Toasting – and Protecting – our Lit’ry Ghosts
It’s Time for a Greenwich Village Literary Landmark
By Steve Reynolds
Participating recently in the Village Trip Festival, and attending several of its literary-themed tours, proved enlightening and inspired some rumination…American literary history has many contributors.
But the epicenter of American letters is here in New York, and within one part of town in particular. As long-time Greenwich Village residents know, writers such as Henry James, Henry Miller, James Baldwin, Djuna Barnes, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, E.B. White, ee cummings and Edna St. Vincent Millay are only a small sample of the important writers who worked here in the Village (you can get a full list at villagepreservation.org/2024/04/22/31-literary-icons-of-the-greenwich-village-historic-district).
Why did so many writers come here, to find voice, to practice their craft? Inspired by the work of earlier artists, of course, but also for a community, for the amplification that occurs when people driven by creative vision find themselves at the same place at the same time.
But for that to happen, you often need a “third place,” as coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg. As the noted non-profit executive Donna Brodie of the Writers Room has said, “There’s a certain energy that occurs, you can almost feel a kind of current, when artists are working in close proximity, interacting with each other.”
This may feel intuitive, but research has actually established a connection between the availability of gathering places for artists—cafes, salons, taverns, etc., and the acceleration of various artistic movements in the 19th and 20th centuries.
I was thinking about this when I took the excellent Village Trip tour—”Beatnik Greenwich Village,” led by historian Marc Catapano. He mentioned that this spring is the 75th anniversary of the original draft of On the Road, delivered by Kerouac in a feverish three-week jag in April 1951, on a 20-odd foot long spool of teletype paper.
While his ideas were germinating, we know that Kerouac frequented the poetry and folk cafes of the day, often landing at the Kettle of Fish bar on MacDougal (its first location), with his band of fellow writers. The list is well known: Ginsberg, DiPrima, Corso… A few years later, those working words and music, like Seeger, Ochs and Dylan, also gathered there.
As Catapano later asked, “What if, in 1950, they hadn’t opened the Kettle?”
It’s fun to wonder: who’s to know which chance encounter, riposte, overheard phrase or opinion, helped spark an inspiration to the artists gathered there?
Believe what you like, but as Oldenburg and Brodie attest, it’s likely that places like the Kettle help make art.
As the Beatnik tour and others brought home, the departure of such gathering places would be a poor thing for any city. But for Greenwich Village, USA, it’s a catastrophe, both for our sense of history and for those in the neighborhood, old or young, still trying to produce literary or other artistic work.
What’s to be Done: Toast the Ghosts
One can still achieve some connection with the ghosts of our literary past, in the form of a couple of legendary public houses now merged into one.
The Kettle of Fish (now at 59 Christopher), when moving to this address in 1999, landed, by some cosmic synchrony, in the same space as another cherished literary gathering place, the Lion’s Head.
In 1966, in proximity to the original Village Voice offices, writers from the Voice and elsewhere came to “the Head” for the nourishment of each other’s company (sometimes even for the food). The Head had a famous wall of book covers representing works published by its patrons: Frank McCourt, Pete Hamill, Fred Exley, and many others. McCourt is quoted that having his book, Angela’s Ashes, on the wall at the Head meant more to him than winning the Pulitzer that year.
After the Beatnik tour, the Kettle was duly visited. Trace elements of both establishments do survive. There is the mysterious back room, where Jessica Lange waited tables. The big round table, where a mix of the Clancy Brothers, Dylan, and spontaneous others would gather for late night sing-songs, is still there. There is a back wall for darts, a Kettle fixture. And there is the Kettle’s neon sign, the same sign behind Kerouac in the famous 1957 portrait by Jerry Yulsman. Stand in the alcove of the back room with a whiskey in your hand, and maybe you can imagine Bobby Kennedy at the Head, deciding to run for the Senate seat from New York.
Of course things have changed. The wall of book jackets is gone. On certain nights the customers are a lot younger than Bob Dylan. But apart from these obvious times, some everyday essence of the two bars could be felt.
As writer Tom Deignan wrote of the Lion’s Head in a 2007 tribute:
“…it was a quintessential New York joint…it managed to be blue-collar and ethnic, as well as artistic and intellectual, a vibrant combination.”
Standing amongst a group of patrons that evening, my interlocutors included an Off-Broadway producer, a master carpenter, acting students, two guys from the MTA, an app designer, and a family visiting from Sweden. And a couple of writers, even. At least in this surviving port, there was still some connection to be had to the ghosts of another time, an all-welcome community of the arts and the everyday. Toast them while they linger.
What’s to Be Done: Why Not A Memorial?
When discussing things historic in the neighborhood, one does well to confer with Andrew Berman, executive director of the Village Preservation non-profit, who was unaware of any such memorial.
Is it time to ask “why not?”
In the case of Christopher Street’s Stonewall Monument, an historically significant site has been preserved, and the Stonewall building now also offers a library and visitor resource.
Why not something similar for the literary history of the Village? Imagine a space where visitors could access the history of Village writers and their works? Browse exhibits, access papers, learn about writers?
Perhaps certain institutions might have an interest in helping. Is it crazy to think that New York Public Library System might participate in a project to preserve and extend the presence of key works and authors?
Perhaps an institution of learning, with an interest in the culture of letters, would partner in such a venture, in so doing contributing to the study of the city’s literary heritage.
Such a space might even become known as a gathering place for writers, reinforcing New York and the Village as a place where art can still be made.
Why not? If we can’t imagine it, we’re already lost.
