Things to do nearGreenwich Village

Greenwich Village takes its name from a colonial-era village that predates Manhattan's famous street grid, which is why its lanes curve and intersect at odd angles unlike almost anywhere else in the borough. By the early twentieth century it had become a refuge for artists and free thinkers priced out of more fashionable addresses, and that reputation only deepened through the Beat generation of the 1950s and the folk boom of the 1960s, when venues along Bleecker and MacDougal Streets launched careers that would define American music.

At the heart of the neighborhood, Washington Square Park serves as a communal living room, anchored by its famous marble arch and ringed by NYU buildings and Federal-style rowhouses. A short walk west along the Hudson waterfront leads to Hudson River Park, where cyclists and joggers share miles of green space with sweeping views of New Jersey across the water.

The dining scene ranges from decades-old Italian red-sauce joints to acclaimed modern restaurants tucked into landmarked townhouses. The Whitney Museum of American Art, just at the neighborhood's northern edge, anchors a serious cultural offering that complements the Village's many small galleries and performance spaces.

What makes Greenwich Village worth a long visit is the layering of history onto a neighborhood that still feels lived-in and evolving, a rare quality in any world city.