Greenwich Village | Page 9

to
open and close the door without descending from his seat was looked
upon as an impressive innovation! Inside, there were oil paintings on
panels, small candles in glass boxes for illumination, and straw on the
floor to keep your feet warm. These luxuries justified the high rate
which was charged. The fare was ten cents!
In very heavy snowstorms the stages were apt to get stalled, so that a
few stage sleighs were run in midwinter, but only in the city proper.
Their farthest uptown terminal was at Fourteenth Street, so they were
not much help to suburbanites!
No single article, or chapter, can even attempt to encompass the
complete story of Washington Square. Covering the entire period of the
city's history, passing through startling changes and transformations,
the scene of great happenings, the background of illustrious or curious
lives,--it is probably more typical of the vertiginous development of
New York than any single section. The Indians, the Dutch, the English,
the Colonials, the Revolutionists, the New Americans, the shining
lights of art, science, fashion and the state, have all passed through it,
confidently and at home. The dead have slept there; wicked men have
died there and great ones been honoured. Belles and beaux have
minced on their way beneath the thick green branches,--branches that
have also quivered to the sound of artillery fire saluting a mighty nation
newborn. Nothing that a city can feel or suffer or delight in has escaped
Washington Square. Everything of valour and tragedy and gallantry
and high hope--that go to making a great town as much and more than
its bricks and mortar--are in that nine and three-quarters acres that
make up the very heart and soul of New York.

The lovely Arch first designed by Stanford White and erected by
William Rhinelander Stewart's public-spirited efforts, on April 30,
1889, was in honour of the centennial anniversary of Washington's
inauguration; it was so beautiful that, happily, it was later made
permanent in marble, and in all the town there could have been found
no more fitting place for it.
In every really great city there is one place which is, in a sense, sacred
from the profanation of too utilitarian progress. However
commercialised Paris might become, you could not cheapen the
environs of Notre Dame! Whatever happens to us, let us hope that we
will always keep Washington Square as it is today,--our little and dear
bit of fine, concrete history, the one perfect page of our old, immortal
New York!
Father Knickerbocker, may you dream well!
CHAPTER II
The Green Village
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb down Greenwich
way!--THOMAS JANVIER.
Did you know that "Greenwich Village" is tautology? That region
known affectionately as "Our Village" is Greenwich, pure and simple,
and here is the "why" of that statement.
The word wich is derived from the Saxon wick, and originally had birth
in the Latin vicus, which means village. Hence, Greenwich means
simply the Green Village, and was evidently a term describing one of
the first small country hamlets on Manhattan. Captain Sir. Peter Warren,
on whom be peace and benedictions, is usually given the credit of
having given Greenwich its name, the historians insisting that it was the
name of his own estate, and simply got stretched to take in the
surrounding countryside. This seems rather a stupid theory. The
Warrens were undoubtedly among the earliest representative residents
in the little country resort, but by no stretch of imagination could any

private estate, however ample or important, be called a village. But
Greenwich was the third name to be applied to this particular locality.
Once upon a time there was a little settlement of Indians--the tribe was
called the Sappocanicon or Sappokanikee. Like other redmen they had
a gift for picking out good locations for their huts or
wigwams--whatever they were in those days. On this island of
Manhattan they had appropriated the finest, richest, yet driest piece of
ground to be had. There were woods and fields; there was a marvellous
trout stream (Minetta Water); there was a game preserve, second to
none, presented to them by the Great Spirit (in the vicinity of
Washington Square). There was pure air from the river, and a fine
loamy soil for their humble crops. It was good medicine.
They adopted it far back in those beginnings of American history of
which we know nothing. When you go down to the waterfront to see
the ships steam away, you are probably standing where the braves and
squaws had their forest home overlooking the river.
But their day passed. Peter Minuit--who really was a worth-while man
and deserved to be remembered for something besides his thrifty deal
in buying Manhattan for twenty-four dollars--cast an eye over the new
territory with a view to