Nest Seekers International

Greenwich Village

If there’s one thing on which (most) New Yorkers agree, it’s that "The Village" is still very much where it's at.

Originally the site of a Dutch tobacco plantation--and then several acres of British farmland--this broad swath of what’s now considered Downtown Manhattan covers virtually the width of the island, from 14th Street to the north to Houston Street to the south. From the late 19th-century to the present day, Greenwich Village has attracted a remarkable assortment of well-known (and not so well-known) writers, musicians, artists and revolutionaries. At one time or another, Washington Irving, Henry James, Edgar Allen Poe, Eugene O'Neill, Norman Rockwell, Jackson Pollack, Allen Ginsberg, Barbra Streisand and Bruce Springsteen all wrote, played, painted, filmed and/or lived in the Village...not to mention, of course, Bob Dylan, who made an early living (and name for himself) in the clubs and cafes around Bleecker Street.

Almost no high-rise buildings can be found along the quiet, tree-lined streets of the area, particularly in the West Village, and in the immediate vicinity of Washington Square Park. Geographically at the neighborhood’s center, the park is ringed by elegant 19th-century townhouses on the north end, and the buildings and housing of New York University to the south, east and west. Inside, around the fountain and the famous Washington Square Arch, students and street performers mix, as they’ve been doing for decades, with fellow bohemians, families and tourists, the odd celebrity or two…and celebrate the almost European-feeling joie de vivre that makes this creatively diverse, gentile and charming "village" in New York City such a coveted and sought-after neighborhood option.