Quick answer
Greenwich Village is the neighborhood in Lower Manhattan known since the 20th century as an artists' haven, the bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBTQ movement, and an East Coast birthplace of the Beat Generation. It centers on Washington Square Park and holds the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street.
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The Green District
Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, takes its name from Groenwijck, the Dutch word for Green District. By the twentieth century it had grown into the country's most famous artists' quarter — the bohemian capital, an East Coast birthplace of the Beat Generation, and the cradle of the modern LGBTQ movement all at once. Its heart is Washington Square Park, a poplar-lined green framed by the marble Washington Arch and the redbrick of New York University, ringed by some of the most desirable low brownstone streets in the city. In 1969 the city's Landmarks Commission locked in that low skyline by naming the Greenwich Village Historic District a landmark.
The bar that changed the movement
On a summer night in June 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar for gay patrons on Christopher Street, and the patrons fought back. The confrontation swelled into days of protest that are remembered as the moment the modern gay-rights movement pushed into the open — a story written largely by trans women, drag queens, and homeless youth. The little bar became a National Historic Landmark in 2000. Two blocks away, the same bookish streets where Allen Ginsberg and the Beats once held court still fill with students and strollers, but the rebellious charge has never quite faded from the corners.
What to do in the Village
Leave the Washington Square loop and follow the crooked streets — Greenwich Avenue's wide diagonal, the obscure gardens, the leafy West Village rows past Seventh Avenue. Walk down Christopher Street to the Stonewall Inn and the twin stone pillars that mark its existence, then duck into a jazz basement or a coffeehouse off MacDougal where the Beats used to read. Give Bleecker Street's bakery windows a pass, and put your back against the Washington Arch for a while to watch skateboards and sax solos. Turn down a side street that narrows to nothing — the Village's best rooms are the ones that hide off the avenues.