Another rainy day in New York City

 

6th Avenue outside West 4th Street station

"Are you local?" asked the man at the coffee shop. "No," I said. "Do you work locally?" he asked. "No," I said, "I'm from Iowa." "Where is that?" he asked. From an array of potential responses, I chose, "Central US."

When I left for New York City on this long weekend, I knew (1) my best opportunity to immerse myself in Greenwich Village would be Monday, and (2) the weather forecast for Monday called for rain all day, so (3) I would be able to test out the urbanist maxim that walkable areas work in all kinds of weather because if your destination's close enough the weather simply doesn't matter.

6th Avenue at 9th Street

Reader, the maxim is true. (It helped that Monday was somewhere between light rain and drizzle, not the bouncing-off-the-pavement precipitation we often get in the "Central US.") Everywhere I walked in the West Village I encountered other walkers, some with children, many with dogs, as well as cyclists (mostly e-bikes). Life goes on, even in the rain, and it can go on just fine without a car if the design is supportive.

Hudson St approaching Perry St

The West Village, besides being spectacularly walkable, is spectacularly historic. Inexcusably, neither of our guidebooks mentions Jane Jacobs, who lived at 555 Hudson Street while writing her ur-urbanist classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 

555 Hudson Street

Her home is now a realty office, possibly some revenge for Robert Moses, but at least it's not a Dunkin' Donuts. 

plaque by the big front window

If your children are too young to appreciate Death and Life, they could start on this...

...available along with much else for all ages at the Tenement Museum, not far away on the Lower East Side, and whose side hustle may be one of the greatest bookstores I've ever been in.

The West Village is also the spiritual birthplace of gay rights. 

Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher Street

Across Christopher Street from the Stonewall is Christopher Park...

where the gay rights movement is commemorated. 

Scant blocks away is Julius'...

159 West 10th Street
(Note that other than the main drags, streets are about 16 feet wide)

...where a few years before Stonewall, patrons invited reporters and police to witness their illegal imbibing, which events became known as "sipins."

Now that gays can congregate freely in bars and even receive packages by FedEx, it can be easy to remember that freedom was neither automatic nor easy.

The West Village also has considerable artistic heritage. The realtors in Jane Jacobs's house work within a 5-minute walk to folk music history...

Woody Guthrie lived at 74 Charles Street

theater...

Lucille Lortel Theater, 121 Christopher Street

theater history...

Playwrights Sidewalk on Christopher Street

jazz...

Village Vanguard Jazz Club, 178 7th Avenue S
(2010 photo of younger humble blogger with humble son Robbie)

and film!

IFC Center, 323 6th Avenue

There is also 94 Charles Street, for hipster baseball card collectors:

And there's 25 Charles Street...

...where my friend Mark Dunn lived in the 90s while trying to make a go of playwrighting.

Farther east, Cafe Wha?...

115 MacDougal Street

...is featured on the cover of Rhino's Troubadours of the Folk Era collection.

Sitting in the coffeeshop on a "slow" Monday (free WiFi, restroom, steady entrance of customers, $4.75 for a 12 ounce drip coffee)...

787 Coffee, 208 West 10th St

...I feel comfortable and at home here. I don't even want to go back to my hotel in Midtown! 

Is it amazing that all this ferment is happening in a relatively tiny geographical space? Yes, it is, but then again, no, it isn't. It's really only when people live with each other, encountering each other on a daily basis while negotiating space and difference, that such sparks fly and magic happens. When people retreat to enclaves, we get commercialized values and the politics of fear.

While I've been in New York, presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has been in Iowa, and word just came that President Biden is opening more of the Arctic for oil extraction. The West Village shows us that we can live well without either one.

Jefferson Market Library and Garden, 10 Greenwich Avenue

I suppose if I did live here, and visited Iowa, I would be blown away by all the personal space available, the cheap real estate and acres of free parking--all that chafes at me now--and the free refills. The grass is always greener... Would I then be encouraged to vote for Ron DeSantis to make America Florida (or, more attainably, Iowa)? 

SEE ALSO: Mike Katz and Crispin Scott, The Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to New York City (Globe Pequot, 2018)