Hudson Park Branch Library

Did Washington wage a secret war while he was at Valley Forge? Yes and no. Against the British he had to maintain a vigorous war of outposts while they occupied Philadelphia. But the other war he had to fight was against his own generals. In Thomas Fleming's Washington's Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge (Smithsonian Books, 2005)
Washington was not only threatened from the British, but from increasing political enemies as well. Conway, Mifflin and Gates were all ambitious officers with little military talent, but great scheming abilities off the battlefield. Together this trio of military politicos formed what would be known as the Conway Cabal. With Congress discontented with Washington's recent combat record, the way seemed open to bring about his downfall.

Fleming is unabashed in his worship of Washington. He never ceases in admiration of his patience, long suffering and ability to sustain personal and political injury, in addition to military defeats. In a sense the author praises him with the same admiration that scared many of the general's contemporaries. Some in Congress felt that Washington was being hailed as a Demigod, and were fearful of the powers they had given him to run the army. As Fleming carefully points out, the General never misused these powers, but in a new state struggling to remove any kind of central authority, such influence was widely feared.  read more »

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:

For a nice stroll around the Village, visit the locations of each of Poe's homes.

I suggest that you start at Waverly and Sixth, go down to W. 3rd Street, over to Carmine and end up at James J. Walker Park where there is just one stone monument left from when this area was St. John's Burial Ground. Poe would wander among the tombstones for a little R & R, but you can play bocce instead, and, of course, stop by and visit us.

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 at 75 1/2 Bedford Street, about a three minute walk from Hudson Park. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the first woman to do so.

Hudson Park is currently hosting a display about the life of Vincent in its Reference Room Gallery. April, aka National Poetry Month, is a great time to check it out!

Many people in the New York and New Jersey areas today probably don’t realize how much history there is about the American Revolution right at their doorstep. The key early parts of the war were enacted right here. The battles of Trenton and Princeton have to be the most popular and covered aspects of the Rev War. So any recent book on these well worn topics should offer something new. For the most part, Washington's Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004), does, but the author still allows himself to get carried away by the ever present Spirit of 76 Syndrome. There is a lot of background information provided on the American army, the British as well as the Hessians. The author brings out pertinent details on the leaders and gives a lot of social and political background study. The 1776 campaigns and battles around New York are given a decent summary so that we can see the context of Washy's retreat through New Jersey and the dire situation that the rebellion was in on that frozen evening of December 1776.  read more »

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 Moore worked at the Hudson Park Library in the 1920s, commuting 42 steps (I counted! If she had a long stride - 39!) from her home at 14 St. Lukes Place. Great, huh? Oh, but the hazards of too short a commute - no calling out sick and going to the beach for her.

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.
In this blog I'll visit some of the places where Village writers hung their hats and maybe throw in some comments about their work and their lives (Of course, I'll sprinkle in some library stuff, too).
Also, more importantly, I invite you to comment on Village writers and add your own stories, observations and self promotions if you're a writer living in the Village or who has lived in the Village. Faulkner has made my list of Village writers for having lived here a couple of months before taking a postmaster gig back home in Mississippi, so if you've lived in the Village at all, it counts. You're a Village writer!
It's the desire to live here and having made that desire a reality that counts.
But really, what was Faulkner thinking when he moved here? What would have happened if he had settled in? The obstacles facing a poor family trying to bury the matriarch in Green-Wood Cemetery would be greater than those the Bundren family faced taking Addie to Jefferson. How would he have made that play? For literature's sake, it's probably best that we can only conjecture.