Greenwich Village is a residential neighborhood with restaurants and shopping on the west side of southern Manhattan. Find a Greenwich Village apartment with Think Real Estate.
Greenwich Village, also called simply the Village, is a largely residential area on the west side of downtown (southern) Manhattan in New York City named after Greenwich, London. Greenwich Village is generally known as an important landmark on the map of bohemian culture. The neighborhood is known for its colorful, artistic residents and the alternative culture they propagate. Due in part to the progressive attitudes of many of its residents, the Village has traditionally been a focal point of new movements and ideas, whether political, artistic, or cultural. This tradition as an enclave of avant-garde and alternative culture was established by the beginning of the 20th century when small presses, art galleries, and experimental theater thrived. Currently, artists and local historians bemoan the fact that the bohemian days of Greenwich Village are long gone, because of the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood. The artists have fled to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Long Island City, and New Jersey. Nevertheless, residents of Greenwich Village still possess a strong community identity and are proud of their neighborhood's unique history and fame, and its well-known liberal live-and-let-live attitudes. Indeed, its cultural uniqueness and apartness are felt so strongly, and so many of its residents' lives are so locally focused, that it is sometimes said thereabouts that "upstate" New York is anywhere north of 14th Street. Greenwich Village is now home to many celebrities, including actress Uma Thurman and Barbara Pierce Bush, the daughter of U.S. President George W. Bush, who both live on West Ninth Street. Greenwich Village includes the primary campus for New York University (NYU), The New School, and Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Cooper Union is located in neighboring East Village... more