Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village (also known as the West Village or simply the Village) is a largely residential area on the west side of downtown (southern) Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by Broadway on the east, the Hudson River on the west, Houston Street on the south, and 14th Street on the north. The neighborhoods surrounding it are East Village to the east, SoHo to the south, and Chelsea to the north.

Layout

As Greenwich Village was once a rural hamlet, entirely separate from New York, its street layout does not coincide with most of Manhattan's more formal grid plan (based on the Commissioners' Plan of 1811). Greenwich Village was allowed to keep its street pattern when the plan was implemented, which has resulted in a neighborhood whose streets are dramatically different, in layout, from the ordered structure of other parts of town. Many of the neighborhood's streets are narrow and some curve at odd angles. Additionally, unlike most of Manhattan, streets in the Village typically are named rather than numbered. While there are some numbered streets in the Village, even they do not conform to the usual grid pattern when they enter the neighborhood. For example, 8th Street, which runs east-west outside of the Village, turns and runs north as far as 12th Street.

Related Topics:
Grid plan - Commissioners' Plan of 1811

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