I watched the screener of the Coen Brothers' film Inside Llewyn Davis in December of 2013...a couple of days later I watched it again.
Not only did I love this movie that two of my all time favorite filmmakers put together, but I was fascinated about this brief but groundbreaking time in American pop music history. The year that the film was set in was circa 1961. Place: Greenwich Village (West Village), New York City. Having been obsessed with other places from important time periods in music history (see previous blogs), this particular time has evaded me up until this point. I am a fair weather fan of Bob Dylan (mostly earlier stuff, Blood on the Tracks...), and appreciate folk music, as it's inspired some of my favorite singer-songwriters like Jeff Buckley, Ryan Adams, Kristin Hersh, and more. But I didn't know much about it, and I especially didn't know about it's "birth" onto the popular culture scene from the coffee shops of the West Village in the early 1960's.
Although it really wasn't a "birth" per se, more like a "re-birth". See, folk music had always been around going back to when the six string was first invented. But for some reason, at this particular time and and in this particular place, it was dusted off and pushed it into the mainstream. Here's a few pics of my 3 days in "the Village".
I stayed a small boutique hotel on the Hudson River called The Jane Hotel.
Not only did the Jane have the historical significance of being the hotel that the survivors of the Titanic were taken to when they arrived in NYC aboard the Carpathia in 1912. There's not much there to notate this fact except for this faded, ineligible plaque on the floor (thanks to scoutingNY.com for a pic that was much better than mine).
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| View from the hallway window of the Freedom Tower... |
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| Breakfast in their restaurant |
The hallway which coincidentally looked A LOT like the innards of a turn of the century cruising vessel. Probably not what the survivors wanted to see after their tragic experience in the North Atlantic a few nights prior.
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| My "cabin" room. Again with the nautical themes.... |
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| "Cabin" door |
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| Absolutely beautiful ballroom downstairs which is now a very popular speakeasy themed nightclub. |
What's even MORE interesting about this place is that back in the early 1990's when the area was crime and drug ridden, this ballroom was an operational theater. It happened to be the first location of the John Cameron Mitchell's masterpiece "Hedwig and the Angry Inch".
Greenwich Village's "main street" is MacDougal Street, which borders Washington Sq. Park on the west. I went looking for the site of the legendary Gaslight Cafe which was the real life setting in the movie. It was located at 116 MacDougal St. The location now is tucked between a Vietnamese restaurant and an espresso bar (with an ATM thrown in) so it was quite hard to find unless you really look. But one look at a picture from the Gaslight in 1961 and it was easy to match up which stairwell served as the entrance to the notable coffeehouse.
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| The Gaslight Cafe, 1961 |
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| Same location - September, 2014 |
Another location from the movie was Caffe Reggio. I actually happened upon this by accident. On my last night in the Village, I went out and decided to stop in to this fantastic little old school Italian coffee house. I ordered a cappuccino and a cannoli and sat outside and watched the activity of a late a summer evening. I took a few pics and reveled in the authenticity of the spot. It wasn't until I returned home and watched the movie again for the third time that I realized that Caffe Reggio was used as a prime location in the film.
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| Scene from Inside Llewyn Davis |
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| Caffe Reggio |
A trip to Greenwich Village would in no way be complete with a trip the Comedy Cellar and to pay homage to opne of the greatest men to ever walk the earth - Louis C.K. No, he was not performing that night, (although he still does occasionally to hone new material), but I caught a couple of small acts...
and of course grabbed a slice of pizza at Ben's pizzeria next door...
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| Louis was not there, nor was there a guy flipping me off as I took pics. Unfortunately for both... |
After 3 days in Greenwich I decided that from now on I will return to NYC at least once a year and pick a different neighborhood each year to explore.
