Greenwich Village Walking Tour | Free Tours by Foot

the crust becomes nice and crispy, so it's not appropriate to take it and reheat it like you do with a slice in front of us fail and fail opened in 1900, this delicatessen makes its own homemade sausages and sauces arancini the rice balls for which Its Italian heroes are known, all those sausages cut into soft rolls and nice bread with pizza dough. New York City is different from other cities. The water comes here through stone viaducts so that the water collects the minerals from the stone and produce pies that are nice crispy crusts doughy interior across the street is rocco's and rocco's is famous for their cannolis when you walk in and order your cannoli that's when they put the regatta filling inside most bakeries they fill their dough first thing in the morning in the morning they leave them sitting there soaked not in rocco to our right is the church and school of our lady of Pompeii and I said Italian section, two blocks up is the Roman Catholic church of Saint Joseph in the school this is the Italian school The one in San Jose was for the Irish immigrants and up here on the corner I go To show you Joe's pizzeria, Joe's makes Roman style pizza with a very thin crust, their sauce is slightly sweet, I tell everyone to come down, stop at Joe's , have a slice, eat it while you walk to Bleecker Street, grab a slice of pizza and then come back and tell me. which one do you like more slices don't sit in new york city with a fork and a knife to eat pizza you take that slice you fold it in half you take that point turn it over take your napkins and put them here because all that wonderful olive oil with herbs and spices it's going to run through your hand you want all that because that's where the flavor is we're crossing sixth avenue we're going to enter the beatnik and rock and roll section of

greenwich

village

beats were those beat nyx poets were the nyu students who hung out in coffee shops with the poets headed to mineta street this was originally a creek came from 23rd street it went all the way to the hudson river so the farms were here originally because they were able to use the water from the creek after they stopped cultivate nyu built their buildings and said they filled the stream, but the people who live here will tell you we have a day of constant rain, they can hear the stream running under the street on youtube.

I can find videos where they went and picked up the manhole covers and they show you the creek, the brick building across the street that was used in the surprise movie, that's what they used as their apartment building, this is what which they used to call little Africa. When they banned slavery in New York, this is where former slaves came to live and then after the civil war,

free

d slaves came to find work and settled in this neighborhood. Moore kept piling up, there wasn't enough room for them, they started moving north on Manhattan Island, they headed to Harlem, so the church moved to Harlem.

The people followed their shepherds. In 1910, we had fewer than 600 African Americans living in this neighborhood. This neighborhood is now full of clubs. This is the famous hua the cafe. The owner called it cafe wah with a question mark because his grandmother, a Russian immigrant, didn't understand much English, so when someone talked to him about something he didn't know the answer to, he would just say what Bob Dylan first performed here . The night he came to New York City he played harmonica with the house band Jimi Hendrix Bruce Springsteen across the street is the Mineta Tavern which was the hangout of Hemingway Fitzgerald Theodore Drizer and later became the venue frequented by Jack Kerouac Dylan Thomas today it is famous for its 33 dollar hamburger and across the street the green and white banner that says up and up that used to be the home of the gaslight cafe bob dylan joni mitchell made its debut in new york city there richie bruce springsteen haunts today you might recognize him from the tv show the wonderful lady maisel ma   moons our first falafel restaurant in new york city and then cafe reggio cafe reggio first cappuccino restaurant in new York they actually have a cappuccino machine that dates back to 1905.

In the corner you will see Nyu Law School University of New York Nyu is the largest private university in the United States there are over 50,000 students on this campus and they have several campus throughout the city you will see purple and white banners as we go through this area, all say nyu, the campus actually surrounds the entire washington square park, on the left is the provincial theater. It's hot and humid here in New York City in the summers of the early 20th century, writers, artists, musicians and actors headed to Provincetown on Cape Cod. They escaped the heat but got bored, started putting on skits to entertain themselves, returned to New York City and they opened the Provincetown Theater and that's where Betty Davis made her stage debut, she was one of the original Provincetown performers.

We head to Washington Square Park, we go to the section where the chess players sit. The movie Finding Bobby Fischer was actually filmed in this section of the park. The movie The Queen's Gambit has made chess popular again. You will see people here enjoying themselves. a game i just know it costs money to play them originally this was a swamp the minetta stream ran through the swamp and we had mass graves here smallpox yellow fever cholera outbreaks the rich built their greek style row houses on the north side of the swamp so the town decided to turn this into a military parade ground, they paved the top of the swamp and brought in the artillery that sank it.

It's a swamp with bones underneath, they had to excavate everything, they tell us they found ten thousand. and twenty thousand bodies buried here, after they cleaned it up, they're turning it into a formal park and they realized they were approaching the 100th anniversary of George Washington taking the oath of office on the balcony of City Hall on Wall Street, so they dedicated the park to George Washington and hired Stanford White, the famous New York City architect, to build a wooden arch over Fifth Avenue. The wooden arch became so popular three years later that Stanford White was hired to build the marble arch based on the Arc de Triomphe.

In Paris, George Washington has two statues in front of Fifth Avenue, one is a general and the other is a statesman. The arch will appear in television shows and movies, letting you know you are in New York City and in various television shows and movies. They have shown this park in August They are in the corner of that building They are looking towards the fountain The fountain was the entertainment mascot when Harry met Sally Meg Ryan stops right in front of the arch and lets Billy Crystal out car I am legend will smith he uses number 11 across the street as his laboratory and then we are bare

foot

in the park robert redford and jane fonda good morning you walk into the park there will be musicians there will be people sometimes protesting about different things en There are always a lot of activities going on here in Washington Square Park.

Now I hope you enjoyed this

tour

. I gave you a brief synopsis of Greenwich Village. Hopefully you will come to New York City and take the full two hour

tour

with me at the end of this tour I also hope you leave me a tip. We will provide you with my PayPal and Venmo address. If you have questions, feel

free

to email me. I'll always be happy to try. To help you come to New York, take our many

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