softail springer Heard Sgt Pepper there the day it dropped. Someone put it on the sound system, played the whole album for the first time. Moved a lot of product from there in my time.

@@acmeopinionfactory8018 are you serious? I was in the Figaro the first time the album was played! We were all speechless. Sounds like we were both there at exactly the same occasion!!!

@@softailspringer9915 Speechless is the right word. I think that for most people who heard it that day, it changed what we thought music was or could be. Figaro always had an excellent playlist, but this was transformational, nothing like it before or after. Did you live in the village? How long were you there? I grew up there, shuffled between divorced parents on either coast. Best place ever to be a kid, in my mind, the old italian ladies loved the neighborhood kids, the beatniks and hippies taught valuable street lessons, the cops were pretty laid back, if you weren't doing something really stupid. And if you did find yourself in a bit of a jam as a kid, there was usually a guy who was at least a little bit connected to help you out and tell you to not do it again. Good times!

@@acmeopinionfactory8018 I was one of the many runaways who fled to the Village. Arrived in April from Boston, stayed til September. Lived on the streets for a couple of months and then got a job at Figaro, running the downstairs Chess and Bridge club. Don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t gotten that job! I played guitar on the street corners and in the park living out my Bob Dylan dream. But I sure remember the day they played Sgt Pepper for the first time!

@@softailspringer9915 Yeah- I remember there were a lot of runaways from maybe '66-'69 in the village. There was even a cop at the ninth precinct who specialized in identifying them and returning them to their homes. He was pretty good at his job and was able to return a significant percentage of his encounters or persuade them in the case of some, to return on their own. His name was Jimmy something, can't remember his last name. He had a kind, sort of avuncular personality and never came across as mean spirited or 'cop-ish'. Some runaways didn't fare so well and got caught up in the hard drug scene and didn't make it. Glad to see you're not one of those.

NY is a disgusting shithole!

I don't live in New York, but I've been there many times. I sure wish I could have seen it in the 70s. Must have been really fun back then. It had more character.

I'm a native New Yorker and a product of the 60's 70's. And I do miss these days, but sadly, I lost my love for the place, and I have to give you major Kudos to still love it! Your'e a tougher man than I am! But continue to enjoy and be safe!

Wish I'd never left.

Imma 60s baby..I was born here.. raised here..mostl ikely gonna die here.. I love this city..NYC 4 life...

Right? I used to zip along all those streets.

Man cafe dante i love the escarole a bean soup and the tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms room never tasted anything close to it today to bad its not there i was in there often from 99 to 07

I wonder, did you know a woman from Arkansas named Cindy? It truly was a wonderful time for me, 1976 NYC

Yes, Michael--I did put that information and the name of the album under Show More. I love Chris Smither. He's awesome! :)

I love the lyrics to his song. There Dylanesq

@@danocable - And Chris Smither performed a lot around this area back in those days. He is an awesome songwriter and performer! See his other tunes on youtube ...

Thanks for the info. I thought he sounded like Springsteen.

I really miss my Folk Channel on XM Radio..

Thanks so much for the kind words, Claudia. My one regret is that I forgot to include a picture of Zito's Bakery, which was fabulous! :(

@@monelleny sorry I misspelled it! Must have been thinking of baked ziti lol. Your work is truly great!

@@claudiahansen4938 - You're a doll, Claudia. It seems difficult to send email addresses on youtube, or I would be glad to send you my photo of Zito's. I can still smell the baking bread!

@@monelleny that is so nice of you! I have a powerful visual image and scent of their particular bread in my mind. And it's only because of your video that it came back to me. I am so grateful to you! I also answer to cjh367 at a client starting with the letters gm! Claudia

Glad you enjoyed it, William. No, I lived at 134, above Miteras restaurant. The yellow building you see on the SE corner of MacDougal and W3rd. Good ole days. :)

@@monelleny By the time I started working in this neighborhood, that old building was already gone. I delivered mail around here for a few years and did MacDougal Street many times, but was never the regular. Was just a replacement. Starting around 1989. I remember that when they put up the NYU Building, which was a big project for such a cramped neighborhood, it threw the apartment building right cross the street, which was a big building (about 40 apartments if I recall correctly) out of plumb, and you couldn't get the mailboxes closed, LOL. They were all mis-aligned. I guess from all the pounding and heavy vehicles doing the construction.

@@RRaquello - Wow, I never realized. I'm glad I wasn't there to see it.

Thank you so much, hipretty, I feel exactly the same way. I lived in the Village for 13 years, but it is hard to recognize it now--all designer stores. Those were certainly the good old days! :)

@@monelleny Remember Chumleys?

@@RobinHerzig - Can't say that I do, Rilly.

@@monelleny aww it was a special secret bar, an old underground speakeasy with a legendary past. Finally crumbled one day. I was still around then. Then like 10 yrs later somebody tried to rehab it but idk… Apparently they folded forever during covid 😕

@@RobinHerzig - Sad! Thanks for info, Rilly.

Right?

There were some great stores right around that corner!

There were lots of good times in the Village, many of them considerably earlier than the 70s. However, I think it's save to say that now, in this era of designer boutiques, is certainly not one of them!

I bet that place is STILL there.

You are so welcome!

I hear ya, my friend. I miss home, too

Thank you, John. I miss the Village of those days.

We were neighbors!

Those were the days, my friend.

Albert, I bet you've got a thousand stories. I would have loved to be in Greenwich Village in those days. I read Suzie Rotolo's and Dave Von Ronk's autobiographies a few years ago, it really painted a picture.

@@joegillis7493 hi Joe, i cherish those memories. The Gaslight was a bit of Heaven, Dave Van Ronk, Buffy St. Marie, Patrick Sky, Phil Ochs, Maria D'amato solo and then as Maria Muldaur with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, and so much more. it was the 'pass the hat to get paid era', i worked as the Cafe Flamenco on Bleecker Street as a guitarist with dancer Maruja Montero. thank the internet Joe the music is there. also if you want your musical mind blown, Maria Muldaur recorded with New Orleans band "Tuba Skinny" a few years ago, enjoy it.

Back then, there were many apartments all over the Village with that setup! :)

@@monelleny My grandma lived over on the lower east side, and they had just "upgraded" from that when I was a kid. They stuck a toilet in what used to be a closet, and the bathtub was in the kitchen! With a shower curtain around it, of course.

Loved the village! Would go to cafe Figueroa after going to the limelight. Shop in the stores. Had great times with my friends we were teenagers. Miss them all.

@@dianecerretani2880- the Limelight was an old church converted into a swell club. I recall it being on 20th Street and 6th Ave. Had our 1985 Christmas party from Society of Nuclear Medicine there, it was boss.

It was a great neighborhood then!

I used to play roller hockey on Grove St. between Bedford and Hudson in 1971 with my friend Scotty whose father owned Arturo's.

@@rudolphguarnacci197 Really? At PS3? I was on Grove St. When you see the opening shot of friends and they show you the apartment building. It’s a Bedford Street address but they show you the side facing Grove St from right next to the school (forget what they call it now). My family were partial owners of the building 2 buildings to the Left, 26 Grove. Whole family grew up there, I went to PS 41 lol. If you were even in the Bleeker St hardware store named Blaustiens around that time, you’d have ran in my Grandpa. He used to get parts and hang out there all the time. Grandparents moved to Jersey after selling in the late 80’s.

@@RovingRoninEDC I graduated P.S.41 in 1971. Mrs. Newman was my 5th grade teacher. Who was yours?

@@rudolphguarnacci197 I graduated in 1980 and my teacher was Mrs. Collins, now that’s a memory! Remember leaving for lunch and hitting either Rays (and yes…we had the REAL one, lol) or Blimpies on 6th Ave. Then it was back to the yard.

Back then, it was a real neighborhood.

Sorry, Georgina, it's true that some of these photos are not from the 1970s--I sometimes had to resort to more recent shots. It's actually a very personal montage. I raised my children in the building that shows in the first and last frame, 134 MacDougal Street, from 1969 to 1977 (that building is no longer there, having been purchased by the NYU Law School and razed). I tried to show all the places they frequented, the buildings we lived in, and their schools. I much appreciate anyone else letting me know that they are moved by these memories.

@@monelleny wow! This must be so powerfully moving for you! We live in North Beach, sort of the Greenwich village of San Francisco. Our daughter is going to college in September and I am already nostalgic about every building in our neighborhood, still here and gone.☮️

Thanks so much for your very thoughtful comment!

You ever go to Burton Place on Burton and Wells

Hi, neighbor. :)

Prior to living on MacDougal Street, I lived at 350 Bleecker St., west of 7th Ave., and at 3 Sheridan Square, so that area was home to me for many years. Thanks so much for your kind words!

Thanks for your note, George--I added the word "area" to the title.

@@monelleny thanks for those photos they bring back the memories.. yep words like the surrounding area could fit in the title. Thanks again stay safe and enjoy the nice weather after this horrible heat wave take care.

Thank you so much, Carol.

Sadly, all those Italian grocery stores are gone. Bleecker Street had so many back then.

The Derby had the absolute BEST porterhouses. My friend's father owned it and passed it on to him in the 8

@@rudolphguarnacci197 My father was a great friend with the owner. He was raised in GV. I remember his son was working with him when I was there. Was his name Daniel, I cannot remember for sure. I think it was his father that owned it prior and it was an Italian market. There was a photo behind the bar, of the place when it was indeed a shop.

@@poppynurse The son's name is Andrew.

@@rudolphguarnacci197 Yes! Thanks, I couldn’t remember. The father was Daniel too, I think.

Thanks for the kind words and you're right, it ain't. :(

It's written in "SHOW MORE" under the text above. :) It's Chris Smither's "Leave the Light on" by his album of the same name. I love it, too!

You're absolutely right. I tried to reconstruct the places where my children went in the 1970s, when they grew up there, but sometimes I had to use newer photos (there were no cell phones around in the 1970s). How did you know about the scenes from "Last Stop, Greenwich Village"?! Luckily, some of the scenes from that film were shot directly across the street from our home, which was the corner building painted yellow on top in the first scene. That building is now gone, taken over by NYU Law School.

Which was a fabulous movie

@@monelleny how cool!!!!🥀

@@monelleny The area is zoned for 8 stories but they got 12, Tony Dapolito was telling me. He made the BEST pepper biscuits.

Hi, Dante, how you been? :) Cybele says to say hi. She has a picture of you two together, but she's been searching for an hour, and can't find it. You can find her on facebook at Cybele Richmond Nielsen and Michel is on there at Michel Richmond. Cybele also asked me to tell you about another Facebook page called "I Went to P.S. 3 in the 70's." Good luck and nice to hear from you!

It was Kettle of Fish when I lived there.

@@southernhippie9058 im a newbie 08.. saw it go from esperanto cafe to saigon shack

Dylan met Edie here (of “Like a Rolling Stone” fame (allegedly)

We lost a great talent, there :(

He sure did. On the cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," he is walking arm-in-arm with Suze Rotolo on Jones Street, a one-block street between Bleecker and West 4th (photo Don Hunstein). In the early 60s, he played at both Gerde's Folk City and the Gaslight.

Well, there goes the neighborhood!

Our apartment was right across MacDougal Street from Ben's. I remember Bleecker Bob's well. My husband's family owned the Music Inn on W. 4th St.

@@monelleny I remember that Bob (full name Robert Plotnik) tried to sell the store & business when he wanted to retire, a couple of years before he died. You'd think such a famous name would be worth something, especially since collecting vinyl has become a popular hobby, but nobody took it up. I guess the rents in the area became too expensive. There is a big store selling vintage vinyl records not too far away on Thompson Street (Generation Records) that has been there over 20 years.

@@RRaquello - Thanks for keeping me up to date!

I see more than one film called "Shaft." Which one do you mean?

@@monelleny The original, just called "Shaft". The others are sequels and have names like "Shaft In Africa". The episode of "Decoy" that I mentioned is available on KZfaq. I believe, but not sure, that there was also a "Shaft" TV show, but I don't mean that either. Just the original "Shaft" film. I'm guessing 1971 or 72.

Thanks, Justin. You said pretty much what I said in my text under the video. Wish you had read it.

Thank you so much for this history! I remember neither Pizza Snack Time nor the pharmacy, but I love hearing about it. It became Ben's in 1965, and it still is. At 0:32, you can see that it was called Frank's Pizzeria, but I don't know when that's from.

Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid shot a short scene in that pizza place in 1973. The movie was called The Last Detail. They played AWOL sailors.

@@tomcarl8021 - Thanks, Tom! I just watched the movie and got a couple of shots of the street and our building.

@@monelleny I just saw your reply to my post about Pizza Snack Time, Ben's Pizza, et al, and I'm confused. I know I'm pretty old and my memory may not be the best, but I'm sure that it was Pizza Snack time before it was Ben's, and that there was a pharmacy there before the pizza joints. I lived practically across the street (sorta) at 123 West Third St. which, strangely enough is the same address as Ben's, only on Third Street instead of Mac Dougal. I remember the newsstand, but not the pizza place next to it, I used to buy candy there when I was a kid, and later, the Sunday NY Times on Saturday night. By the time I moved there in the mid sixties, it was gone. I moved out of my parents' place to an apartment on 11th between C and D which cost me $45 per month and was, in my opinion, vastly overpriced at that, but it was my first place to live on my own and I thought it was great. That lasted about three or four months, putting up with no heat, no electricity half the time, people throwing their trash into the air shaft, which was filled about three feet deep with garbage when I moved out, and a rather long commute to my usual haunts in the Village, so when the opportunity arose to move there, I jumped on it. The "East Village" did not really exist at that time and it was not a place one wanted to spend time in, cheap rent was the only attraction. I'm gonna have to research the pharmacy fire and the mob putting in the pizza place to make sure I remember this stuff correctly. I remember at PST there was no "inside", you bought your pizza from the sidewalk, at $.25 a slice, ( I usually got it with peppers and onions for an extra dime, as they also sold sausage,pepper and onion sandwiches, so there were always sauteed veggies available,) it was basically open on third st with shutters that served as rain shields when it was open, and closed the windows when it was closed. On another note entirely, do you remember the Spanish restaurant on the corner katty corner from your building that had tables outside? Great sangria, and weren't too concerned with ID requirements, even though the legal age was eighteen, some of us would take our girlfriends there when w were younger and get away with it.

@@monellerichmond7208 you are a true artist.

@@RebekahCurielAlessi - Thanks for the kind words, Rebekah!

@@monelleny 😊

Chris Smithers played in many of the clubs in this video back in the day. I love his music!

You're the one who's busted for not reading what I said about the photos.

See 0:25. :)

Yes, they are. I said so in my text under the video. But some of these buildings didn't change that much from 1950 to 1970.

Alcohol at Cafe Wha was a dash of rum flavor in a glass of Coca Cola. ;)

@@petercrowley41 I was a "bartender" at various basket houses in the late sixties, always rum flavoring, no matter what the customer ordered. Sometimes someone would get belligerent about being "cheated", and the "bartender" would become the bouncer. When I wasn't the bartender or the bouncer, I was the drag. Had to multitask back in the day.

to my knowledge cafe wha didn’t serve alcohol in those days.

@@drinkingpoolwater Yet they did @ tourist prices

@@waynerogers6621 those were actually non-alcoholic drinks sold at tourist prices. They used the flavored syrups and gave the drinks names that sounded a lot like the real things. (I'm writing a book on the history of Cafe Wha? and have spoken to a number of people who were there and were stunned to find out how much they were paying for flavored soda water, etc.)

It was busy! (Rent was $200 for large 1 bedroom apartment. I was not a happy camper when they raised it to $250. :)) I was trying to have a normal famly life and raise 2 children there. Street musicians would come and set up shop right below the kids' window at 8:00 p.m., their bedtime. The police could care less. So I stuck a speaker in my window and blasted "A Fifth of Beethoven" out the window until they left. We received threats--it was scary! :) You know, I never noticed that the second photo was not actually the Kettle of Fish. Good work!

​@@monelleny I'm just imaging how great it would have been to live around all that action but after a while I could see how things like street musicians among other things could get old very quickly and scary as you say. Thanks

@@pocphotocompany - For the most part, it was just life was usual, surrounded by lots of tourists and friendly Italian people and their grocery stores on Bleecker Street.

I just went to Google images and got pictures of all three, right away! :)

@@monelleny will try it, let you know!

@@monelleny found pics of the replacement school, I am looking for original school on Greenwich Ave at Charles street, if you have would appreciate giving me link!

@@aallen681 - Oh, I never realized there was an older one. I see it was demolished and replaced in 1957. There is a drawing of the old one at www.ps41.org/pdfs/2017HistoryArticle.pdf. I did not find a photo, although surely there must be some somewhere. Maybe call the school itself?

I attended the old school, checked with the school, told me they didn’t have pic, checked with various city agencies, still nothing, gotta be pics somewhere, my memory is of a unique building in the heart of the village, shame they demolished it!