…but a damn seductive one.
by Ioannis Pappos
“What was so special about this “West Village”?” Malcolm Gladwell asked, when all he knew about New York was “from Martin Scorsese movies.” He is one of the authors of Greenwich Village Stories, a collection of essays by artists like John Guare, Thomas Meehan, Lou Reed, Wynton Marsalis, Patricia Clarkson, and many more—matched by photographs by Allen Ginsberg, Rudy Burckhardt, Berenice Abbott—an anthology of personal writings that reveals how the Village stimulated and changed these creative animals. But the neighborhood changed, too. With West Village one-bedrooms pushing $5,000, how many young artists can afford to live here now? Suddenly preservation of recent cultural history becomes important. With Greenwich Village Stories, GVSHP and Rizzoli are doing that.
I won’t share Amazon’s link to Greenwich Village Stories…New Yorkers, how about a walk to the Three Lives Bookstore on West Tenth Street? Buy the book and cross the street for a drink at Julius. There, enjoy a couple of essays under stills from Boys in the Band, Next Stop: Greenwich Village, and Love is Strange—all with scenes in the bar. That includes you too, Goldman boys; you know who you are…
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Ioannis Pappos