The Village

Starred review from April 15, 2013
In this sprawling, crowded, biography on one of New York City's more alluring and storied neighborhoods, former New York Times commentator Strausbaugh traces the history of Greenwich Village from its beginning as bucolic countryside to its current incarnation as both tourist destination and astringent residence for the elite. In between, Strausbaugh introduces a dizzying array of historical figures and events so salacious the book reads more like one long gossip column full of sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, art, music, the mob, and more. None of this is a bad thing; for long stretches, the pages practically turn themselves. Along the way, readers are fed fascinating little tidbits and images: Washington Square Park as a boggy mass grave site for the city's paupers and Yellow fever victims, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and her sister Norma teaching themselves to swear while darning socks, a drunk Jackson Pollock's frequent violent outbursts at the Cedar Street Tavern, and much, much more. No citation will do the book justice; it deserves to be read while walking below 14th Street silently mourning the loss of a neighborhood that has given so much by way of art and culture.

April 15, 2013

More than a geographical location, New York City's Greenwich Village represents a state of mind--one generally associated with creativity, rebellion, and bohemianism. In this sweeping study, Strausbaugh (Black Like You) acknowledges these themes as he traces the history of the Village from its early settlement in the 1600s to the present day. He examines its role in the arts within the context of broader issues and periods such as Prohibition, World War II, McCarthyism, organized crime, and gay liberation. Among the writers, artists, and musicians discussed are Amy Lowell, Maxwell Bodenheim, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, Charlie Parker, Bob Dylan, and Edward Albee; portraits from other walks of life include Vincent "Chin" Giganti, Ed Koch, and Jane Jacobs. It is the greater emphasis on political and sociological issues as well as a wider time frame that sets this book apart from earlier works such as Ross Wetzsteon's Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village; The American Bohemia, 1910-1960. VERDICT The most comprehensive, up-to-date history of Greenwich Village, this book will appeal to a wide audience, particularly those interested in an interdisciplinary approach to the subject.--William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2013
Cultural journalist Strausbaugh (Sissy Nation, 2008), a man of rattling opinions, makes all the legends about Greenwich Village and its bohemians new and vital in his sizzling and capacious history, by virtue of his archaeologically deep and patient research, vigorous style, and keen admiration for those who made the Village a world-altering cultural engine. He has retrieved stories of the forgotten and the famous, from the African Americans who farmed the bucolic land in the 1600s to such luminaries as Margaret Sanger, Edna St. Vincent Millay, James Baldwin, Jackson Pollock, and Bob Dylan. Strausbaugh cleverly anchors each phase in his ever-branching chronicle to the hot spot of the time, from Pfaff's, in Walt Whitman's era, to the White Horse Tavern, where Dylan Thomas downed his last whiskey; the Cedar Street Tavern, hangout of the abstract expressionists; and the writers' bar, the Lion's Head, where Norman Mailer held court. Strausbaugh goes into astounding detail in his coverage of the Village's radical politics and quest for sexual freedom, paying particular attention to its thriving homosexual community. Though now, as Strausbaugh duly records, the Village is a sanitized bastion of the wealthy, in its golden days, its diverse artists collided and fused like subatomic particles in an accelerator, unleashing an explosion of creativity that is still sending out shock waves.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)