East Village

What is now called the “East Village” used to be called either Greenwich Village or the Lower East Side. The boundaries vary, but can be between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south, Third Avenue on the west and the East River on the east.
 
The area used to be more affordable than Greenwich Village. “East Village” was printed The Villager (Greenwich Village) on April 16, 1959, and “E. VILL” was cited in a real estate ad on June 18, 1959, “Village East” was printed in The Village Voice on September 30, 1959, and “LIVE IN EAST VILLIAGE” (sic) on October 21, 1959. The New York (NY) Times stated on February 7, 1960:
 
“Rental agents—some of them offering rooms for ‘$40 and down’—are increasingly referring to the area as Village East or East Village.”
 
The term “East Village” went out of fashion between 1970 and 1980 as the “beatnik” use faded, but then became standard in the 1980s and 1990s.
 
 
Wikipedia: East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side.
 
The area was once generally considered to be part of the Lower East Side, but began to develop its own identity and culture in the late 1960s, when many artists, musicians, students and hippies began to move into the area, attracted by cheap rents and the base of Beatniks who had lived there since the 1950s. The neighborhood has become a center of the counterculture in New York, and is known as the birthplace and historical home of many artistic movements, including punk rock and the Nuyorican literary movement. It has also been the site of protests and riots.
 
The East Village is still known for its diverse community, vibrant nightlife and artistic sensibility, although in recent decades it has been argued that gentrification has changed the character of the neighborhood.
 
Boundaries
Definitions vary, but generally the East Village is considered to be the area east of Third Avenue and the Bowery to the East River, between 14th Street and Houston Street.
(...)
New neighborhood
Until the mid-1960s, the area was simply the northern part of the Lower East Side, with a similar culture of immigrant, working class life. In the 1950s the migration of Beatniks into the neighborhood later attracted hippies, musicians and artists well into 1960s. The area was dubbed the “East Village”, to dissociate it from the image of slums evoked by the Lower East Side. According to The New York Times, a 1964 guide called Earl Wilson’s New York wrote that “artists, poets and promoters of coffeehouses from Greenwich Village are trying to remelt the neighborhood under the high-sounding name of ‘East Village.’”
 
Newcomers and real estate brokers popularized the new name, and the term was adopted by the popular media by the mid-1960s. In 1966 a weekly newspaper, The East Village Other, appeared and The New York Times declared that the neighborhood “had come to be known” as the East Village in the June 5, 1967 edition.
 
NYS Historic Newspapers
16 April 1959, The Villager (Greenwich Village), “The Town Crier,” pg. 2, col. 2:
He practiced for 22 years in the East Village and his offices now are at 85 Fourth Ave.
 
NYS Historic Newspapers
16 April 1959, The Villager (Greenwich Village), pg. 13, col. 3 classified ad:
SUBLET MAY-OCT.
6 SPACIOUS ROOMS, FLOORS THROUGH
EAST VILLAGE $260. GR 7-0014.
 
NYS Historic Newspapers
18 June 1959, The Villager (Greenwich Village), pg. 18, col. 1 classified ad:
E. VILL 3 rms. walkup…$74.75
(...)
N. A. BRUNO & CO., Inc.
170 Waverly Pl.  WA9-2748-9
 
NYS Historic Newspapers
23 July 1959, The Villager (Greenwich Village), pg. 1, col. 1:
Twenty of these new buses operate south from 15th St. and Amsterdam Ave., along Third Ave., through the East Village to City Hall.
 
Google News Archive
30 September 1959, Village Voice (New York, NY), “APARTMENTS FURNISHED,” “Use 20 New Buses Along Third Ave,” pg. 15, col. 1 classified ad:
Village East, 2 1/2 newly renovated bldg. 5 min. NYU.
 
Google News Archive
21 October 1959, Village Voice (New York, NY), pg. 10 classified ad::
Col. 2 (APARTMENT TO SHARE):
6 1/2 room - East Village Apt.
Col. 3 (PROFESSIONAL APARTMENTS):
LIVE IN EAST VILLIAGE (sic) IN
Either an “As Is” or newly
decorated 4 room apt. Call
CA 8-7391. On Sunday.
 
9 December 1959, New York (NY) Times, pg. 60:
Gift Ideas
From a Cent
To a Dollar
(...)
Since Greenwich Village was found to be one of the best courses for these inexpensive, well designed gifts, it was divided into two sections, the East and the West. One student, whose stomping ground was the East Village, felt his finds—tinted cordial glasses, bone spoons and stainless flatware from Merrill Ames—were the most elegant designs in the Pratt Show.
 
21 January 1960, The Villager (Greenwich Village), pg. 18, col. 1 classified ad:
E. Vill-fl thr (recheck word—ed.) lge livrm lge bdrm 2 frplcs kitch $175
(...)
HINES & HINES
301 W. 4 St WA4-7655
 
New York (NY) Times
‘VILLAGE’ SPILLS ACROSS 3D AVE.; Demolition of El Opened the Way for Bohemia’s Expansion
By EDMOND J. BARTNETT
February 07, 1960
Section REAL ESTATE CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS, Page R1
[ DISPLAYING ABSTRACT ]
The walls of Jericho came tumbling down when the Third Avenue El was razed four years ago.
(...)
Rental agents—some of them offering rooms for “$40 and down”—are increasingly referring to the area as Village East or East Village.
 
Google News Archive
27 October 1960, Village Voice (New York, NY), “UNFURNISHED APARTMENTS,” pg. 10, col. 1 classified ad:
GREENWICH VILLAGE E. 184 E. 3 St.
EAST VILLAGE ARMS      
 
12 January 1962, New York (NY) Herald Tribune, “Renaissance on the Lower East Side” by Ann Geracimos, pg. 16
Real estate agents may use the term East Village to tempt clients into the area, but in the words of one young shopkeeper, “it’s still the Lower East Side, no matter what you say.”
 
Google Books
Cue:
The Weekly Magazine of New York Life
1962
Pg. 10:
The upper part of the Lower East Side (from 14th to 2nd streets and from Second Avenue to Avenue B, centering around St. Mark’s Place) or the “East Village” if you will, has been particularly fertile soil for the migrant Bohemians.
 
8 February 1963, State-Times (Baton Rouge, LA),  “Pull Up a Chair” by Frank Jay Markey, pg. 8-A, col. 6:
The new Left Bank of the poor struggling artists, poets, sculptors and writers in New York is in the East Village on the lower East Side, bounded by 12th Street to Houston and from Third Avenue to the East River. They are all refugees from the high rents of historic Greenwich Village from which they have been migrating over the past 5 years.
 
7 July 1963, Kingsport (TN) Times-News, “Greenwich Village Hit Hard By Inflation,” pg. 6-D, col. 2:
But for the bona fide residents of Greenwich Village —the dancers, authors, playwrights, poets and hipsters—living isn’t as easy as it once was. The wages of art have not kept up with rentals.
 
To beat the high overhead, many beatniks have moved a few blocks east of the Village to a somewhat less romantic neighborhood with more bourgeoisie rentals. Once it was merely called the “Lower East Side” and considered part of Manhattan’s melting pot.
 
Now some landlords are beginning to catch on. The apartment ads in newspapers refer to that section of town as “Greenwich Village East” and the tariffs on “pads” there are beginning to climb.
 
Google News Archive
21 February 1964, Milwaukee (WI) Sentinel, “Greek Star Just Won’t Be Tied Down” by Earl Wilson, pt. 1, pg. 11, col. 2:
NEW YORK, N. Y. You will probably not see Stathis Giallelis, the 23 year old Greek movie star, wearing a tie, or a nice suit, if you run into him around Broadway.
(...) (Col. 3—ed.)
Stathis began studying English six hours a day, and washing pots in the basement of the Three 6’s at 666 6th av., while “slipping four hours a day” in a room at (Col. 4—ed.) the East Village, 5th st. between 1st and 2nd avs.
 
New York (NY) Times
The Affluent Set Invades the East Village; First Wave Is Lured by ‘Atmosphere’—and Cheap Drinks Peppermint Lounge Has Given Way to Dom and Stanley
By CHARLOTTE CURTIS
November 29, 1964
Section , Page 85
[ DISPLAYING ABSTRACT ]
When artists and writers began in 1960 to move into tenement housing in what is now called the East Village, the older residents of the Lower East Side greeted them as they had all previous invaders: ...
 
OCLC WorldCat record
East Village other.
Publisher: New York, NY : Joint College Patarealism, 1965-1969.
Edition/Format: Journal, magazine
 
OCLC WorldCat record
A guide to the East Village : a spatial perspective.
Publisher: New York : Ecumene Press, ©1966.
Edition/Format: Book : English
 
OCLC WorldCat record
A pilot study among East Village “Hippies.”
Author: Theo Solomon Research Associates.; Associated YM-YWHAs of Greater New York.
Publisher: New York, Associated YM-YWHAs of Greater New York, 1968.
Series: Associated YM-YWHAs of Greater New York. Monograph, 35
Edition/Format: Book : English
 
EV Grieve
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
52 years ago today: First mention of the ‘East Village’ in The New York Times
Some time ago, our old friend Pinhead sent along a clip from The New York Times ... As far as his research could tell, the first time that The New York Times mentioned the East Village in print was on Feb. 7, 1960 — 52 years ago today.
 
The article was titled “‘Village’ Spills Across 3D Ave.” And it appeared on Page 1. As the article notes, the destruction of the Third Avenue El in 1956 “helped stir up a minor social and realty revolution on the Lower East Side.”
(...)
And here come the rental agents… in the eighth paragraph of the article, “East Village” makes its appearance…

Rental agents—some of them offering rooms for “$40 and down”—are increasingly referring to the area as Village East or East Village.
 
Flaming Pablum
June 22, 2013
“Back Then, Nobody Called it The ‘East Village’!”
(...)
In his celebrated rock n’ roll walking tours, erstwhile Cro-Mags lead singer John Joseph firmly asserts that back in the day, no one ever called it “the East Village.” To his recollection, it was always simply the Lower East Side. Backing up Joseph’s claim, never once in, say, “East Side Beat” by the Toasters from 1987’s SkaBoom are the words “East Village” mentioned either.
 
Off the Grid (Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation)
The East Village Is Born — Fifty Six Years Ago
BY MATTHEW MOROWITZ – FEBRUARY 8, 2016
POSTED IN: EAST VILLAGE
On February 7, 1960 the New York Times wrote an article discussing changes in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side.  Four years beforehand the El (above ground subway) had been removed from Third Avenue.  With that barrier dismantled, Villagers from the west began to move east as “new shops, luxury and middle-income housing, and remodeled rooming-houses” began to appear.  Increasing rents in Greenwich Village pushed residents, artists, writers, students and musicians to seek cheaper rents further east.  The neighborhood was being rechristened “Village East” or the “East Village.”  The New York Times story appears to be one of the very first, or possibly the first, recorded instance of the part of the Lower East Side north of Houston Street being referred to as “the East Village.”