Video URL


13176_25729_greenwich_village4
Subjects

1950s, 1960s
B&W

West/Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City and the changes it was going through in the 50’s. Panning shot of a construction site where the Rhinelander House used to stand. The narrator talks about the problem of the village changing as it becomes more and more desirable. CU of a bulldozer pushing earth. Shots of construction workers building apartment building. A series of street scenes showing neighbors stopping to talk to one another. Women with baby carriages/ buggies pause on the sidewalk to chat. CU of two men talking on the side walk, shaking their heads. A young man with a pipe stands at the steps of a building, talking to two women sitting on the steps. He holds a newspaper and gesticulates. A CU of the paper “Caricature” with a headline that reads, “Villagers Protest Housing Plan”. The narrator talks about how the changes and rising cost of land threatens the people that live in the village. CU of a group of pigeons pecking at the ground pans up to show a street scene with people milling around the corner. Shot of sheridan square, with many people sitting on benches. The narrator explains that this was once the bohemian center of the Village. Shots of produce street vendors on Bleecker Street as people walk by. People shop and put produce into paper bags. A young girl pays the old salesman. A woman holds an eggplant up to a salesman in an apron, apparently bartering, and he waves her away. A man cuts up some produce and hands it to two little boys, who eat it with their hands. An old man holds a little girl and they both laugh and smile, with the produce stand behind them,