The Force is Strong with This One: Science Fiction in the Village

Will technology destroy the world or save it? This recurring conundrum has provided fertile ground for speculation; and it was precisely this sort of speculation that once gave rise to a new artistic genre: science fiction. Its roots are diffuse, and its impact pervasive. But we know this much — the story of the development of this genre intertwines in critical ways with our neighborhoods, which have been home to some of science fiction’s most important sci-fi authors, publishers, filmmakers, and purveyors. Today, we point to a few of them.

Science fiction elements are scattered throughout literary history, dating back to antiquity. It stands to reason, however, that a genre preoccupied with our relation to science would flourish as European culture grappled with the impacts of the Scientific Revolution. By the 1800s, examples of science fiction already abound, including by authors regarded as major influences in shaping the genre as we know it today. One of those authors is French author Jules Verne, who, along with H.G. Wells, has been called the father of science fiction. Verne penned such wildly popular classics as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, of movie and Disney World ride fame. 

Verne’s popularity can be traced back to the neighborhood South of Union Square, which contained one of the most important concentrations of publishers in the country during the 19th and 20th centuries. British publisher Lovell, Coryell & Company’s first U.S. offices were located there. And it was this firm that brought to this side of the Atlantic the works of Jules Verne. Take a virtual tour of the neighborhood’s publisher agglomeration here and read more about this history here. (Since 2018, Village Preservation has been leading a campaign to designate South of Union Square a historic district and to protect its cultural and architectural legacy. You can learn more about this campaign here).

While Vernes was producing work in France that would capture the imagination of readers in the U.S. and world over, a tortured genius was revolutionizing genre fiction with his short stories on these shores: Edgar Allan Poe. Poe’s reputation centers primarily on his tales of horror and lyric poetry. But he’s also regarded by many as the inventor of the modern detective story and as an innovator in the scene fiction genre. When he moved to New York City in 1837, he lived in Greenwich Village and then in the South Village. Read about his life and his time in these neighborhoods here.

Greenwich Village was not only a place of residence for science fiction luminaries, it was also a source of inspiration for them. H.P. Lovecraft, whose work, though little known during his lifetime, influenced the likes of Stephen King, John Carpenter, and Guillermo del Toro, was fond of getting lost in the neighborhood’s windy streets at night and taking in the atmosphere. You can check out our program on the Village’s impact on Lovecraft’s fiction here.

The Village has provided a launching point not just for genre authors, but also for groundbreaking science fiction artists in other media. Nineteen sixty-eight saw the release of perhaps the most influential science fiction movie ever filmed, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Its creator Stanley Kubrick got his start as a filmmaker in the neighborhood a couple of decades earlier. So did the film’s lead actor. You can read about their roots in the Village here.

Beyond nurturing and inspiring individuals who shaped the development of science fiction, our neighborhoods have, through their establishments, played a role in the popularization of the genre and in the cultivation of the next generation of fans and artists. Perhaps no place has fulfilled this function for as long or with greater success than our August 2024 Business of the Month Forbidden Planet. Read about this legendary South of Union Square purveyor of all things science fiction and geek culture here. And swing by. And remember that there is a good chance that the first thing that catches your eye when you get there might just be traceable, in a few moves, back to the neighborhood where you’re standing.