Gaslight cafe now12/16/2023 ![]() ![]() I popped in to its very comfortable lobby for coffee and a flick through its copy of John Strausbaugh's The Village: 400 years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues. Sean MacPherson, who owns the stylish Bowery and Jane hotels nearby, has just reopened the building as the Parisian-inspired Marlton Hotel ( ). Jack Kerouac wrote The Subterraneans and Tristessa while living here and, in a darker episode, Valerie Solanas was staying in room 214 in 1968, when she became infamous for stalking and then shooting Andy Warhol. Bikes are not officially allowed inside the square, but there are Citibike stations around it, so it's easy to park and walk around.Ī block north of the park, on West 8th Street, is a historic 107-room property once known as Marlton House and home to many writers and poets, who were attracted by relatively cheap rates and the bohemian neighbourhood. When I visited on a sunny but cold December day, there was only one musician, a saxophonist, playing under Washington Square's stone arch, but at weekends the park fills with rap and jazz musicians playing to tourists and students. The hero of the Coens' film is not Van Ronk, according to Wald, but he does sing some Van Ronk songs and shares his working-class background. ![]() According to folk singer and historian Elijah Wald, the ballad and blues singers who sat around the fountain in the park created sounds that would influence artists from Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez to folk-rock groups the Lovin' Spoonful, the Byrds and the Mamas and the Papas. The real centre of the folk scene back then, however, was Washington Square, where musicians would gather on Sundays to swap ideas, learn new material and play. It is still a popular music venue, with a house band playing five nights a week. A notice on the door catalogues a few of the famous names who played here: Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Havens, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and the Velvet Underground. Cafe Wha? continued to attract artists and musicians long after the Village folk scene gave way to rock'n'roll. It was here that Bob Dylan made his New York debut, and Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac performed. In the bitter winter of 1961, when the Coen brothers movie is set, cash-strapped artists similar to Davis would take their chances at the open mic. The original Cafe Wha? remains at 115 MacDougal Street, on the corner of Minetta Lane. It was here, myth has it, that the writer had been drinking in November 1953, before he was rushed to hospital from his room at the Chelsea Hotel, and died a few days later.įolk singer Dave Van Ronk, the inspiration for the Llewyn Davis character. ![]() It was used by New York's literary community in the 1950s – most notably Welsh bard Dylan Thomas. The White Horse Tavern, built in 1880, still stands on the corner of Hudson Street and 11th. ![]() It is the hub of New York University's campus and many of the bars, falafel joints and pizza houses are priced for students, with $2 beers thrown in.īut several older venues still exist, including the Bitter End, which staged folk "hootenannies" every Tuesday and now calls itself New York's oldest rock club". On MacDougal Street, a jumble of comedy cellars, theatres and cheap eateries have mostly replaced the old, liquorless cafes and basement bars of the folk scene. From there, it's a short cycle along Christopher Street, up Hudson and along West 10th, to Bleecker Street, where designer boutiques such as Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors and Lulu Guinness mark the area's steep gentrification. Cycle or walk to the end of the boardwalk that juts out into the Hudson, facing Hoboken, New Jersey, and look to your left and you can see the Statue of Liberty. Looking south you can see One World Trade Center: at 541m, it's now the tallest building in the western hemisphere. I picked up a bike outside Franklin Street subway station, south of the Village in Tribeca, and headed out to the river, at Pier 45. ![]()
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