written by Cameron Morkal-Williams

 

I. Geography

The West Village is located in lower Manhattan. It is bordered on the north by West 14^th Street, the east by Sixth Ave., the south by West Houston St., and the west by the Hudson River. Possibly the most confusing section of the borough, its streets follow none of the simple (if dull and repetitive) gridlines or name conventions followed through most of Manhattan. Though many are still parallel and perpendicular to each other, they are askew from the other streets in New York and all save a handful have real names instead of numbers. Numbered streets do not ease confusion, though–West 4^th St. intersects, at right angles, with West 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th Streets.

Albeit perplexing to the unfamiliar pedestrian, the West Village is readily accessible by subway. Eleven lines have stops in the neighborhood: the A/C/E at 14^th St. and West 4^th St./Washington Square, the B/D/F/M at West 4^th St./Washington Square (and the F/M at 14^th St.), the 1/2/3 at 14^th St. (and the 1 at Christopher St./Sheridan Square and Houston St.), and the L at 8^th Ave. and 6^th Ave.

 

II. Demographics and Households

Anyone who has traveled through different parts of Manhattan and New York City in general knows that the neighborhoods can be completely dissimilar and non-representative of the city’s population as a whole, and the West Village is no exception. The residents of the West Village are disproportionately white in comparison to the rest of the borough (even more so in comparison to the whole city). The pie charts below, generated from 2010 Census data, compare the racial makeup of the West Village to that of Manhattan and New York City. The more dramatic shifts over the last decade include an 18.8% increase in the mixed-race non-Hispanic population in the West Village, a 17.6% increase in the Asian non-Hispanic population, and a 22.4% decrease in the Black/African-American non-Hispanic population.

West Village residents are also slightly older than the rest of the city, with a median age of 37.2 years; this compares to 36.4 for Manhattan and 35.5 for the whole city. However, they live in family households much less frequently: 37.6% of West Village residents lived with family in 2010, compared to 78.0% of New York City residents. Correspondingly, 59.6% of West Village residents lived with non-family members, including 6.1% who lived with an unmarried spouse. The comparable statistics for New York City are 19.7% and 1.4%, respectively. Of households in the West Village, 8.6% have individuals under the age of 18, while 30.8% of households in New York City do. Similarly, 3.2% of the people in the West Village are under 5 years old and 2.3% are 5-9 years old; 6.3% of New Yorkers are under 5 and 5.8% are 5-9 (Census 2010). This age group discrepancy is highlighted among general trends in the graph below.

III. Employment and Income

The West Village is a fairly wealthy neighborhood: 25% of households had an income of $200,000 or more, with only 7% making less than $15,000. The median income is between $100,000 and $149,000 (ACS 2011). This no doubt speaks to the prohibitively high cost of rent in much of New York City, particularly in Manhattan. The Village is typically perceived as a “nice” place to live, because of its more relaxed and less rushed feeling, increased sunlight (due to shorter buildings), and somewhat decreased noise. As such, more people want to live there, which drives up the cost of rent. This graph demonstrates both the relative proportions of each income category and the connection between size of the category and wealth.

Out of the 31,444 total estimated population 16 years old or older in 2011, 24,885 were in the labor force and 23,383 are employed, yielding an unemployment rate of 6.04%. Most residents–71%–were employed in management, business, arts, or science occupation. The following two pie charts (ACS 2011) illustrate these statistics and their context.

 

IV. Housing

The West Village has a lower rate of homeownership and dramatically higher rate of single-person households than does New York City as a whole. In the West Village, 27.6% of occupied housing units are owned by their occupant, with 72.4% occupied by a renter. The corresponding rates in the whole city are 31.0% owned and 69.0% rented. These figures line up with reported household size: households in the West Village are more likely than the rest of New York City to have fewer people. 59% of housing units in the West Village are occupied by a single person, compared to just 32% in the whole city, as shown by the graph. Put together with the statistics about lower proportions of children, these numbers suggest that the West Village has a less socially attached and dependent population–more single people, relatively high income, and fewer families.

V. Centers of Business, Education, and Religion

Like much of New York City, the West Village is home to a healthy variety of businesses. There is a wide array of dining establishments, from upscale restaurants to corner delis and dollar pizza. Only six Starbucks coffee shops are located in this neighborhood (“Store Locator”), leaving space for independent ones to do enough business to pay their rent. Once can engage in any style of clothes shopping here, including everything from thrifting to designers like Marc Jacobs and Coach. Much of the high-end fashion is centered on Bleecker Street. Other retail businesses cater to more specialty markets, like scrapbook enthusiasts and people who want a more exciting sex life. The Ink Pad sells decorative rubber stamps and other scrapbooking supplies at 13^th St. and 7^th Ave.; the Pleasure Chest sells sex toys on 7^th Ave. near Waverly Place.

In addition to the selection of businesses, several schools operate in the West Village. Several are exclusively nursery schools or education-oriented daycare centers. Nine proper schools call the Village home. Two are public elementary schools, P.S. 3 and P.S. 41. Three are Catholic schools: Our Lady of Pompeii is an elementary school, the Academy of St. Joseph teaches grades K-8, and Notre Dame is a college preparatory school for girls. There is one Episcopal school called St. Luke’s, which has grades K-8. There are two independent K-8 schools called City & Country and the Village Community School. There is an alternative (public) high school called City-As-School whose students do not perform well in traditional schools, often because of family or other outside troubles. There is a Kumon tutoring center for elementary- and middle-school aged children. Lastly, there is a post-graduate institution called the Center for Migration Studies, which technically is not a school, but has a similar (if more academically advanced) purpose.

Of the religious institutions in the neighborhood, a couple are affiliated with the religious schools. Our Lady of Pompeii is a Catholic church in addition to a school, as well as St. Luke’s (except it is Episcopalian instead). Other Christian churches include the Neighborhood Church of Greenwich Village, Congregationalist; St. Luke’s in the Fields, Episcopalian; Church of St. Joseph, Catholic; St. John’s, Lutheran; Church of the Village, Methodist; and others. There are a handful of Jewish synagogues in the West Village, among them Congregation Beit Simchat Torah and Congregation Darech Amuno. Other faiths are not currently represented in this neighborhood.

The places of worship discussed here, whether Christian or Jewish, have been noticeably impacted by their environment. Many are explicitly LGBTQ-affirming and appear to hold progressive political values, reflecting the liberal tendencies–real or perceived–in West Village ideology. For example, St. Luke in the Fields has a weekly outreach program for LGBTQ youth up to the age of 21 called “The Church” (“On The Block – Outreach Programs”); Congregation Beit Simchat Torah refers to itself as The LGBTQ Synagogue, asserts that it “attracts and welcomes gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, queer and straight individuals,” and has transgender-specific resources and support on its website (“Welcome to CBST”). I would like to add that even LGBTQ-allied organizations do not specifically address the needs of transgender people, so it is doubly impressive that CBST pays primary attention to them.

VI. Cultural Institutions

Culture and art abound in the West Village. The Village Vanguard has been standing (er, sitting, as it is situated below street level) on Seventh Ave. South just south of 11^th St. for almost eighty years. The jazz club was founded in 1935 after Prohibition ended and put the previous tenant, a speakeasy, out of business (Kahn). They have two sets each night, playing from a corner of the triangular room. Apparently, triangular rooms have pretty good acoustics.

An arts institution even older than the Village Vanguard is Cherry Lane Theatre, which is New York City’s longest continuously running off-Broadway theatre. It was converted into the Cherry Lane Playhouse by a group of actors and artists in 1924. It has a tinge of hipster appeal, as much of its history involves the works of famous writers and playwrights before they were “cool.” Angelina Fiordellisi began reviving and re-envisioning it in 1996, and currently it is called the Cherry Lane Theatre Studio. It is described as a “safe haven” for new dramaturgical voices, away from the harshness and publicity of critics, and a venue catering to “sophisticated, thrill-seeking audiences” (“History”).

Another landmark of the West Village is the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library. The building was erected between 1875 and 1877 as the Jefferson Market Courthouse, which it remained until 1945, when redistricting changed the jurisdiction. Several other groups occupied it between 1945 and 1958. When it became vacant in 1959, the city began planning to knock it down and replace it with an apartment building. However, a group of famous literature-inclined New Yorkers had some things to say about that, and the city made a new plan in 1961 to convert it to a public library. They started construction to renovate the interior in 1965 and finished it in 1967, when the branch opened (“About the Jefferson Market Library”).

Though it abounds in the glories of human creativity, the West Village also encompasses natural beauty. There are two major parks that are located partly in the West Village: the Hudson River Park and the High Line. The Hudson River Park stretches up about five miles of waterfront on Manhattan’s west side and is the longest such park in the United States. It has a bike path, a walkway for pedestrians, playgrounds for children, cafés, and a variety of recreational spaces, and hosts many events throughout the year like concerts and film screenings (“About Us”). The Hudson River Park is a relatively recent creation, having turned allegedly disused piers and parking lots into a space where New Yorkers can try to connect with nature, despite the unappealing color of the river and tall gray buildings on either side of it.

The High Line Park starts at Gansevoort St. and Washington St. and goes north up to 34^th St. It was first constructed in the 1930s as a freight rail line but stopped being used by 1980. The Friends of the High Line formed almost two decades later when the railroad was under threat of demolition; they gained the city’s support to turn the structure into an elevated park in 2002. Construction began four years later and the first (southernmost) section was opened in 2009. The next section opened in 2011 and the last one is on the way (“High Line History”). The High Line is a beautiful, manicured, bourgeois park–perfect for the middle-class sensibilities of West Village and Chelsea residents.

VII. History

One event in history stands out from the West Village’s past because it keeps coming back up every year: the Stonewall Riots of 1969, memorialized through the Gay Pride Parade each June. The Stonewall Inn was (and is) a gay bar on Christopher St. In the 1960s, homosexuality was not tolerated like it is today, so police officers would regularly raid Stonewall and other gay bars. The night of June 28, 1969, the patrons of the bar–especially the drag queens and butch lesbians–fought back against the cops and expressed their pent-up rage. They threw shoes, bricks, fire, and even (legend has it) parking meters back at their oppressors. When the police pulled someone out of the crowd and started beating them up with batons, other gay rioters got the person back into the crowd and linked arms to protect them. A few straight supporters even joined in (Garcia).

The Stonewall Riots set the stage for one of the West Village’s most defining features: proud displays of queerness. The word “Stonewall” is a national LGBTQ metaphor for “when we first started fighting back for rights,” even if the equation of the riots with the start of the gay rights movement is not historically accurate. As mentioned above, New York’s Gay Pride Parade marches down to the West Village and passes right next to Stonewall. Rainbow flags indicating support of or ownership by members of the LGBTQ community are an exceedingly common sight in business storefronts. Churches in the neighborhood are generally more accepting than they are elsewhere in the state and country. New York City’s LGBT Community Center is located on West 13^th St, not too far from Stonewall. The Callen-Lorde LGBT Community Health Center, though not technically in the West Village, is still close by on West 18^th St. The Stonewall Riots were the beginning of an LGBTQ legacy in the West Village, and as long as the boys in their heels and thongs keep coming down on pink glittery floats every June, it looks like the legacy will continue.

Works Cited

“About the Jefferson Market Library.” Nypl.org. New York Public Library, n.d. Web. <http://www.nypl.org/locations/tid/39/about>.

“About Us.” HudsonRiverPark.org. Hudson River Park, n.d. Web. <http://www.hudsonriverpark.org/about-us>.

Census 2010 Profile: Census Tracts 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79. 2010. Raw data. Http://maps.nyc.gov/census/, n.p.

Garcia, Michelle. “From Our Archives: The 1969 Advocate Article on the Stonewall Riots.” Advocate.com. The Advocate, 29 June 2012. Web. <http://www.advocate.com/society/activism/2012/06/29/our-archives-1969-advocate-article-stonewall-riots>.

“High Line History.” TheHighLine.org. Friends of the High Line, n.d. Web. <http://www.thehighline.org/about/high-line-history>.

“History.” CherryLaneTheatre.org. Cherry Lane Theatre, n.d. Web. <http://www.cherrylanetheatre.org/history/>.

Kahn, Ashley. “After 70 Years, The Village Vanguard Is Still in the Jazz Swing.” WSJ.com. Wall Street Journal, 8 Feb. 2005. Web. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB110783391753148666.html?keywords=after+70+years+the+village+vanguard+is+still+in+the+jazz+swing>.

“On The Block – Outreach Programs.” StLukeInTheFields.org. The Church of Saint Luke in the Fields, n.d. Web. <http://www.stlukeinthefields.org/make-a-difference/on-the-block>.

Selected Economic Characteristics: 2007-2011 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. 2011. Raw data. Factfinder2.census.gov, n.p.

“Store Locator.” Starbucks.com. Starbucks Coffee Company, n.d. Web. <http://www.starbucks.com/store-locator>.

“Subway Map.” Map. Mta.info. Metropolitan Transit Authority, n.d. Web. <http://www.mta.info/maps/submap.html>.

“Things to Do in West Village: Local Arts and Culture.” Timeout.com. Time Out New York, n.d. Web. <http://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/things-to-do-in-west-village-local-arts-and-culture>.

“Welcome to CBST, The LGBTQ Synagogue.” CBST.org. Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, n.d. Web. <http://www.cbst.org/About>.

“West Village Real Estate.” NYTimes.com. New York Times, n.d. Web. <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/realestate/neighborhood/ny/new_york/new_york/west_village/index.html>.