West Village

The West Village grew from a colonial hamlet that predated the 1811 street plan, which is why its streets wander, cross at odd angles, and famously allow West 4th to intersect West 10th. That accident of history produced a neighborhood that feels like a village inside the city, with Federal and Greek Revival townhouses, carriage houses, and small prewar buildings on blocks that rarely rise above six stories. Its bohemian century — Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dylan Thomas, the Beats, a young Bob Dylan on MacDougal — gave way to a different kind of significance in 1969, when the uprising at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street became the founding moment of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement; the site is now a National Monument. The Greenwich Village Historic District, designated the same year, has kept new construction to a minimum, and inventory is correspondingly tight: townhouses trade rarely, and the small number of newer condominium buildings along the water command significant premiums. Hudson River Park runs the length of the western edge, with Washington Square, Abingdon Square, and Jackson Square filling in the interior. The restaurant density is close to unmatched anywhere in the country — Via Carota, I Sodi, Buvette, and Corner Bistro sit within blocks of one another — and it is a neighborhood where residents genuinely walk to dinner.