Old Greenwich Village

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Greenwich Village is best known as the bastion of America's avant-garde, a mecca for artists and writers, free thinkers and blithe spirits. But the Village is also one of the nation's most venerable urban comniunities, rich in social and architectural history. In 1811, ambitious city fathers blueprinted a lock-step grid for the whole of Manhattan. The independent-minded residents of Greenwich vigorously protested. They wanted their rural hamlet to remain a place apart, left to evolve in its own way. They won the fight and to this day the area is distinguished by its web of crooked streets, many crowded with two- and three-story rowhouses seventeen decades old, others lined with charming cafes and bistros. This legacy of independence is also exemplified by the buoyant iconoclasm of Village inhabitants, a Who's Who of artistic and literary America, from Walt Whitman and Henry James to Jackson Pollock and Sam Shepard. The striking color photographs in this volume celebrate the spirit of the Village, the tranquil churchyards and vibrant piazzas, the handsome facades and cheerful storefronts. An introduction surveys the Village's cultural history and evokes its memorable personalities. Above all, Old Greenwich Village captures the neighborhood's exquisite blend of past and present and "the eccentricity that has enabled the Village to remain, after two centuries, truly a village."