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The Bowery Boys: New York City History

#481 How The West Village Became A Neighborhood (The Streets of the West Village Part 2)

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.73.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2026

⏱️ 86 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Speakeasies, subways and smoky jazz clubs come to the early 20th century West Village.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

On Sunday, May 9, 1886, a small article appeared on page 5 of the New York Sun, entitled

0:10.2

Goodbye Village Inn, destruction of a fine and famous old landmark of the 9th Ward.

0:17.7

When C-Captain Faulkner's three brick buildings were erected in 1832 at the corner of Hudson and Bank streets,

0:24.9

they were the pride and glory of Greenwich Village.

0:28.5

There were handsome gardens then at the backs of those houses.

0:32.0

On what is now Greenwich streets bordering of a territory of small houses and shops, stables, low

0:39.1

and broad factories, bad smells, and planing machines that buzz continually all the long

0:46.1

and dreary day.

0:49.0

Greenwich Village in 1832 was the choicest dwelling ground on all Manhattan Island. Almost all who lived there

0:57.8

owned their own houses, had their own wells, the cold crystalline water of which was famous,

1:04.2

and had their own pretty little gardens full of sweet old-fashioned floral favorites. The dreamy restfulness of the

1:13.3

Hollanders who founded the old village still lingered in its atmosphere. The building of Captain

1:20.3

Faulkner's houses amazed the villagers and attracted people from far and near to gaze upon

1:26.6

the strange sight they're presented.

1:29.1

It was not only that they were such big, strong, and handsome houses,

1:34.0

but there was just so much surprising style in their construction.

1:38.6

The frontage of the three houses was on Hudson Street,

1:42.7

or rather on Abington Square, to which they more properly

1:46.8

belonged and on which they were numbered. Every door in them from cellar to roof was made of solid

1:53.3

mahogany and every mantle of massive white marble. During 40 years, the corner house has been a tavern known as the Village Inn,

2:03.8

a fine, respectable, old-fashioned sort of place of social enjoyment. The house next to it has been

2:09.9

for a number of years occupied by a tenant who formerly let out rooms for lodgings, and lately

...

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