A Map to Maggie’s Farm and More

The release of the biopic A Complete Unknown a few weeks ago has sparked renewed interest in the life, local history, and work of music icon Bob Dylan. And while filmmakers substituted the currently more sedate streets of Jersey City and Hoboken for Dylan’s actual neighborhood in the 1960s, you can instead walk the actual streets of Greenwich Village and see many of the same sites he did, with some guidance from our downloadable Dylan map.

Launched in 2016, Village Preservation’s “Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’s Village” map offers 20 different sites integral to the early career of the future Nobel Prize winner for literature. Among the Dylan spots featured in both A Complete Unknown and our map:

Cafe Wha?

Founded in 1959, Cafe Wha? is still crazy after all these years at 115 MacDougal Street at Minetta Lane. Legend (and to an extent the movie) tells of how Dylan, shortly after arriving in Manhattan in January 1961, walked into Cafe Wha?, after which club emcee Fred Neil found out that he was a musician and asked him to play something. That led to his New York City debut.

Another interpretation of this origin story says Dylan’s first job there was playing harmonica as backup for Neil, but was fired soon after for missing three performances in a row. Three months later, he got his first real gig at our next stop.

Gerde’s Folk City

Located at 11 West 4th Street (Mercer Street) in a no-longer-extant building, Gerde’s Folk City opened its doors to the neighborhood’s burgeoning folk scene in June 1960. Dylan’s aforementioned initial  show took place on April 11, 1961, supporting Blues great John Lee Hooker. His first major break as a musician was when a performance here was reviewed in The New York Times. 

This is also where he first played “Blowin’ in the Wind” and met fellow folk star Joan Baez. She was quickly rising in popularity at the time, becoming known as the Queen of Folk, and he was apparently eager to impress her. She would launch his career, inviting him to play with her on stage, and scolding fans who found his voice bothersome.

Gerde’s was open to a variety of acts for decades, finally closing in 1986.

Gaslight Cafe

The Gaslight Cafe, one flight below ground level across the street from Cafe Wha? (at 116 MacDougal) was another early performance space for Bob Dylan. “I kept my eyes on the Gaslight. How could I not?” Dylan wrote in his 2004 memoir Chronicles. “Compared to it, the rest of the places on the street were nameless and miserable, low-level basket houses or small coffee houses where the performer passed the hat.”

In 1962, Dylan borrowed the typewriter of friend Hugh Romney at the Gaslight, and proceeded to write a three-page poem heavily influenced by local Beat writers including Allen Ginsberg. Dylan showed the work to friends, among them fellow folk performer Tom Paxton, who said he should put the piece into music. The result was “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” performed at the Gaslight just the night after it was written.

The Gaslight Cafe was also the site where a folk tradition was launched: rather than applauding, which bothered upstairs neighbors, patrons began to snap their fingers in appreciation.

The cafe closed in 1971, but there are still more Dylan highlights around the neighborhood that remain standing, such as the Village Gate and the White Horse Tavern. Learn more about them on our Dylan map, and our many blog posts about Dylan over the years.