In the olden days, the name "Greenwich Village" was spoken in awe, as if it was that one spot in the megalith that is New York City where magic can still happen. The more artistically inclined certainly thought so. For them, Greenwich Village was a bohemian paradise, a tightly knit community where they can live unfettered from the strictures of society, where they can put their ideas on their chosen medium – whether it is canvas, paper, a musical instrument, or the stage – and simply breathe life into them without any fear.
Greenwich Village was indeed an artists' enclave and an icon of alternative American culture. It is where literary luminaries such as Henry James, Edith Wharton, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Edna St. Vincent Millay penned their novels, poems and plays. It is where Hans Hofmann housed his art school for Abstract Expressionism and where Mercedes Matter founded her New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. It is where many music legends such as Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor got their start.
