Greenwich Village, specifically the historic district at its core, has been described as many things, but “literary” may be among the most common. That’s not only because the neighborhood has an air of sophistication and drama, but because it has attracted some of the nation’s greatest writers over the last 200 plus years. Ahead, learn about just […]
Our neighborhoods are not only places where great literature was written. It’s also where great literature was published, sometimes at great legal peril, and where tectonic-shifting battles against censorship were led and won. Nowhere is that more true than in the area South of Union Square, where art, commerce, and activism collided. And perhaps no […]
Greenwich Village, specifically the historic district at its core, has been described as many things, but “literary” may be among the most common. That’s not only because the neighborhood has an air of sophistication and drama, but because it has attracted some of the nation’s greatest writers over the last 200 plus years. Ahead, learn about just […]
It’s rare to become a published poet by age 16, finding yourself praised by the some of the foremost Beatnik writers. It’s even rarer when no less than Patti Smith says that by age 21 you were ‘pretty much universally recognized as the best poet” of your generation. Add to that having your first album […]
Off the Grid often features images from GVSHP’s Preservation Archive and Oral History Project. The image archive includes approximately 300 images from ten different collections that document the architecture, cultural history, and preservation of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. This summer, we were pleased to accept two new images into the archive.
The seminal tome of the Beat generation, Jack Kerouac’s novel, “On the Road,” was published on September 5, 1957. Though written in 1951 on a continuous 120 foot roll of paper it took many years and many revisions to finally get published in 1957.
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” […]
Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross surveys the city’s blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers ‘ll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I’m taking your picture, pigeons. I’m writing you down, Dawn. I’m immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus. O […]
