30 Facts About Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west.

Greenwich Village contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village.

Greenwich Village contains Washington Square Park, as well as two of New York City's private colleges, New York University and The New School.

Greenwich Village is part of Manhattan Community District 2, and is patrolled by the 6th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.

Greenwich Village has undergone extensive gentrification and commercialization; the four ZIP Codes that constitute the Village – 10011, 10012, 10003, and 10014 – were all ranked among the ten most expensive in the United States by median housing price in 2014, according to Forbes, with residential property sale prices in the West Village neighborhood typically exceeding US$2, 100 per square foot in 2017.

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Adjacent to Greenwich Village are the neighborhoods of NoHo and the East Village to the east, SoHo and Hudson Square to the south, and Chelsea and Union Square to the north.

The western part of Greenwich Village is known as the West Village; the dividing line of its eastern border is debated but commonly cited as Seventh Avenue or Sixth Avenue.

The Far West Village is another sub-neighborhood of Greenwich Village that is bordered on its west by the Hudson River and on its east by Hudson Street.

Into the early 20th century, Greenwich Village was distinguished from the upper-class neighborhood of Washington Square—based on the major landmark of Washington Square Park or Empire Ward in the 19th century.

Greenwich Village was allowed to keep the 18th century street pattern of what is called the West Village: areas that were already built up when the plan was implemented, west of what is Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue, resulted in a neighborhood whose streets are dramatically different, in layout, from the ordered structure of the newer parts of Manhattan.

For example, West 4th Street runs east–west across most of Manhattan, but runs north–south in Greenwich Village, causing it to intersect with West 10th, 11th, and 12th Streets before ending at West 13th Street.

Large section of Greenwich Village, made up of more than 50 northern and western blocks in the area up to 14th Street, is part of a Historic District established by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland in 1664, and Greenwich Village developed as a hamlet separate from the larger New York City to the south on land that would eventually become the Financial District.

From 1797 until 1829, the bucolic village of Greenwich was the location of New York State's first penitentiary, Newgate Prison, on the Hudson River at what is West 10th Street, near the Christopher Street pier.

Greenwich Village historically was known as an important landmark on the map of American bohemian culture in the early and mid-20th century.

Greenwich Village hosted the nation's first racially integrated nightclub, when Cafe Society was opened in 1938 at 1 Sheridan Square by Barney Josephson.

Greenwich Village again became important to the bohemian scene during the 1950s, when the Beat Generation focused their energies there.

Greenwich Village played a major role in the development of the folk music scene of the 1960s.

Greenwich Village was home to a safe house used by the radical anti-war movement known as the Weather Underground.

Greenwich Village has been a center for movements that challenged the wider American culture, most notably its seminal role in sparking the gay liberation movement.

In 2006, the Greenwich Village was the scene of an assault involving seven lesbians and a straight man that sparked appreciable media attention, with strong statements defending both sides of the case.

Since the end of the 20th century, many artists and local historians have mourned the fact that the bohemian days of Greenwich Village are long gone, because of the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood.

Nevertheless, residents of Greenwich Village still possess a strong community identity and are proud of their neighborhood's unique history and fame, and its well-known liberal live-and-let-live attitudes.

New York University and Greenwich Village preservationists have been embroiled in a conflict over campus expansion versus preservation of the scale and bohemian character of the Village.

Additionally, the Greenwich Village has several other, smaller parks: Christopher, Father Fagan, Little Red Square, Minetta Triangle, Petrosino Square, and Time Landscape.

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Greenwich Village is patrolled by the 6th Precinct of the NYPD, located at 233 West 10th Street.

Greenwich Village is served by two New York City Fire Department fire stations:.

Greenwich Village residents are zoned to two elementary schools: PS 3, Melser Charrette School, and PS 41, Greenwich Village School.

Greenwich Village is home to New York University, which owns large sections of the area and most of the buildings around Washington Square Park.

Greenwich Village has long been a popular neighborhood for numerous artists and other notable people.