East Village, Manhattan
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The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It lies east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side. The East Village encompasses the neighborhood of Alphabet City (Avenues A - D). The neighborhood is bounded by 14th Street on the north, Avenue D on the east, Houston Street on the south, and the Bowery and 3rd Avenue on the west.[1] The neighborhood is known as the birthplace and historical home of many artistic movements, including punk rock[2] and the Nuyorican literary movement.[3].
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[edit] Genesis of the name
Until the mid-1960s, the eastern side of Manhattan between 14th and Houston streets was simply the northern part of the Lower East Side, and shared much of its immigrant, working class characteristics with the area below Houston Street. A shift began in the 1950s with the migration of Beatniks into the neighborhood, and then hippies, musicians and artists in the 1960s. The area was dubbed the "East Village", to dissociate it from the image of slums evoked by the Lower East Side name, and to present the area as the new Greenwich Village, which had been popular with artists, but had become middle-class by then.
Newcomers and real estate brokers popularized the East Village name, and the term was adopted by the popular media by the mid-1960s. As the East Village developed a culture distinct from the rest of the Lower East Side, the two areas came to be seen as two separate neighborhoods rather than the former being part of the latter.[4][5]
[edit] Tompkins Square Park Police Riot
The Tompkins Square Park Police Riot occurred on August 6 and August 7, 1988 in Alphabet City's Tompkins Square Park. Groups of "drug pushers, homeless people and young people known as 'skinheads'" had largely taken over the East Village park, but the neighborhood was divided about what, if anything, should be done about it.[6] The local governing body, Manhattan Community Board 3, adopted a 1 am curfew for the previously 24-hour park, in an attempt to bring it under control.[7] On July 31, a rally against the curfew resulted in several clashes between protesters and police.[8]
[edit] Culture
Other than geography, the East Village's most notable commonalities with Greenwich Village are a colorful history, vibrant social and cultural outlets, and street names that often diverge from the norm. Some notable examples are the Bowery, a north-south avenue which also lends its name to the somewhat overlapping neighborhood of the Bowery; St. Mark's Place, a crosstown street well-known for counterculture businesses; and Astor Place/Cooper Square, home of the Public Theater and the Cooper Union. Nearby universities like New York University (NYU) and The New School have dormitories in the neighborhood.
[edit] Artistic prominence
[edit] Music
CBGB, the nightclub considered by some to be the birthplace of punk music, was located in the neighborhood, as was the early punk standby A7. No Wave and New York hardcore also emerged in the area’s clubs. Among the many important bands and singers who got their start at these clubs and other venues in downtown New York were: the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, Arto Lindsay, the Ramones, Blondie, Madonna, Talking Heads, the Plasmatics, Glenn Danzig, Sonic Youth, the Beastie Boys, Anthrax, and The Strokes.
[edit] Art
Over the last 100 years, the East Village/Lower East Side neighborhood has been considered one of the strongest contributors to American arts and culture in New York.[citation needed] During the great wave of immigration (Germans, Ukrainians, Polish) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, countless families found their new homes in this area. The East Village has also been the home of cultural icons and movements from the American gangster to the Warhol Superstars, folk music to punk rock, anti-folk to hip-hop, advanced education to organized activism, experimental theater to the Beat Generation. Club 57, on St. Mark's Place, was an important incubator for performance and visual art in the late 1970s and early 1980s, followed by 8BC as, during the 1980s, the East Village art gallery scene helped to galvanize modern art in America, with such artists as Keith Haring, Greer Lankton, Nan Goldin,Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jeff Koons exhibiting. The East Village is also the setting for Jonathan Larson's musical Rent, which is set in the early 1990s and follows a group of friends as they spend a year struggling against AIDS, poverty, and drug abuse.
Though parts of this culture remain, many artists have relocated to Brooklyn in response to the rising prices and homogeneity that have followed the neighborhood's gentrification.
Today, the East Village, especially St. Mark's Place is notably a home to Japanese street culture and expatriates.
[edit] Decline of the art scene
The East Village's performance and art scene has declined since its hey-day of the 1970s and 1980s.[citation needed] One club that had opened to try to resurrect the neighborhood's past artistic prominence was Mo Pitkins' House of Satisfaction, part-owned by Jimmy Fallon of Saturday Night Live. It closed its doors in 2007, and was seen by many as another sign of the continued decline of the East Village performance and art scene, which has mostly moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. [9] Rapture Cafe also shut down in April 2008, and the neighborhood lost an important performance space and gathering ground for the gay community. There are still some performance spaces, such as Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A, where downtown acts find space to exhibit their talent, and the poetry clubs.[10]
[edit] Neighborhoods within the neighborhood
The East Village contains several hamlets of vibrant communities within itself, including Loisaida, a Spanglish phonetic pronunciation of "Lower East Side" that is centered along Avenue C (also known as Loisaida Avenue), and the letter avenues that are unique in Manhattan, collectively referred to as Alphabet City. Two of the most famous streets in the East Village, The Bowery and St. Mark's Place, are also small neighborhoods unto themselves. The Bowery, formerly home to CBGB (a store selling merchandise of the famous venue has opened on St. Mark's Place), once was known as a place overrun with homeless shelters, rehabilitation centers and bars. The phrase "On The Bowery", which has since fallen into disuse, once was a generic way to say a person was down-and-out.[11]
The Bow’ry, The Bow’ry!
They say such things, and they do strange things on the Bow’ry —From the musical A Trip to Chinatown, 1891
The Bowery has since become mostly become a boulevard of brand-new luxury condominiums, but it is also home to the Amato Opera and the Bowery Poetry Club, which has lent considerably to keeping the neighborhood's reputation as still a place for artistic pursuit. Artists Amiri Baraka and Taylor Mead hold regular readings and performances in the space.
[edit] Gentrification
[edit] New York University, a controversial resident
Although there is widespread appreciation for New York University and what it offers the city, the residents of the East Village have a love-hate relationship with its dominant resident.[12] St. Ann's Church, a rusticated-stone structure with a Romanesque tower that dated to 1847 was destroyed by the University to make way for a monolithic 26-story, 700 bed dormitory for students. Amongst brownstones and historic buildings, the school has built many of these large dorms and this one in particular is now the tallest structure in the area. "There are larger changes going on here," said Lynne Brown, vice president of university relations and public affairs. "I fear this tendency to blame any trend residents don't like happening at the doorstep of NYU," said Brown, mentioning that the university has been one of the longest inhabitants of the East Village. But Nancy Cosie, a 20 year resident and former St. Ann's parishioner, does not buy that argument. "Enough is enough," Cosie exclaimed to The Village Voice, "This is not a campus. This is a neighborhood, and this is my home."[12] NYU's destruction or purchasing of many historic buildings (such as the Peter Cooper post office) have made it symbolic of change that many long-time residents fear is destroying what made the neighborhood interesting and attractive.[13] "I live on Avenue B and 9th Street," an NYU student said. "I know I'm part of the problem - gentrification that is. But where am I supposed to live?"[13]
NYU has often been at odds with residents of both the East and West Villages, with legendary urban preservationist Jane Jacobs battling the school in the 1960s.[14] "She spoke of how universities and hospitals often had a special kind of hubris reflected in the fact that they often thought it was OK to destroy a neighborhood to suit their needs,” said Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.[15]
[edit] Notable residents past and present
- Greer Lankton, Artist/Doll maker
- Ellen Stewart founder of La MaMa, E.T.C. (Experimental Theatre Club) in 1961.
- Madonna lived there in the 1980s.
- Jean-Michel Basquiat, graffiti artist
- Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), Beat Generation poet and author of Howl.[16]
- Keith Haring, pop artist
- Claes Oldenburg (1929-), sculptor, had a studio at 46 East 3rd Street in the late 1950s.[17]
- Candy Darling, actress/Warhol superstar
- Ryan Adams, alt-country musician
- David Cross, actor, comedian
- Nan Goldin, photographer
- Richard Hell, musician, author
- Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989), 1960s political activist[18]
- Jerry Rubin (1938-1994), 1960s political activist - with Hoffman founded the Yippies in a basement apartment at 30 St. Marks Place[19]
- Cookie Mueller, actress, model
- Paul Krassner (1932-), publisher of The Realist
- Walter Bowart (1939-2007), co-founder editor/ of The East Village Other
- Allan Katzman, co-founder/editor of The East Village Other
- Tuli Kupferberg, (1923-), Beat Generation poet, and one of the original Fugs
- Ed Sanders, (1939-), New York School poet and one of the original Fugs
- Regina Spektor, (1980-) Singer-Songwriter and pianist.
- Chris Cain, Bassist for the Indie-Rock band We Are Scientists
- Rachel Weisz, British actress
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Kugel, Seth, "An 80-Block Slice of City Life", The New York Times, September 19, 2007.
- ^ In Rocking East Village, The Beat Never Stops, Karen Schoemer, The New York Times, June 8, 1990.
- ^ Another Nuyorican Icon Fades, Santiago Nieves, NY Latino Journal, May 13, 2005.
- ^ Mele, Christopher; Kurt Reymers, Daniel Webb. Selling the Lower East Side - Geography Page. Selling the Lower East Side. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
- ^ Mele, Christopher; Kurt Reymers, Daniel Webb. The 1960s Counterculture and the Invention of the "East Village". Selling the Lower East Side. Retrieved on 2007-01-17.
- ^ Koch Suspends Park Curfew Following bloody clash in Tompkins Square, Manuel Perez-Rivas, Newsday, August 8, 1988, NEWS; Pg. 5.
- ^ Kurtz, Howard. "Man Refuses to Surrender Film of Clash With Police", The Washington Post, 1988-09-07.
- ^ Wines, Michael. "Class Struggle Erupts Along Avenue B", New York Times, 1988-08-10.
- ^ E. Village Club Faces Curtains, Paula Froehlich, New York Post, September 5, 2007
- ^ Rapture Cafe: Coffee is the New Vodka, Mikal Saint George, Trigger Magazine, May 8, 2007.
- ^ On the Bowery, Steve Zeitlin and Marci Reaven, New York Folklore Society's journal Voices, Vol. 29, Fall-Winter, 2003.
- ^ a b As NYU plans towering dorm for 12th Street, East Village neighbors cry foul, Kristen Lombardi, The Village Voice, February 28th, 2006.
- ^ a b Residents wary of changing physical, socio-economic landscape, Katla McGlynn, Pace Press, February 6, 2008.
- ^ A Lightning Rod at 91, Frances Morrone, New York Sun, April 10, 2008.
- ^ Activists ask: WWJD?, Amy Zimmer, Metro Newspaper, April 16, 2008.
- ^ Hampton, Wilborn. "Allen Ginsberg, Master Poet Of Beat Generation, Dies at 70", The New York Times, April 6, 1997. Accessed December 4, 2007. "Allen Ginsberg, the poet laureate of the Beat Generation whose Howl! became a manifesto for the sexual revolution and a cause celebre for free speech in the 1950s, eventually earning its author a place in America's literary pantheon, died early yesterday. He was 70 and lived in the East Village, in Manhattan."
- ^ Strausbaugh, John. "Paths of Resistance in the East Village", The New York Times, September 14, 2007. Accessed December 29, 2007.
- ^ Strausbach, John, NY Times
- ^ Strausbach, John, NY Times
[edit] External links
