The Village

The Village

This is the paradox of Greenwich Village: an historic artists’ quarter panders its worst trivia with the civic pride of Zenith’s Chamber of Commerce. Nowhere else in New York is the city’s ghetto-complex so challenged as by the interracial atmosphere of Village streets and bars, yet it is as difficult for a Negro to rent an apartment in Greenwich Village as in any other white section of the city. The first real estate agent to challenge New York’s Fair Housing Practices Law does his business. . . a block from Sheridan Square.

The sources of Village “charm” are found in the twisting streets deflecting the fast through-traffic that has dehumanized the rest of New York, and in the informal life styles of the famous bohemian and Italian settlements. But Village residents have been fighting for years against property interests supporting City Hall proposals to build a major traffic artery through Washington Square Park, and high rents have been driving both bohemians and Italians out of the district.

Still, the Village has held together, bound by the myth of community, a magical urban web supposedly embracing artistic Bohemia and a solid Italian neighborhood. Broken windows and street beatings in Greenwich Village indicate, however, that in recent years even the myth has begun to collapse.