Greenwich Village and the West Village

Where Greenwich Village begins and ends

The four edges are West 14th Street to the north, Houston Street to the south, Broadway to the east and the Hudson River to the west. Inside them lie about 0.29 square miles and four ZIP codes: 10003, 10011, 10012 and 10014. Washington Square Park, the Brown Building, MacDougal and Bleecker Streets sit in the eastern and central part; the Stonewall Inn, Bedford, Grove and Perry Streets in the west.

Where the West Village starts

The usual line is Seventh Avenue; some put it at Sixth. West of it the streets bend away from the grid. Christopher Street, the Stonewall Inn, Grove Court, 75½ Bedford Street, the Cherry Lane Theatre and the stoop on Perry Street are all West Village addresses. From Hudson Street to the river is the Far West Village; the White Horse Tavern stands on Hudson Street, at its edge. The street grid page explains why these streets run at angles.

The East Village confusion

The names suggest three parts of one place, but the East Village, east of Broadway and the Bowery, has never been considered part of Greenwich Village. NoHo lies between the two, to the east of the Village. The confusion matters when booking: the music walk starts at Astor Place in the East Village and spends about 40 minutes there, at the site of CBGB and the Fillmore East, before crossing into Greenwich Village. The music walk page lists both halves of its route.

What “the Village” means

Said in Manhattan, “the Village” means Greenwich Village, West Village included. The name goes back to the Dutch Groenwijck, “green district”, and the earliest written “Greenwich” dates from 1696. The city’s historic district of 1969 covers more than 50 blocks across both parts, and the South Village district of 2013 extends it south.

The neighbours

SoHo and Hudson Square lie directly south of Houston Street, touching the Village with no gap between them. Chelsea and Union Square are north of 14th Street. The SoHo and nearby page gives the distances on foot that are published and names the walk that crosses into them.

Old names on the map

The divisions are older than the modern labels. The Lenape name Sapokanikan, “tobacco field”, belonged to the north-west corner, in what is now the West Village. Newgate Prison stood at West 10th Street and the river, in today’s Far West Village, from 1797 to 1829. Street names changed too: Amos Street became West 10th and Troy Street West 12th.

Frequently asked questions