For decades, artistically inclined individuals have flocked to Greenwich Village – known colloquially to New York natives as “The Village” – for its reputation as a haven for those who appreciate everything that is liberal, aesthetic, and avant-garde. The Village is considered one of the foremost “bohemian” communities in the United States, as it has been dominated by poets, writers, artists, and musicians since the turn of the 20th century. Popular artistic movements in the area include those of the beat generation poets in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, the folk musicians of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and the countercultural rock artists of the 1960’s.
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As perhaps the most tolerant community on the eastern seaboard, Greenwich Village emerged as the city’s first “homosexual” enclave at around the middle of the 20th century, its heart located at the Stonewall Inn at Christopher Street: a location that perpetuated the gay rights movement following an altercation between gay men and the police who harassed them.
As HIV was rampant amongst the gay community, the AIDS epidemic hit The Village particularly hard. The 1980’s in The Village was a decade marked by the deaths of many young homosexual men; 30% of all AIDS victimes were residents of New York. Thankfully, with the release of anti-retroviral treatment methods, the AIDS epidemic was put to an end by the close of the millenium and The Village once again became a lively epicenter of gay culture.
