| I consider myself the foremost historian | | | | quickly married. Occasionally men found |
| on life in Greenwich Village in the | | | | a mentally disturbed woman who had sex |
| Fifties and sixties. Many of my younger | | | | with the whole neighborhood, but it was |
| years were spent observing and enjoying | | | | difficult to get a date with her. This |
| its night life. After finishing my | | | | was the way things were and it is not |
| factory job at midnight I unwound by | | | | surprising that people got fed up with |
| drinking beer with the out of town | | | | those rules. Greenwich Village became |
| visitors. They were an interesting bunch | | | | the battleground for a more open society |
| of guys and gals. They all came to New | | | | where adults could choose the way they |
| York looking for a new kind of sexual | | | | had sex and with whom. |
| experience it was one that was not | | | | Word soon spread through out the country |
| available in their hometown. They found | | | | that there was a "sexual oasis" in New |
| what they were looking for in Greenwich | | | | York City where free love was available. |
| Village. That crowd was called by the | | | | Sex starved single guys and gals from |
| writers of that era: "Beatniks", they | | | | all over the nation left their families |
| also were called: "The Beat Generation". | | | | and jobs and headed eastward to |
| The village in the early fifties was a | | | | Greenwich Village. And when they met |
| low rent neighborhood occupied by | | | | they found sexual freedom in each other. |
| Italian-American families and college | | | | Most were broke and had to share one |
| students from nearby New York | | | | room with ten others. Some lived on only |
| University. The students socialized in | | | | a few cans of beans a day, but nothing |
| Washington Square Park and in the many | | | | mattered to them but having great sex as |
| coffee shops scattered around the area. | | | | often as they pleased. They were young |
| It was a quiet picturesque scene as | | | | and had unlimited sexual energy. |
| young people studied, relaxed and | | | | Poets and writers discovered a |
| chatted in coffee shops and in the park. | | | | marketable opportunity in romanticizing |
| What made the area stand out most was | | | | the sex life of the young guys and gals |
| that it was an inexpensive place for | | | | who newly arrived in the village. They |
| college students to spend their time. On | | | | called them:" Beatniks" or products of |
| the weekends the coffee shops and parks | | | | the: "Beat Generation", But the truth |
| were full of hundreds of thousands of | | | | was simple. They were just ordinary |
| young students who wanted to experience | | | | young people who wanted a sexual freebie |
| its lay back atmosphere. | | | | without their parents interfering with |
| Most people in the early fifties had | | | | their personal life. |
| very narrow sexual views. It was | | | | This sexual paradise came to an end when |
| forbidden for a woman to have a sexual | | | | the guys and gals realized that they had |
| affair before marriage and if the | | | | other needs that were just as important |
| neighbors found out that she broke the | | | | as sexual ones. They slowly went back to |
| rules, she was called a tramp. If a | | | | their hometowns, families, and jobs. But |
| woman got herself pregnant without a guy | | | | it was a learning experience for them |
| willing to marry her it was a cause for | | | | and it was all worth it. Greenwich |
| her to commit suicide. On the other end | | | | Village today has become gentrified, |
| horny young single men were suffering | | | | only the elite can afford to live there. |
| extreme agony with no way to relieve | | | | But memories of what once took place |
| themselves. Most were forced to | | | | still remain. |
| constantly masturbate while others got | | | | |