The Village Today
From The Peopling of NYC
Greenwich Village extends from West 14th Street to Houston Street from north to south, and from the Hudson River to Broadway from west to east.
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[edit] Arts and Culture
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For the past forty years, Greenwich Village has remained the center of counterculture. It is still a warm and welcoming home for radicals and liberals and those who wish to make their political statements. Anti-war signs can be found everywhere in Greenwich Village, from behind gray windows and sloppily stuck onto stop signs and sold at vendors at each corner.
The Halloween Parade is an annual event, a street pageant that attracts approximately 2 milllion spectators, 50,000 costumed participants (which include floats, musical acts, circus performers and dancers, just to name a few), and a world wide television audience of nearly 100 million. It is the largest public Halloween event in the US, and certainly the Village's most highly anticipated event, known for its creative and daring costuming and wide range of entertainment and spectacle.
One of the major features of the parade are the large, articulated rod puppets--a reminder of the event's origins. In 1973, mask maker and pupeteer Ralph Lee started staging a wandering puppet show in the Village for Halloween to try to and lure people, especially children, back out onto the streets for the holiday. After its second year, an organisation called "Theater for the New City" took over the show as part of their "City in the Streets Program" and turned the event into a large scale formal march. By the eigth year, participation had increased to upwards of 100,000.
In 1979, a long time parade participant, Jeanne Fleming, took over as the Artistic and Producing Director for the event, almost single-handedly spearheading the movement to build the parade to its present state of enthusiastic participation and great excitement.
A photo slideshow of the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade 2000.
For more information:
New York's Village Halloween Parade
[edit] Tourism
Greenwich Village is home to some of the most popular tourist attractions in New York City (Greenwich Village Landmarks), with millions of tourists visiting its jazz clubs and Off Broadway theaters, as well as the gourmet shops and bookstores of the entire area. A walk through the Landmark Districts is a charming journey back into the 18th and 19th Centuries.
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The Lesbian and Gay Community Service's Center operates 300 citywide programs that draw thousands of members and participants each year.
[edit] The Media in the Village
In an area that has been central in the establishment and promotion of counter-culture, the media, print media in particular, has always been a very lively part of Greenwich Village. The Village Voice in particular is considered a New York institution.
The Village Voice
Initially a collaboration between Norman Mailer, Dan Wolf and Ed Fancher, the first issue of The Village Voice was published on October 26th, 1955.
The Villager
This weekly newspaper was founded in 1933 by Walter and Isabel Bryan. In 2001, 2004 and 2005, it was voted New York State's best weekly community newspaper.
Greenwich Village Gazettte
Established in 1996.
[edit] Schools
New York University, Benjamin Cardozo Law School, The New School, and Parsons School of Design all call Greenwich Village their home campus. These institutions draw tens of thousands of students, professors and other staff who commute to or live in the Village.
Public elementary and high schools are under the jurisdiction of the NYC Board of Education, Region 9.
[edit] Statistics
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Greenwich Village is under the jurisdiction of Community Board 2.
Community Board #2, bounded on the north by 14th Street , the south by Canal Street , the east by the Bowery/Fourth Avenue , and the west by the Hudson River, is a unique and rapidly expanding community that includes Greenwich Village, in addition to other neighborhoods. Greenwich Village Historic District is one of the five designated Historic Districts within Community Board #2.
Greenwich Village Demographics
[edit] Public Safety and Services
The 6th Police Precinct is responsible for the Greenwich Village area.
Community Board #2 reports that they receive continuous complaints from both the residential and business communities, regarding the need for additional police coverage:
"Law enforcement problems reach not only into our homes and busy streets, but also into the many sites where tourists, residents and theater-goers gather for enjoyment. Drug dealing in our parks and streets hurts our residents and seriously damages our neighborhoods. Residents are justifiably angry that the city has not moved quickly to curtail these activities. The current police coverage of Washington Square Park gives us some comfort, and we hope that these efforts will not be short-lived. But some of this activity has moved elsewhere within our cachement. Groups of beer-drinking and crack-using young adults invade the park's adjacent residential streets and remain for many hours, often traveling as far as the West Village where they engage in anti-social activities."
High volume of pedestrian and commercial traffic has also strained the narrow Village streets. Community Board #2 resents the clogged narrow streets and the air pollution that increasing numbers of oversized trucks bring. Trailer trucks, they say, "endanger pedestrians and also cause damage to our landmark buildings." Community Board #2 has been working with the Dept. of Business Services to divert of "truck-intensive businesses."
Community Board #2 also reports the "strain on diminishing city services, which occurs almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week" due to heavy use by local citizens and visitors of the area's parks. They are "greatly concerned that city planners have ignored the impact of [increased foot and vehicle traffic in the Village area] and have neglected to urge the creation of ancillary services, which these changes require." Community Board #2 asserts that NYC must provide more schools, open space and parks, and consumer product and service retail space.
Works Cited
Laurldsen, Inger Thorup and Dalgard, Per. The Beat Generation and the New Russian Wave. Ardis Publishers. 1990.
Olson EC, Van Wye G, Kerker B, Thorpe L, Frieden TR. Take Care Greenwich Village and SoHo. NYC Community Health Profiles, Second Edition; 2006; 26(42):1-16. EP I1
Stonehill, Judith. Greenwich Village, A Guide to America's Legendary Left Bank. Universe Publishing, 2002.
Online Guide to the Village
Greenwich Village Today Gallery