I consider myself the foremost historian on life in Greenwich Village in the Fifties and sixties. Many of my younger years were spent observing and enjoying its night life. After finishing my factory job at midnight I unwound by drinking beer with the out of town visitors. They were an interesting bunch of guys and gals. They all came to New York looking for a new kind of sexual experience it was one that was not available in their hometown. They found what they were looking for in Greenwich Village. That crowd was called by the writers of that era: “Beatniks”, they also were called: “The Beat Generation”.

The village in the early fifties was a low rent neighborhood occupied by Italian-American families and college students from nearby New York University. The students socialized in Washington Square Park and in the many coffee shops scattered around the area. It was a quiet picturesque scene as young people studied, relaxed and chatted in coffee shops and in the park. What made the area stand out most was that it was an inexpensive place for college students to spend their time. On the weekends the coffee shops and parks were full of hundreds of thousands of young students who wanted to experience its lay back atmosphere.