Greenwich Village...once Bohemian, now like the Upper East Side

Greenwich Village, so rich in cultural history, has been through all sorts of transformations, the last one (which has been going on since the 1980's) turning it into sort of a Low-Rise Upper East Side..

Typically, woman who has lived near Abingdon Square a long time ( area which has quite a history ) told me how "everything is like Madison Avenue now"--she did not mean Madison Avenue as in advertising, but in that the local stores are now all like expensive boutiques typical of Madison Avenue way on the Upper East Side.

I found some patches of the West Village still ungentrified and some places I remember from years ago that don't look that different now...below, what the West Village USED to look like--at least a lot of it...

But of course you see a lot of the below still

To be fair, some parts of the West Village were ALWAYS pretty upscale, such as West Tenth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues...where the famous American artist Merritt Chase had his studio and taught painting to the well to do mostly.. and old places that have long been fixed up (below)

Greenwich Village was also the home to the family of the poetess Emma Lazarus on West Tenth Street there and Mark Twain wrote part of Tom Sawyer there...

And surprisingly, some great old institutions such as St. Vincent's Hospital ( which I believe was the inspiration for the 1980's TV show, " St. Elsewhere" have gone bankrupt and closed down(!) and...well..more about that later.

Here is the basic story of how the Village got founded and how it grew--(short version)

Greenwich Village

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West 4th and West 12th street intersecting

 

Greenwich Village is an area on the western part of southern/downtown Manhattan. It is sometimes called The Village. The Village is mainly residential.

Contents 1 Location 2 Layout 3 History 4 Other websites

Location

Greenwich Village is bordered by Broadway to the east, Hudson River to the west, Houston Street to the south and 14th Street to the north.

Layout

Washington Square Arch

Originally, Greenwich Village was a hamlet separate to New York City. It does not have a formal grid plan for its streets like much of Manhattan.

History

A map of Greenwich Village c.1760

The village is located on what used to be marshland. In the 16th century, Native Americans called it Sapokanikan which means tobacco field. In the 1630s, it was turned into pasture by the Dutch, who called it Noortwyck. In 1664, when the English captured the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, and Greenwich Village developed as a hamlet.

In 1712, it officially became a village, and was named Grin'wich in the 1713 Common Council records. Following a yellow fever epidemic in 1822, many New York residents moved to the healthier air of Greenwich; where many stayed. In the 19th century, it was known as Washington Square.

Other websites

• New York Architecture Images- Greenwich Village
• Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
• Village Voice
• Greenwich Village, by Anna Alice Chapin, 1919, from Project Gutenberg

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