THE EAST VILLAGE WALK

Half a century ago, there was no “East Village.” Oh, it was there – but everyone knew this neighborhood merely as the northern part of the Lower East Side. It was home to Ukrainian social clubs, German shooting societies, Russian steam baths and radicals of several stripes. Beginning in the 60s,successive waves of hippies and yippies found cheap housing in the area called Alphabet City. Soon, this became downtown’s trendiest neighborhood, popular with avant-garde painters, poets and theater people. But gentrification in recent years has again brought remarkable transformation.

During this two-hour stroll, we’ll see what remains of the old Yiddish theater district, the 1833 Greek mansions along Lafayette Street where Dickens, Irving and Thackeray were houseguests, locations frequented by Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs, a residence that once sheltered homeless newsboys, lots of quirky signage, some bizarrely decorated community gardens, the corner where George and Ira Gershwin grew up, New York’s oldest church, the sites of both the Opera House riot and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster, a municipal park long favored by malcontents and the graveyard where they buried Preserved Fish. 

Jazz has long felt at home in the East Village, too. Our walk passes such choice spots as a landmarked Charlie Parker residence, several Mingus hangouts and clubs like Slug’s, Detour, CBGB, Fez, the Five Spot, the original Jazz Gallery, Gerde’s Folk City, the Fillmore East and the Electric Circus.

Want to schedule an East Village tour? Contact SwingStreets for details.