Discovering New York City through its Villages – Greenwich Village

Discovering New York City through its villages is our goal this trip. We’ve settled into the East Village for two weeks, but today we’re exploring Greenwich Village. Although it isn’t our first time in New York City, we still find Manhattan overwhelming. It’s a colossal city, with so much to see and do, it’s hard to know where to start. This is why we’ve decided to focus our time on our area and the village-like neighbourhoods within walking distance of our apartment. Today we’re doing a Greenwich Village tour with a guide for deeper insights into that neighbourhood.

One thing in our favour this stay, is that we did all the major sights on our first trip to the New York City many years ago. We’ve strolled Central Park, taken in the breathtaking architecture and even more gobsmacking views from the Empire State Building, and we’ve browsed the wonderful art at all the museums. That means the pressure is off, so we can get to know our local neighbourhoods at a deeper level and slower pace, which is one of our goals this year.

When we interviewed local writer, David Farley he recommended we get out of Manhattan and experience the ‘real’ New York City and boroughs such as Brooklyn and Queens. But we’d already decided to settle into the East Village for our two-week New York City stay when we planned the year-long itinerary last year; the decision to focus on this area for our ‘slow, local, experiential project’ is well and truly locked in, so we won’t be getting off the island this trip.

Plus we don’t enjoy spending a lot of time in subways, and our apartment in the located on the edge of the East Village, and, let’s face it, neighbourhoods don’t get more “real” than Alphabet City, which is at the end of our street. So we’re going to stick to the plan to focus on the East Village and neighbouring Lower Manhattan ‘villages’: the Lower East Side, West Village, and Greenwich Village, which is where we’re heading today.

Discovering New York City through its Villages Beginning with Greenwich Village

We decided to kick-start our discovery of the Lower Manhattan ‘villages’ with a private guided tour of Greenwich Village arranged with our friends at Context. We signed up for their Greenwich Village Walk with local architect Michelle Cianfaglione – ironically, an Italian-American who is originally from the Bronx, but is now living in Manhattan.

A hamlet within a city, Greenwich Village has always defined itself by its sense of community, just like the East Village, as we’ll also soon learn from another local. It doesn’t take long for us to appreciate this, as we walk the neighbourhood’s leafy streets, passing basketball games and kids playing in parks, on our way to meet Michelle. Like the East Village, Greenwich Village has a much more local feel compared to Midtown and Uptown and the financial district further south.

Michelle begins our Greenwich Village Tour at a secret spring, the city’s main source of water, the Minetta Stream – bizarrely hidden beneath the lobby of an apartment building. “The whole of Soho used to be a pond!” Michelle tells us excitedly, “Many sources dried up, others were simply built over, but this one still runs.” This is a girl who gets excited by history and urban planning, and it’s infectious.

As we stroll toward Washington Square, Michelle explains that we’re walking the shape of the creek, making it easy to imagine what it must have been like. We stop in the Square, the heart of the Village – where it’s also strange, as Michelle points out, that when the City recently renovated the park, it didn’t consider taking advantage of the water source. The fountain currently sits empty and unfinished.

Next on our Greenwich Village Tour, we take a seat in Washington Square, not far from the park’s splendid arch. Michelle tells us about the City’s Native American roots and its early colonisation by the British and Dutch, who brought African slaves to work the fields here and provide a buffer between their country retreats and the Native Americans ‘uptown’.

It wasn’t until the early 1800s that the City began to create the grid as we know it now, as a way to deal with the rapidly growing population and what was starting to become a very dense city. And it was as early as that that New York University (NYU), one of the City’s largest landholders, began to buy and level out land and cover the streams.

While the amount of land that NYU owns is controversial (as we’ll also quickly discover), Michelle acknowledges that the University saved a lot of old buildings from becoming derelict, and was responsible for a new style of architecture, Greek Revival, which tipped its hat to the classical style.

Michelle shows us Macdougal Alley, a quaint little lane lined with mews, former carriage houses; The Row, on the north side of Washington Square, which exemplifies the Greek Revival style of architecture; and Washington Mews, another charming cobblestone street lined with splendidly renovated buildings owned by NYU. At each stop she points out the architectural features and details that identify each style, and it’s not long before we can detect them ourselves.

Over the next couple of hours on our Greenwich Village Tour, as we stroll the shady streets of the Village – McDougal (“named after the revolutionary”), Minetta Lane (“once the worst neighbourhood in the area”), Bedford Street (home to New York’s tiniest house dating to 1892 at #75 and the city’s oldest house dating to 1807 at #77) – Michelle covers everything from architecture and urban planning through to the Village’s social and cultural history.

Michelle points out Groove, a bar where Hendrix played, and Café Wha, where Dylan strummed. She tells us about Chumleys’ prohibition-era bar (a topics she has a personal interest in, which we’ll soon share with you) at #86 Bedford, and she takes us to the handsome former molten glass factory (look for the carved glasses on the edifice) of J Goebel & Co, dating to 1865, at #95.

We visit tiny verdant gardens, such as Minetta Triangle (perhaps New York’s smallest?) and Green Streets, and we peek into Grove Court, a lovely garden shaded by taller buildings either side, and prettily fronting what looks like a splendid English country house to us, but which Michelle reveals is a combination of Federal and Greek Revival architecture. Once home to some of the City’s poorest people, it is now highly coveted property.

We wander down Commerce Street – which quickly becomes my favourite Greenwich Village street – by #36, a former factory and brewery (there was once a silo nearby and farmland all around!), and the Cherry Lane Theatre, where Pinter and Shepherd staged plays. Michelle points out #48 an especially sweet example of Greek Revival and, opposite, two delightful symmetrical buildings with a courtyard garden in between.

We stroll down Barrow and Hudson Streets – we’re so close to what was once the edge of the river here, which of course the Dutch, masters at landfill, filled in! – and head for St Lukes in the Fields, one of the oldest churches in the City.

Not content with revealing the Church’s lovely oasis of a garden, Michelle ignores a ‘keep out’ sign to take us into a secluded spot and, hopefully, into the church. Unfortunately the Church is locked as there’s some work going on, and, as we soon discover, we’re also locked in.

“This is embarrassing,” Michelle says, “But don’t worry, I’ll climb the fence and unlock it from the other side. This is why my husband doesn’t like going on walks with me. But, hey, I’m an architect. This is what we do. We’re used to sneaking into places we shouldn’t be to find out things.”

Just as Michelle readies herself for a bit of fence climbing (luckily she’s wearing shorts), a Mexican gardener-cum-security guy appears, shaking his head but smiling, somewhat bemused. Michelle apologises sincerely and sweetly and we scurry out.

It’s not a problem. As travel writers we’re used to sneaking about places too, although we don’t make it a habit of climbing fences. Exploring the Villages of the New York City, especially its secret gardens, is a wonderful way to discover the real New York, as we’re about to find out on this Greenwich Village Tour…