The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village

Cultural commentator John Strausbaugh's The Village is the first complete history of Greenwich Village, the prodigiously influential and infamous New York City neighborhood.
 
From the Dutch settlers and Washington Square patricians, to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and Prohibition-era speakeasies; from Abstract Expressionism and beatniks, to Stonewall and AIDS, the connecting narratives of The Village tell the story of America itself.
 
Illustrated with historic black-and-white photographs, The Village features lively, well-researched profiles of many of the people who made Greenwich Village famous, including Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mark Twain, Margaret Sanger, Eugene O’Neill, Marcel Duchamp, Upton Sinclair, Willa Cather, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Jackson Pollock, Anais Nin, Edward Albee, Charlie Parker, W. H. Auden, Woody Guthrie, James Baldwin, Maurice Sendak, E. E. Cummings, and Bob Dylan.

A lively anecdotal history of Greenwich Village, the prodigiously influential and infamous New York City neighborhood, from the 1600s to the present

The most famous neighborhood in the world, Greenwich Village has been home to outcasts of diverse persuasions—from "half-free" Africans to working-class immigrants, from artists to politicians—for almost four hundred years. In his magisterial new book, cultural commentator John Strausbaugh weaves an absorbing narrative history of the Village, a tapestry that unrolls from its origins as a rural frontier of New Amsterdam in the 1600s through its long reign as the Left Bank of America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from its seat as the epicenter of the gay rights movement to its current status as an affluent bedroom community and tourist magnet.

Strausbaugh—"a particularly gifted chronicler of New Yorkiana" (Atlantic Monthly)—traces the Village's role as a culture engine, a bastion of tolerance, freedom, creativity, and activism that has spurred cultural change on a national, and sometimes even international, scale. He brings to life the long line of famous nonconformists who have collided there, collaborating, fusing and feuding, developing the ideas and creating the art that forever altered societal norms. In these pages, geniuses are made and destroyed, careers are launched, and revolutions are born. Poe, Whitman, Cather, Baldwin, Kerouac, Mailer, Ginsberg, O'Neill, Pollock, La Guardia, Koch, Hendrix, and Dylan all come together across the ages, at a cultural crossroads the likes of which we may never see again.

From Dutch farmers and Washington Square patricians to slaves and bohemians, from Prohibition-era speakeasies to Stonewall, from Abstract Expressionism to AIDS, and from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to today's upscale condos and four-star restaurants, the connecting narratives of The Village tell the fresh and unforgettable story of America itself.

“The very best kind of cultural history: Literate, lucid, erudite, and entertaining.” - Michael Lesy, author of Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties

“A great, sprawling saga of genius and vice in New York City’s Greenwich Village. John Strausbaugh captures Bohemia at its best and level worst, reminding us why we love this place. His account is breathtaking.” - Teresa Carpenter, bestselling author of New York Diaries

“Strausbaugh has produced the definitive history of America’s bohemian wellspring and prototypical modern neighborhood with all the verve and fun and rigor it deserves.” - Kurt Andersen, bestselling author of True Believers and Heyday

“An engaging, scholarly, and vivid evocation of a neighborhood that’s been, seen, and done everything and everyone.” - Mark Caldwell, author of New York Night

“A dizzying array of historical figures and events so salacious the book reads more like one long gossip column full of sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, art, music, the mob, and more. For long stretches, the pages practically turn themselves” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Brilliant . . . the whole world iswelcomedto come down below FourteenthStreet to feel at home in the Village. I learned more about the history of Greenwich Village by reading this book than I did during the forty years I lived there." - David Amram, Composer, Conductor, Multi-Instrumentalist, and author of Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac

“[A] loving and thoroughly researched look at what [Strausbaugh] calls ‘a zone of rogues and outcasts from the start.’ . . . Fine social history humanized with a sort of paradise-lost wistfulness.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A dynamic history of Greenwich Village, thoroughly researched and rich in anecdotal comment. It will take you on a great ride and introduce you to everyone from Edgar Allen Poe to the Beats. There is so much more to the Village than today’s Marc Jacobs stores and Sex and the City bus tours. Strausbaugh has captured the true essence of the Village—a working class stronghold and a cradle of genuine American culture—and has presented readers with a great absorbing read.” - Dermot McEvoy, author of Our Lady of Greenwich Village and Terrible Angel

“Hail, hail the gang’s all here: a galaxy of scoundrels, artists and geniuses commingle in [The Village]. . . Strausbaugh maintains a nigh-on impeccable balance between affection and skepticism, especially in his sardonic accounts of present-day Village scenes… How rare and refreshing it is to find a chronicler who can remain dry-eyed and funny while describing the Village’s transformation from laboratory for change to “Sex and the City” tour stop.” - New York Times Book Review

“Strausbaugh. . . traces the Village’s role as a culture engine, a bastion of tolerance, freedom, creativity, and activism that has spurred cultural change on a national, and sometimes even international, scale. . . The connecting narratives tell the fresh and unforgettable story of America itself.” - Metro

“The Village takes a long-view perspective, conjuring the sense of giddy possibility and counter-cultural energy that preceded the punk scene.” - Vogue