Childhood Memories, Central Park, The Village and More

Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
People dancing, people laughing
A man selling ice cream
Singing Italian songs

Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I've been waiting such a long time
For Saturday

Saturday in the park
You'd think it was the Fourth of July
Saturday in the park
You'd think it was the Fourth of July
People talking, really smilin
A man playing guitar
Singing for us all
Will you help him change the world
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I've been waiting such a long time
For today

Slow motion riders fly the colours of the day
A bronze man still can tell stories his own way
Listen children all is not lost
All is not lost

Funny days in the park
Every day's the Fourth of July
Funny days in the park
Every day's the Fourth of July
People reaching, people touching
A real celebration
Waiting for us all
If we want it, really want it
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I've been waiting such a long time
For the day

John Lennon was murdered in December of 1980 in front of his home near Central Park.
Thousands of mourners hung flowers and messages outside his home and in this section of
Central Park where Lennon would often play with his son, Sean. The Strawberry Fields
were created in Lennon's honor, provided by funds from his wife, Yoko Ono.
A memorial of colored tiles embedded into the walkway reads, "Imagine."

Trek through a tropical rain forest, or cool down with the penguins in the middle of Manhattan.
Discover the whole world of wildlife at the Central Park Wildlife Center.

Tropic Zone Pic# 80

Enter the steamy Tropic Zone rain forest environment with towering tree trunks, dense vegetation, and a 20-foot roaring waterfall. Find many brilliantly colored birds flying throughout the open two story aviary, and see the endangered golden headed and black lion tamarins from their treetop homes. Hear the calls of the black and white Colobus monkeys in their forest canopy exhibit. Come face-to-face with red-bellied piranha from the Amazon basin, observe the caiman at home in their riverbank stream, and watch a colony of over 100,000 leaf-cutter ants go about their daily routines.

For over 100 years, this small area below 14th Street and west of Broadway has been a mecca to the creative, rebellious and Bohemian. Today no starving artists could afford to live here. I was lucky enough to be a teenager in the sixties, and was deeply influenced by the cultural and artistic aspects of the area. The people fascinated, excited, and sometimes frightened me. I learned a lot about life, freedom of self-expression, cultures, art and the fascinating uniqueness of people, from the individuals who gathered in this special place.

The feeling's not quite the same when I return, because the time is different. I believe that my time, the sixties, when the Vietnam War created such deep emotion and anger, was the best time. I often think that it's too bad that kids growing up now couldn't experience the Village the way I did in that era. It's still the place to go for a good look at the very best of New York. The Village is a place where who you are is more important than how you look or where you're from.

Washington Square Arch

The Village at the turn of the 20th century was quaintly picturesque and ethnically diverse. By the start of World War I it was widely known as a bohemian enclave with secluded side streets, low rents, and a tolerance for radicalism and nonconformity. Attention became increasingly focused on artists and writers noted for their boldly innovative work: books and irreverent "little magazines" were published by small presses, art galleries exhibited the work of the avant-garde, and experimental theater companies blatantly ignored the financial considerations of Broadway. A growing awareness of its idiosyncrasies helped to make Greenwich Village an attraction for tourists. Entrepreneurs provided amusements ranging from evenings in artists’ studios to bacchanalian costume balls. During Prohibition local speakeasies attracted uptown patrons. Decrepit rowhouses were remodeled into "artistic flats" for the well-to-do, and in 1926 luxury apartment towers appeared at the northern edge of Washington Square. The stock market crash of 1929 halted the momentum of new construction.

During the 1930’s, galleries and collectors promoted the cause of contemporary art. Sculptor Gertrude Whitney Vanderbilt opened a museum dedicated to modern American art on West 8th Street, now the New York Studio School. The New School for Social Research, on West 12th Street since the late 1920s, inaugurated the "University in Exile" in 1934.

The Village had become the center for the "beat movement" by the 1950s, with galleries along 8th Street, coffee houses on MacDougal Street, and storefront theaters on Bleecker Street. "Happenings" and other unorthodox artistic, theatrical and musical events were staged at the Judson Memorial Church. During the 1960s a homosexual community formed around Christopher Street; in 1969 a confrontation by the police culminated in a riot known as the Stonewall Rebellion, regarded as the beginning of the nationwide movement for gay and lesbian rights. Greenwich Village became a rallying place for antiwar protesters in the 1970s and for activity mobilized by the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

The historic preservation movement in Greenwich Village was begun nearly fifty years ago. In the 1940s, urban renewal efforts on Washington Square South had altered the physical character of the neighborhood by demolishing many 19th century structures. Local resentment of these development initiatives inspired a preservation movement and helped to defeat a plan by Robert Moses to carve a roadway through Washington Square. Efforts by preservationists were strengthened by "downzoning" changes in 1961 and by the designation in 1969 of a contiguous Greenwich Village Historic District that protected more than 2,035 structures and encompassed one-third of the Village. Currently there is a movement to protect the waterfront, exempted from earlier landmark designation. This local preservation initiative is still in progress.

* excerpt from The Encyclopedia of New York City edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, Š1995, Yale University