Greenwich Village is generally known as an important landmark on the map of bohemian art and culture. Originally Greenwich Village was a rural hamlet to the North of the earliest European settlement on the Island of Manhattan. Unlike most of the Manhattan above Houston Street ,Greenwich Village lacks the typical grid pattern of the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811.
During that time Greenwich Village was allowed to keep its street pattern in areas west of Greenwich Lane now Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue. These areas were already built up when the plan was implemented. The Village, as it is referred to, has a dramatically different street layoff than the rest of Manhattan. The neighborhood’s streets are narrow and at very odd angles leaving even the most experienced and knowledgeable New Yorker at a loss for where they are, and makes getting from point A to point B in the Village more a matter of memorization.To add to the confusion unlike most of Manhattan above Houston Street, Village streets typically are named rather than numbered.
The center of Village life is the historic Washington Square Park at the heart of the neighborhood. The park is bordered by New York University and is the site for stand up comics, clowns, musicia , street theater and political rallies. Dog walkers,chess and soccer players, as well as lovers,seniors and future revolutionaries all share the park.
Most parts of Greenwich Village comprise mid-rise apartments, 19th-century row houses and the occasional one-family walk-ups, which is a sharp contrast to the hi-rise landscape in Mid and Downtown Manhattan. Village streets are dotted with unique bars, restaurants and shops. A large section of Greenwich Village is considered part of a Historic District by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.Greenwich Village includes the primary campus for New York University (NYU), The New School, and Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Parsons The New School for Design, Cooper Union and Pratt Institute .
The neighborhood is mostly known for its colorful, artistic residents and the alternative culture they propagate. Due in part to the progressive attitudes of many of its residents, the Village has traditionally been 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 by the beginning of the 20th century when small presses, art galleries, and experimental theater thrived.
Currently, many artists and local historians bemoan the fact that the bohemian days of Greenwich Village are long gone, the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood have driven artists first to SoHo then to TriBeCa and finally to outlying areas like Williamsburg and Bushwick in Brooklyn, as well as Long Island City,and DUMBO. Nevertheless, residents of Greenwich Village still possess a strong community identity and are proud of their neighborhood’s unique history and fame, and its well-known liberal live-and-let-live attitudes.
