tweed  Ring members.

St. John's Burying Ground used to occupy the space which is now James J. Walker Park, between Leroy, Hudson and Clarkson Streets. In a sense it still does since the old stones were buried in place and few of the 10,000 occupants were moved. The only stone remaining is one dedicated to three firemen who gave their lives in the line of duty over 150 years ago.

Why was a former railroad freight terminal named for a church?

What's odder still is that the terminal was named for a church that had been demolished about 20 years before the terminal was built. And the location of the terminal and the church are not even particularly close.

The connection is the railroad.

Place names stick around even when the source of the name has long disappeared. One name like that in the Hudson Park neighborhood is St. John's.

Look at all that parking! So few cars! The downside of Leroy Street from 75 years ago is no trees. I'll take the trees and Leroy Street (aka St. Lukes Place) as it is today.

Greenwich Village has many landmarks of music history. The jazz clubs in the area saw the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. The bars and clubs that line Bleecker Street and the surrounding area helped popularize folk music in the 1960s. And of course there is that famous little recording studio just south of Jefferson Market on Eighth Street where some of the most important music of the past forty years was recorded. Out of all the Village music landmarks though there is one that absolutely dwarfs them all. In 1941 guitar manufacturer Epiphone was located at 144 West 14th Street and it was there that one Lester William Polsfuss assembled the first solid body electric guitar. 

After 165 years things are bound to change, even in the Village. Maps are a great way to see that change, and fortunately The New York Public Library has one of the world's great map collections. Here's a map of lower Manhattan when Edgar Allen Poe roamed the Village:For fun, compare it to my Google map:

Want to breakfast with Theodore Dreiser? Grab a cup of coffee at Grey Dog Coffee or Out of the Kitchen and mosey on down to 16 St. Lukes Place.

Hey, you’re right across from the Hudson Park Library! And just down the street at 14 and 12 St. Lukes Place are the former homes of Marianne Moore and Sherwood Anderson. They all lived here in the 1920s.

Use this map (I'll continue to add to it) to create your own coffee jaunt or late night crawl. You’ll be inspired by walking the streets of the literary greats. You might even write something! Or at least, stop by the Hudson Park Branch and take out one of their books, grab that coffee, and relax knowing that 

Eighty-two years ago today on April 19, 1927 Mae West was convicted at The Jefferson Market Courthouse on obscenity charges for her play Sex. The play, which she also wrote, produced, and directed, was her first starring role on Broadway. The production had been open for close to a year and playing to full houses before it was raided by the police. West received a $500 fine and was sentenced to ten days in jail. She spent one night in the Woman’s House of Detention before moving to Welfare Island (now known as Roosevelt Island). She was released after eight days for good behavior and the resulting publicity only increased her fame.

The Woman’s House of 

Poets named for hospitals is a very short list.

In fact, Edna St. Vincent Millay is probably the only major poet who would be on such a list. Frankly, I can't think of anyone else named for a hospital, let alone a poet, and if you know of one, please let us all know in a comment.

Edna's uncle's life was saved by the staff of St. Vincent Hospital shortly before Edna's birth in Rockland, Maine -- consequently, Edna's middle name. Somehow this still seems odd. What if her uncle had been saved at Mt. Sinai? Columbia-Presbyterian?

Appropriately, Edna, or Vincent, as she liked to be called, came into her own in the Village, living in the famous narrowest house of the city 

I suppose April is National Poetry Month because it's the cruellest month. I don't know if that's true but I've planted some seeds and hope to have flowers for summer. Am I deluded by this into believing in a spring resurrection? Perhaps, but what's the alternative? I'll take my morning glories and moon flowers and if they smell sweet I'll try not to think of funerals.

April is a great time to drop by the Hudson Park Library and take out some poetry. Take your book, walk a couple of blocks to the Hudson River and doze off in the sun between lines by such great Village poets as Marianne Moore, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Stanley Kunitz. April will not seem cruel.

Marianne 

What do William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson and Kahlil Gibran have in common?

The all lived in the Village!

They may be the native sons of Mississippi, Ohio and Lebanon respectively, but for a time each of them called a piece of rarified Manhattan real estate south of 14th and north of Canal Street home.