New York in the 60's?

that's a really cool way of describing it. thankyou for your insight! that makes alot of sense and weill be a good thing to remember.

 

Sadly I arrived the last year of the sixties. Still it was the best year.

 

it was definitely one of the most defining years of the 60's. when people ask me if i would move back to nyc, i have to say "only if it was still the nyc i grew up in". we miss it for different reasons, but it's that period in time that i miss the most. seemed like everything was possible and it was all happening within a few short blocks of my home.

 

The east and west villages:

How could you not love St Marks place all the way to Tompkins sq park?
Second Ave from 14st to Houston?

8st from The cube to sixth ave?
Mc Dougal st,Thompson st? Bleeker st? The West Village? The iltalian section?

The far extremes (East and west) where you coud see the water and the boats and the waking paths?

All this could be visted within a short time taking a simple walk

The cafe what? where Hendrix played before going to England, The Four winds, where most folk music started (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon etc) The Purple onion, The Feenjohn where you could listen to performers for free till 7am,The Gaslight, and many others music clubs just blocks from each other or within the same block.

The Jesus wanted posters, the Jams in washington Sq Park in the fountain,
David Peal giving his political lectures and simple songs of protest. The other regular park musicians singing the lates hits.

Fifh ave (from washigton sq park ) and its simple stores, restaurants, grocery stores and coffe shops.

The St. Marks theater, the Fillmore east, CBGB, the Electric Circus, all and everything within blocks of each other.

All that plus a lot of people always in the streets at any hour of the day and night,is what gave The Village the atmosphere that felt that you could not get bored, and that just being there was enogh.

Not nessesarily spending money or being loud and abnoxious with your drunken friends, but just walking and perhaps meeting some new strangers that were also looking to meet new strangers to smoke or whatever.

It was easy, it was the place to be. It was the Village 1969. Those who were there then, still talk about it. I have a friend still there that never left, or never lived anywhere else since the year he came which was the year I arrived too. The same year where everyone was anxiously waiting to go to the concert of the century.

Indeed being there felt that anything was possible. We walked in hope and exited and lucky just being there in what appeared to be the center of all action and possiblities of action.

It still looks the same...but is it the same?

 

Amen! All you said and more. I got out of the army in 69..wound up working in Jersey in a glass plant,going to school at nights in NYC. Life in the village for this ole boy was an eye opener. And an atmosphere that hasnt shown up since! Hard to relate to people,especially your kids who want to know what the feeling was back then...art/music everywhere you looked etc..sometimes I wish I could find the time tunnel and go back for a good while!!

 

If that was possible I'd be going very often.... but that feeling still remains.

 

You're going to be in hair? You rock!
xxx

 

I first arrived in NYC from Virginia in 1967. It was our high school senior class (bus) trip, Easter Weekend. I was 17, a Bob Dylan fan, and thought of myself as 'hip'. Had to see Greenwich Village! Walked past Dylan's apt, the Cafe Wha?, and the Filmore East (where all the cool groups of the day played), and smelled incense and pot on every corner. Psychedelic posters were everywhere as well as posters advertising a "Be-In" Festival in Central Park on Sunday! I was mesmerized by everything! Midtown was cool, too. Went to the Peppermint Lounge and heard Joey Dee & The Starlighters (famous then for their song "The Peppermint Twist"), saw Funny Girl on Broadway with Mimi Hines, and ate expensive hamburgers at Schraft's. We rode the subways and drank wine at our school president's aunt's plush apartment on Central Park! I took a fake ID that said I was 18, drank all weekend, and was never asked for it. Finally, on Easter Sunday it was decision time. Some of the class went to St. Patrick's Cathedral for Easter Sunday service, but our 'hip' group went to Central Park for the "Be-In". Bands playing, poetry reading, people in the trees, folks with painted faces and round nickel-sized mirrors on their foreheads. Hawkers selling banana peels--there was some rumor about getting high from smoking them. I was never the same person after that trip. I just love New York City. Used to dream about moving there. The closest I got was working as the feature editor for Action Martial Arts Magazine in Brooklyn, but never got to live there. I still go to the city at least twice a year and I still love Greenwich Village, although the only thing that seems almost the same is McDougall Street. "Hair" was the biggest hit then---"long, flaxen, waxen, long as I can grow it, my HAIR". "The Age of Aquarius" was also a big hit from that show. "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius". I still remember the lyrics like it was yesterday. Your're a lucky girl to be in such a great 60s show. Best of luck...and break a leg!
Chandler

 

wow... the play is long since over (by about a year) it went really well... so neat to see people recalling their experiences still though. thanks everyone,