West Village
The West Village is part of Manhattan Community District 2, and is patrolled by the 6th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.
[2] Residential property sale prices in West Village are among the most expensive in the United States, typically exceeding US$2,100 per square foot ($23,000/m2) in 2017.
More than 50 blocks, bordering 14th Street to the north, comprise a historic district established by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
However, preservationists advocated for the entire neighborhood to be designated a historic district; although it covers most of the West Village, the blocks closest to the Hudson River are excluded.
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the architectural and cultural character and heritage of the neighborhood, successfully proposed new districts and individual landmarks to the LPC.
Those include:[8] In addition, several contextual rezonings were enacted in Greenwich Village in recent years to limit the size and height of allowable new development in the neighborhood, and to encourage the preservation of existing buildings.
The following were proposed by the GVSHP and passed by the City Planning Commission: The West Village historically was known as an important landmark on the map of American bohemian culture in the early and mid-twentieth century.
Due in part to the progressive attitudes of many of its residents, the Village was a focal point of new movements and ideas, whether political, artistic, or cultural.
A landmark in Greenwich Village's cultural landscape, it was built as a farm silo in 1817, and also served as a tobacco warehouse and box factory before Edna St. Vincent Millay and other members of the Provincetown Players converted the structure into a theatre they christened the Cherry Lane Playhouse, which opened on March 24, 1924, with the play The Man Who Ate the Popomack.
On January 8, 1947, stevedore Andy Hintz was fatally shot by hitmen John M. Dunn, Andrew Sheridan and Danny Gentile in front of his apartment on Grove Street.
[17] The Village hosted the first racially integrated night club in the United States,[18] when Café Society was opened in 1938 at 1 Sheridan Square[19] by Barney Josephson.
Notable performers there included among others: Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Burl Ives, Lead Belly, Anita O'Day, Charlie Parker, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Paul Robeson, Kay Starr, Art Tatum, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Josh White, Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, and The Weavers, who also in Christmas 1949, played at the Village Vanguard.
Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of the West Village neighborhood tabulation area was 66,880, a change of −1,603 (−2.4%) from the 68,483 counted in 2000.
[30] The approximate residential population in the West Village is 34,000 people based on seven 2010 Census Tracts for Manhattan Community District 2.
[63][64] Other notable actors who formerly lived or currently reside in the neighborhood include Matthew Broderick, Scarlett Johansson, Ray Romano, Jason Biggs, Ryan Eggold, Andy Samberg, Claire Danes, Hugh Dancy, Will Ferrell,[65] Jill Hennessy, Seth Meyers, Julianne Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker, Brooke Shields,[66] Liv Tyler,[67][68] Saoirse Ronan,[69] Karlie Kloss, and musician/actor Richard Barone.
[70] Ramsey Clark, Attorney General under Lyndon B. Johnson, activist and founder of the International Action Center, lived here as well.
