Sunday, December 2, 2007

Greenwich Village 1960


As a kid the only thing the Village meant to me was a subway ride to West 4th Street with my mother. She would get shoes at a store on 6th Ave near the movie theater. I believe they were water buffalos. Who knew that the village would become just about the hippest place on the planet. Later my father was a frequent visitor to the art show. He always believed he had artistic talents whether it was singing, acting, or painting. He wasn't half bad with the first two, but painting..... He would very proud of my daughter Emma's acting. She has a big part in her high school's production of "David and Lisa" this week
Great scenes here of street play. From the film's description at the prelinger archives
In this film we follow a prim young woman in white gloves as she explores Greenwich Village on a Sunday afternoon. She walks off the Fifth Avenue bus at Washington Square and straight into a "hootenanny." This is a corny, but charming look at the Village in the early sixties in the transitional period between the "beat' generation and the rise of the later sixties counter-culture. The best scenes are when we actually hear the folksingers singing bluegrass tunes around the Washington Square fountain and the beat poet reading in a grubby coffeehouse. These scenes have real documentary value. The film's use of actors to try to create a story gives it an amateurish feeling, but that same amateurism is what also gives the film its charm. It was nice to see the old Italian Greenwich Village with the street market and the stickball and bocce players, who are now long gone. The Greenwich Village portrayed here looks like a shabby, tolerant place where ordinary people could afford to live. Alas, that is no more.

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