Background reading and further resources
- Greenwich Village Reading list supplied by Strand Book Store
- Village People
- Literature
- Theatre & Cabaret
- Music & Dance
- Art & Architecture
- Social Justice
- Select Bibliography
Greenwich Village
You say you want a revolution: reimagining Greenwich Village
Now more than ever, the republic of the Village
A Village eccentric’s popular 1920s speakeasy
Greenwich Village, when it was green and a Village
Greenwich Village: past and present
Romany Marie’s bohemian cafes in the Village
Mable Dodge’s bohemian salons in the Village
An enclave for artists: a brief history of Greenwich Village
Community Cornerstone: Little Red School House – Elisabeth Irwin High School
The Vault at Pfaff’s: Greenwich Village’s First Bohemian Hangout
The Downtown Den Where Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians Met
Village People
John Reed, romantic revolutionary
Warren Beatty’s ‘Reds’: a long, long movie about a communist who died
Experiencing the Community: Eugene O’Neill’s ambivalent response to Bohemian Utopia
Emma Goldman: a thoroughly modern anarchist
The remarkable women of Washington Square
Nat Hentoff, the free-thinking quick-change artist of the Village Voice
Dylan Thomas’ Fatal Tour in Greenwich Village
Suze Rotolo in the early 1960s and Bob Dylan in the late 1970s
Walt Whitman’s Bohemian Village
Something rhymed: Mabel Dodge and Gertrude Stein (and Alice B Toklas)
Literature
In the pandemic present, a literary tour of Greenwich Village’s past
Henry James and Washington Square
Give me your tired, your poor: the story of poet and refugee advocate Emma Lazarus
Millay’s poetry in a Greenwich Village context
An Interview with the Greenwich Village poet and hellraiser Brigid Murnaghan
Bob Dylan, the Beat Generation and Allen Ginsberg’s America
Theatre & Cabaret
Greenwich Village: The birthplace of modern American drama
Greenwich Village: The birthplace of modern American drama, part 2
The birth of the Provincetown Playhouse
Swept away by a dark current: the plays of Eugene O’Neill
The gay coffeehouse where Off-Off-Broadway was born
Edward Albee: the art of theatre
The Master of the Method plays a role himself
How George Carlin changed comedy
Six decades of stand-up that show Joan Rivers’ enduring genius
Music & Dance
How the 60s New York dance scene revolutionised dance
Martha Graham’s life as an artful innovator of dance
Edgard Varese: in wait for the future
Searching for silence: John Cage’s art of noise
Folk City: New York and the American folk music revival
Folk music in Greenwich Village, 1940s-1953
1940s folkie commune on West 10th Street
Ornette’s permanent revolution
The 1962 Miles Davis Playboy Interview
An argument with instruments: on Charles Mingus
Live at Café Bohemia: hardbop in the heart of Greenwich Village
Nick’s Tavern, the jazz join that went down swinging
Downtown, you’re legendary – the Village Vanguard at 80
The Village Vanguard: a hallowed basement
Café Society: the wrong place for the right people
The story of the Gaslight Cafe
Last of the Mad Ones – David Amram
Now’s The Time: An Interview with David Amram
Ol’ Blue Eyes is Back – Judy Collins
Art & Architecture
Edward Hopper’s Greenwich Village: the real-life inspirations behind his paintings
It takes a Village: Jackson Pollock’s loner legacy reconsidered
Jane Jacobs v Robert Moses, battle of New York’s urban titans
The woman who saved old New York
The hidden charms of the far West Village
Art studios where Whitney was born will admit visitors
Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney: advocate for the American artist
The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol in Greenwich Village
Social Justice
Triangle fire: one woman who changed the rules
From Greenwich Village to the nation – leading the push for women’s rights
Margaret Sanger and the struggle for women’s rights
A progressive centennial: Margaret Sanger’s 1916 clinic
Lorraine Hansbury’s Greenwich Village: from ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ to civil rights
Before the Stonewall uprising, there was the ‘Sip-In’
Select Bibliography
The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village, John Strausbaugh
Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910-1960, Ross Wetzsteon
Greenwich Village Stories: A Collection of Memories, Judith Stonehill
Greenwich Village, Anita Dickhuth
Around Washington Square: An Illustrated History of Greenwich Village, Luther S Harris
It Happened on Washington Square, Emily, Kies, Folpe
Greenwich Village: A Guide to America’s Legendary Left Bank, Judith Stonehill
Greenwich Village And How It Got That Way, Terry Miller
Inside Greenwich Village: A New York City Neighborhood, 1898-1918, Gerald W McFarland
Greenwich Village, 1913: Suffrage, Labor, and the New Woman, Mary Jane Treacy
The Improper Bohemians: Greenwich Village in Its Heyday, Allen Churchill
Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Performance and the Effervescent Body, Sally Banes
Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture, Leslie Berlowitz and Rick Beard
Up in the Old Hotel, Joseph Mitchell
Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir, Anatole Broyard
A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties, Suze Rotolo
Chronicles Volume 1, Bob Dylan
Hoot!: A Twenty-Five Year History of the Greenwich Village Music Scene, Robbie Woliver
Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution, David Carter
Beat Generation: Glory Days in Greenwich Village, Fred W MacDarrah and Gloria S MacDarrah
The Mural at the Waverly Inn: A Portrait of Greenwich Village Bohemians, Edward Sorel
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
Growing Up Bank Street: A Greenwich Village Memoir, Donna Florio
Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City, Anthony Flint
Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement, Stephen J Bottoms
St Marks is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street, Ada Calhoun
Live At the Village Vanguard, Max Gordon
Vibrations: A Memoir, David Amram
Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac, David Amram
Eleanor in the Village: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Search for Freedom and Identity in New York’s Greenwich Village, Jan Jarboe Russell
Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug, Leandra Ruth Zarnow
The Diaries of Dawn Powell 1931-1965, Tim Page editor
Ninth Street Women, Mary Gabriel
Intimate Memories: The Autobiography of Mabel Dodge Luhan, Lois Palken Rudnick editor
Emma Lazarus, Esther Schor
From the Rooftops: John Sloan and the Art of the New Urban Space, Adam M Thomas
Homage To the Square: Picturing Washington Square, 1890-1965, Berry-Hill
Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising That Changed America, Martin Duberman
The Stonewall Reader, Jason Baumann editor
Washington Square, Henry James
The Quill, “a magazine of Greenwich Village,” was founded by Robert Edwards in 1917. It covered arts and culture and even sex, publishing work by Margaret Sanger. The following 18 volumes can be viewed as PDFs and offer a fascinating contemporary insight into the Village at its early 20th century zenith. It was published from offices at 143 West 4th Street.
The story of Greenwich Village, part 1
The story of Greenwich Village, part 2
The story of Greenwich Village, part 3
The story of Greenwich Village, part 4
The Story of Greenwich Village, part 5
The story of Greenwich Village, part 6
The story of Greenwich Village, part 7
The story of Greenwich Village, part 8
The story of Greenwich Village, part 9
The story of Greenwich Village, part 10
The story of Greenwich Village, part 11
The story of Greenwich Village, part 12
The story of Greenwich Village, part 13
The story of Greenwich Village, part 14
The story of Greenwich Village, part 15
The story of Greenwich Village, part 16
The story of Greenwich Village, part 17
The story of Greenwich Village, part 18
Village Reading List from Three Lives and Company