I never even went to Jekyll & Hyde's restaurant. I loved the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, though.
I live in New York City, and one day many years ago I was with a poet, Gregory Corso, walking through Greenwich Village. He pointed to a doorway in an alley that he said led to a tunnel under Manhattan, a tunnel he'd use to run from the cops. I started learning about old Prohibition-era speakeasy tunnels under the city, for running whiskey.
Greenwich Village always had its share of mind readers, but there are many more these days, and they seem to have moved closer to the mainstream of life in the city. What was crazy 10 years ago is now respectable, even among the best-educated New Yorkers.
My father was a golden boy from a very small town. He won a very prestigious law scholarship to NYU Law School, and there in Greenwich Village, he met my mother, who was very young, fresh off the boat from Germany.
My look was even more solidified when I started singing in Greenwich Village with my sister Lucy. We wore matching dresses as the Simon Sisters.
I live in Greenwich Village in New York City, but I rarely write at home, where there's too much else to do.
When I was 18, I lived in Greenwich Village, New York, for nine months. At that time, I wanted to change the world, not through architecture, but through painting. I lived the artist's life, mingling with poets and writers, and working as a waiter. I was intrigued by the aliveness of the city.
Franz Kline, who became known for his black and white paintings, did a whole series of gorgeous landscapes and wonderful portraits that may still hang in Greenwich Village.
I did not have a mobile phone in 1993. No one did, except the occasional banker or Hollywood star seeming smart, or the main character in 'American Psycho.' In 1993, every day was 'let's get lost.' I could walk Greenwich Village for hours and not be found.
Dave Van Ronk, for those who don't know him - probably most don't know - was a folk singer. He's kind of the biggest person on the scene in 1961 in the folk revival in Greenwich Village, biggest person on the scene until Bob Dylan showed up.
