Background reading and further resources

Greenwich Village

Last call, Bohemia

You say you want a revolution: reimagining Greenwich Village

Now more than ever, the republic of the Village

Still Positively 4th Street

A Village eccentric’s popular 1920s speakeasy

When the Village broke free

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

The old house at home

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

Village Bohemians

A valentine for Max Eastman

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

A saint for difficult people

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)

The Arch Conspirators

Bella Abzug

 

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

Hustler with a lyric voice

The rebellion of e e cummings

The haunts of Miss Highsmith

An Interview with the Greenwich Village poet and hellraiser Brigid Murnaghan

Jack Kerouac’s New York

Remembering Jack Kerouac

Remembering James Baldwin

It took a Village

A Maeve Brennan revival?

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 little theatre that could

The Master of the Method plays a role himself

How George Carlin changed comedy

Lenny Bruce everywhere

Six decades of stand-up that show Joan Rivers’ enduring genius

The rebellion of e e cummings

 

Music & Dance

How the 60s New York dance scene revolutionised dance

Isadora Duncan

Isadora

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

This land is his land

Pete Seeger’s New York roots

Folk City: New York and the American folk music revival

Folk music in Greenwich Village, 1940s-1953

1940s folkie commune on West 10th Street

Bob Dylan, the wanderer

Ornette’s permanent revolution

The 1962 Miles Davis Playboy Interview

An argument with instruments: on Charles Mingus

Charlies Parker – Bird lives!

Breakfast with Bill Evans

John Coltrane – giant steps

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

St Joan – Joan Baez

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

The feminist city

Lorraine Hansbury’s Greenwich Village: from ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ to civil rights

When the Village broke free

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