Oh how I love Greenwich Village. It looks like Diagon Alley, it has the greatest mushroom ravioli ever, and most importantly for this blog, it’s known for its beautiful architecture. As Eric and Kayde mentioned, we decided it would be fun to meet up on Friday night by Washington Square Park’s famous arch, which is the most prominent work of art in the entire Village. The arch, a monument built to honor the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of our first president, was clearly inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing both in my life, and the one major difference is that Napoleon insisted that the names of all the places he conquered were carved into the sides of his arch, whereas G-Dubs was both a more humble man and quite dead by the time his arch was built. Nevertheless, it’s an incredibly beautiful piece of architecture and it makes me really happy that New York has its own little slice of Paris right in the Village. (Ever since I went in April, I’m kind of obsessed with Paris. Does somebody want to be like Helen in Bridesmaids and take me back?)
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One of the things that struck me about Greenwich Village is that even though it has a reputation as an artsy neighborhood, there is actually very little traditional art there! When we infiltrated NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, one of the students actually told us that when he thinks of art in the area, he thinks of Chelsea. As he put it, most of the art galleries have moved out of the Village to Chelsea because the rent in the Village is 2 DAMN HIGH. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist…is that guy even still relevant anymore?) But even though it doesn’t really have any galleries, the Village still does earn its reputation as an artsy neighborhood because of the architecture of its beautiful buildings, many of which are owned by NYU. I thought their student union was particularly pretty—you can see it in the background behind the fountain.
However, it’s not just the architecture that makes the Village artsy. To get out of the cold for a few minutes we went into one of the local university cafés, and a young man we interviewed there mentioned that every morning on one of the nearby streets a man with curly hair just sits and paints all day (see Eric’s blog for the video). When we came back into the park we ran into NYU’s theater group rehearsing in full early 20th century attire for a play about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Also, earlier in the evening when I was walking around the Village with my dad, we spotted two street performers playing a violin duet. So you see, a lot of the art we found was not the type of art that usually comes to mind! But maybe that was the reason why I enjoyed myself so much in Greenwich Village—rather than the art being contained in a gallery, the fact that it was literally built into the neighborhood via the architecture really makes the Village feel like a living, breathing piece of art. (Although, like Kayde said—good luck finding anything there, unless you happen to be looking for a giant, white, illuminated arch)
