1968 – 2007
Actually lived in 3 Washington Sq. Village for almost 40 years. My youngest son was brought home from birth to that residence. My oldest, was in the first kindergarten class at P.S. 3.
Mother, potter, art teacher, mediator for the Brooklyn courts, NYU administrator
Living in the Village was my dream come true. Washington Sq. Village was rented as luxury housing when we moved there in 1968. My 2BR/2Bath apt. cost $325 per mo. which was outrageously expensive for those days. Didn’t know how I’d pay the rent. I miss the surprises – – the possibilities around the corner, the treasures tossed and found on the street curbs, the people who struggled to make SoHo artist residences legal, the shops and galleries which slowly planted their roots … the excitement of watching Picasso’s Bust of Sylvette being erected across the street from my apartment building… the freedom of having the NYU baseball field available for kids (and adults) to play without supervision. . . the Bleecker St. movie theater. . . the feeling of living in an atmosphere filled with creativity sprouting in exhibits, galleries, gardens and the energy and excitement of living right below Washington Sq. Park – a festival – day and night.
I miss it all!
The day and years following the day that Etan Patz was abducted on his way to P.S. 3, while my sons were also attending that school, stays as a vivid jarring, alarming time for many in this close knit artsy/university community of the 1970s.
Left because NYU policy which would not permit employee/residents to remain in NYU housing after retirement.
I’m happy to have been part of SoHo in its beginnings, its middle and its peak. Today the preponderance of overvalued commercial enterprises – the CVSs and the Duane Reades – making the Village and SoHo a sorry reminder of the good ol’ days.