Living In - The West Village: Bohemian Past, Lofty Prices

719 GREENWICH STREET, #3S A three-bedroom three-bath co-op with 13 windows, listed at $5.395 million. [Michael Johnson, Hayim Nommaz, Corcoran] (646) 436-6453 / Alan Chin for The New York Times

Slide Show | Living in the West Village Cobblestone streets and small cafes predominate in many areas of the West Village, where about 80 percent of the neighborhood has landmark status.

The West Village of Manhattan is a place “where the streets are so tiny, so isolated from the hubbub of the rest of the city, they have managed to stay trapped in a time warp,” said Barry Benepe, an architect and urban planner who has rented an apartment on Jane Street since 1971 and was a founder of the city’s Greenmarket movement in 1976. Landmark designations have helped to maintain the human scale, he said. About 80 percent of the West Village has landmark status, said Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

The timeless tranquillity is pierced, however, by crowds of visitors inspired by television shows filmed in the neighborhood. Foreign tourists asking for directions “can say ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Friends,’ even if they can barely speak English,” said Pat Gross, a resident. Some complain about the intrusion, but Ms. Gross, who has lived in a two-bedroom condominium on Avenue of the Americas for 31 years, likes the activity. “It gives you a chance to meet people from all over the world,” she said.

Many longtime residents are concerned that the area’s charms and its vivid bohemian past have made it a less affordable place to live. “The prices are insane,” said Susanna Aaron, who was born in the West Village and has lived most of her life there, now in a townhouse with her husband and two teenage sons. She still loves the area, though. “It retains some of its legacy,” she said. “There is still value placed on the arts, and value on diversity. There is still a distrust of authority and a distrust of money, even though the neighborhood has gotten so tony.”

When Elaine Young, a retired teacher and real estate broker, moved to Jane Street from Long Island in 1986, she thought it was “a cool place to live, especially if you are gay,” as she is. The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street that is now a city and national landmark, is where patrons fought back against a police raid in 1969, making it a crucial site in the modern gay rights movement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These days, the demographics have changed somewhat, partly because other neighborhoods have become more welcoming to gay residents, said Ms. Young, who bought her two-bedroom apartment in 1998 for $350,000. The West Village is attracting more families, she said, as well as “successful young people in financial services, and a lot of high-tech people.”

Among the newcomers is James Carmichael, who with his wife, Jill, bought a two-bedroom two-bath co-op two years ago for $1.8 million. Mr. Carmichael, an investment banker, and his wife, an internal consultant for an insurance company, recently had their first child, Henry.

Before they moved here, they lived in a rental in TriBeCa, and often “ended up in restaurants in the West Village,” Mr. Carmichael said. “Now we can walk to them.” They also wanted to stay near Hudson River Park, where they run, and near the 2 and 3 subway lines, which they take to work.

Mr. Carmichael said he had recently started bicycling downtown, using Citi Bike, and taking the subway home. He has noticed “a nice playground at Hudson and Horatio,” he said. “It will be great for Henry when he gets a little bigger.”

What You’ll Find

Though definitions vary, one commonly accepted set of boundaries for the West Village is from West Houston Street to West 14th Street and from Avenue of the Americas to the Hudson River. That includes the Meatpacking District, home to the new Whitney Museum of American Art and the beginning of the High Line. Few people live in that area, however.

Most residents, to the south and east, occupy low-rise historic buildings and a few newer buildings that have been built in areas that lack landmark status. Still being completed is the Greenwich Lane, a condominium and townhouse complex along Seventh Avenue between West 11th and West 12th Streets, on the site of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital. The hospital’s closing in 2010 caused much consternation among residents, who successfully lobbied for renovating some older buildings instead of replacing them all.

Cobblestone streets and small cafes predominate in many areas, but there is variety. The West Village “is lots and lots of small neighborhoods,” said David Gruber, the owner of a real estate brokerage bearing his name and a former chairman of the local Community Board 2. He has lived there for more than 35 years.

What You’ll Pay

“Who doesn’t love the West Village?” said John W. Chang, the lead broker at the Re/Max Midtown office. Prices reflect that popularity, which Mr. Chang attributed in part to the allure of celebrity residents and TV exposure. The average price of a co-op studio in the first half of 2015 was $823,400, and the average studio condo cost $1.1 million, he said. Prices have been rising steadily for all sizes of apartments for the last several years, he added, at rates higher than Manhattan in general — 7 percent to 8 percent annually compared with 6 percent to 7 percent. Low inventory, because of the low density in historic areas and paucity of new construction, adds to the cost, he said.

The average sales price of one-bedroom co-ops for the first half of this year was $1.2 million, and for one-bedroom condos, $1.8 million; for two-bedrooms, co-ops averaged $2.5 million and condos, $3 million. For three-bedrooms, co-ops averaged $3.5 million and condos, $5.4 million; for four bedrooms and above, the averages were $6.6 million and $7.1 million, according to Mr. Chang.

A search of StreetEasy.com in late August found 109 homes for sale (including 19 townhouses) and 317 rentals. Rentals ranged from a $1,950 ground-floor studio on Greenwich Street to a five-bedroom penthouse on Clarkson Street for $55,000 a month.

What to Do

Several pocket parks and playgrounds are scattered about, with the greatest continuous green space along the Hudson River. Jefferson Market Library, a public library on Avenue of the Americas, is in a grand historic building. Behind it is Jefferson Market Garden, open to the public.

Plays can be seen at Off Broadway houses like the Cherry Lane Theater, founded in 1924 in an 1836 building; the Lucille Lortel Theater, in operation since 1955; and the Barrow Street Theater, in Greenwich House, which was founded in 1902 to help immigrants and also offers music and pottery lessons and other services. Among other cultural offerings is the IFC Center, which shows independent films, and there is no shortage of shops, restaurants, bars and bakeries.

The Schools

Two public elementary schools are in the West Village. P.S. 3, the Charrette School, on Hudson Street, has 800 students in grades prekindergarten through 5. According to the school quality snapshot for 2013-14, 59 percent met state standards in English, compared with 30 percent citywide, and 71 percent met math standards, compared with 39 percent. At P.S. 41 Greenwich Village, on West 11th Street, which has 758 students in prekindergarten through Grade 5, 73 percent met standards in English and 81 percent in math.

The Commute

A subway line is never far away. The A, B, C, D, E, F and M lines stop at the West Fourth Street-Washington Square station, and the 1, 2, 3, A, C, E, F, M and L stop on 14th Street. The 1 train also stops at Christopher Street-Sheridan Square and at West Houston and Varick Streets. The PATH stops at Christopher Street, Ninth Street and 14th Street.

The History

There is a reason for the neighborhood’s crazy street patterns: “Before 1822, the Village was a suburb north of the city,” said Mr. Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. In that year, many residents of Lower Manhattan fled north to escape a yellow fever epidemic. Streets in the Village, however, were not based on the north-south grid used elsewhere, but were “angled off the Hudson River waterfront.” When the city grew through it, Mr. Berman said, “for the most part the old Greenwich Village grid remained intact.”

Copyright © 2015 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission. Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times. 

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