- Dave van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk (June 30 1936 - February 10 2002) was a folk singer born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York City, and was nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street." He was best known as an important figure in New York City during the acoustic blues revival of the 1960s, but his work ranged from old English ballads to Bertolt Brecht, rock, New Orleans jazz, and swing. He became known for performing instrumental ragtime guitar music, … - Richie Havens
Richie Havens (born January 21 1941 in Brooklyn, New York) is an African American folk singer and guitarist. Havens is perhaps best known for his intense rhythmic guitar style, soulful covers of pop and folk songs and his opening performance at the Woodstock Festival; all the more remarkable for the absence of most of his upper teeth. Havens uses open D tuning on the guitar. By fretting all strings it produces a major chord on any position on the neck of the guitar. - Vin Diesel
Vin Diesel is an American actor, writer, director, and producer. Diesel is the founder of the production companies OneRace Films, Tigon Studios, and Racetrack Records. Diesel made his stage debut at age seven when he appeared in "Theatre for the New City," which was produced in Greenwich Village and directed by Thomas Hinkerman. He remained involved with the theatre throughout adolescence, going on to attend the city's Hunter College, … - Tom Paxton
Thomas R. Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is a well-known American folk singer and singer-songwriter who has been writing, performing and recording music for over forty years. His songs have experienced enduring appeal, including modern standards such as "The Last Thing on My Mind", "Bottle of Wine", "Whose Garden Was This", "The Marvelous Toy", and "Ramblin' Boy". Paxton's songs have been recorded by Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Doc Watson, Sandy Denny, Dolly Parton, … - John Sebastian
John Sebastian (born John Benson Sebastian, 17 March 1944, in Greenwich Village, New York) is an American songwriter and harmonica player. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band named in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His tie-dyed denim jacket is prominently displayed there. - Maria Muldaur
Maria Muldaur (born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D'Amato, 12 September 1943, in Greenwich Village, New York) is a roots-folk singer best known for her song "Midnight at the Oasis". - Tim Hardin
Tim Hardin was a United States folk musician and composer who was a part of the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene and performer at the Woodstock Festival. Hardin was born in Eugene, Oregon. He dropped out of high school at age 18 to join the Marine Corps. After his discharge he moved to New York City in 1961, where he briefly attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. - Lucille Lortel
Lucille Lortel (December 16, 1900-April 4, 1999) was an American actress and theater producer who is remembered as the namesake of an off-Broadway playhouse and theatrical award. Born Lucille Wadler in New York City, Lucille Lortel was originally an actress during the 1920s (she once recollected comparing breast sizes with Helen Hayes). She went on to become an off-Broadway theater producer and impresario with the help of a wealthy husband, … - Jerry Jeff Walker
Jerry Jeff Walker (born March 16, 1942) is a country music singer. Walker was born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, New York. During the late 1950s, Crosby was a member of a local Oneonta teen band called The Tones. The band traveled to Philadelphia to audition for Dick Clark's "American Bandstand", but were turned down. - Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday. Although many people thought they were, the pair were not married, … - Betty Comden
Betty Comden (May 3 1917 - November 23 2006) was born Basya Cohen in New York City on May 3 1917 (see ,,) although many sources cited 1915, 1918 and 1919 as possible years of birth. She died of heart failure following an undisclosed illness of several months at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006. Along with Adolph Green (1914 - 2002), Comden was one-half of the musical duo Comden and Green, … - Karen Dalton
Karen Dalton (1938 - 1993) was an American folk singer and banjo player associated with the early 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene, particularly with Fred Neil and the Holy Modal Rounders as well as Bob Dylan. Her bluesy, world-weary voice is often compared to that of iconic jazz singer Billie Holiday. She sang blues, folk, country, pop, motown -- making over each song in her own inimitable style. She played the twelve string Gibson guitar and a long neck banjo. - Bill Ayers
Bill Ayers (b. 1944) is a former member of the Weather Underground who is now a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. - Joseph Mitchell
Joseph Mitchell (July 27, 1908 - May 24, 1996) was an American writer who wrote for "The New Yorker". He is known for his carefully written portraits of eccentrics and people on the fringes of society, especially in and around New York City. Mitchell was born on his maternal grandparents' farm near Iona, North Carolina, the son of Averette Nance and Elizabeth A. Parker Mitchell. The family business was cotton and tobacco trading, … - Robert Shelton
Robert Shelton (June 28, 1926, Chicago, Illinois, United States - December 11, 1995, Brighton, England) was a music and film critic. Shelton's most enduring claim to fame was that he helped launch the career of a then unknown 20-year-old folk singer named Bob Dylan. Dylan was performing at Gerdes Folk City in Greenwich Village the ne-plus-ultra of New York City folk venues, opening for a bluegrass act called the Greenbriar Boys. - Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes (June 12, 1892 - June 18, 1982) was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing by women and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel "Nightwood" became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T.S. Eliot. - Rory Block
Rory Block (born as 'Aurora Block', November 6 1949) is an American female blues guitarist and singer, a notable exponent of the country blues style. Rory Block was born in Princeton, New Jersey and grew up in Manhattan. Her father, Allan Block, ran a sandal shop in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, and the constant presence of members of the Greenwich Village folk music scene made an impression on the young girl, who studied classical guitar. - Alan Gerson
Alan Gerson is a Democratic member of the New York City Council, elected in 2001 to represent the 1st council district in Manhattan. The district is located in Lower Manhattan and includes Tribeca, portions of the Lower East Side, Chinatown, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, and the Financial District. - Peter Falk
Peter Michael Falk (born September 16, 1927) is a two-time Academy Award-nominated, six-time Emmy Award-winning American actor, perhaps best known for his role as Lt. Columbo in the television series "Columbo". Falk's unusual gaze is due to a glass eye that he has had for most of his life. - Lucy Kaplansky
Lucy Kaplansky (born 1960) is an American folk musician based in New York City. Kaplansky also has a PhD in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University. Kaplansky was originally from Chicago, but at the age of 18, decided not to go to college, and moved to New York City. She became involved in the city's folk music scene, particularly around Greenwich Village, where she played with, among others, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin and Richard Shindell. - ?uestlove
?uestlove's parents then enrolled him at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. By the time he graduated, he had founded a band called The Square Roots (later dropping the word "square") with his friend Tariq Trotter (Black Thought). ?uestlove's classmates at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts included Boyz II Men, jazz bassist Christian McBride, and jazz organist Joey DeFrancesco. - Zac Posen
Zac Posen is a contemporary fashion designer. Posen grew up in New York City, attending Saint Ann's School. He went to design school at Central Saint Martins in London, where he began to conceive his distinctive aesthetic. At 16, he interned at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute, under the tutelage of Richard Martin, followed by an internship with Nicole Miller and a position at Tocca. - Vivian Blaine
Vivian Blaine (born 21 November 1921 in Newark, New Jersey; died 9 December 1995 in New York, New York) was an actress and singer best known for originating the role of Miss Adelaide in the musical theater production "Guys and Dolls". Born Vivian Stapleton, the cherry-blonde-haired Blaine appeared on local stages as early as 1924 and was a touring singer with dance bands starting in 1937. - Jerrold Nadler
Jerrold Lewis Nadler, sometimes called Jerry Nadler (born June 13, 1947) is an American politician from New York City. A Democrat, Nadler represents New York's 8th congressional district which includes parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York City. Nadler's district includes most of midtown Manhattan, including the site where the World Trade Center stood. It also includes the lower Manhattan neighborhoods of Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, … - Ed Sanders
Ed Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of the University of Missouri in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City's Greenwich Village. He wrote his first major poem, Poem from Jail , on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting against nuclear proliferation in 1961. In 1962, he founded the avant-garde journal, Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts . - Izzy Young
Israel Goodman Young or Izzy Young (born 26 March 1928) is a noted figure in the world of folk music, both in America and Sweden. He is the former owner of the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village, New York, and since 1973, he has owned and operated the Folklore Centrum store in Stockholm. In 1957, on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, he opened the Folklore Center, a store for books and records and everything related to folk music. - Carmine Desapio
Carmine Gerard DeSapio (December 10, 1908- July 27, 2004) was an American politician from New York City. He was the last head of the Tammany Hall political machine that was active in New York politics for 150 years, and dominated them for 80 years. DeSapio was born in lower Manhattan. His father was an Italian immigrant, while his mother was of the second generation. He started his career in the Tammany Hall organization as an errand boy and messenger for precinct captains. - Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883-March 25, 1969) was a socialist American writer and patron of the Harlem Renaissance, later known for being an anti-leftist. He was born in Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York. Both his parents, Samuel Elijah Eastman and Annis Bertha Ford, were members of the Congregationalist clergy, his mother being one of the first women ordained as a minister in 1889. - Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman (born Gerald Herman on July 10, 1931 in New York City) is an American composer/lyricist of the Broadway musical theater. He composed the scores for the hit Broadway musicals "Hello, Dolly!", "Mame", and "La Cage aux Folles". - Jack Hardy
Jack Studebaker Hardy is a singer-songwriter and playwright who has been influential in the Greenwich Village folk music scene for decades. He has been cited as a major influence by Suzanne Vega and many others who emerged from that scene in the 1980s. He was also the founder of the Songwriters' Exchange at the Cornelia Street Cafe and was the first editor of "Fast Folk Musical Magazine". Hardy is a graduate of the Pomfret School in Connecticut. - David Blue
David Blue, born Stuart David Cohen, was an American singer-songwriter. He was an integral part of the Greenwich Village folk music scene in New York, which included Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Paxton, and Eric Andersen. In 1975 Blue joined Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and he appeared in "Renaldo and Clara", the 1978 movie that was filmed during that tour. He died of a heart attack when he was only 41 years old. - Mary Travers
Mary Travers (born 9 November 1936 in Louisville, Kentucky) is a member of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and Noel "Paul" Stookey. Together, they formed one of the most successful folk-singing groups of the 1960s. Travers is a graduate of the Little Red School House. She lived in Greenwich Village, New York City, as a high school student. The group Peter, Paul and Mary launched in 1961 and broke up in 1970, … - Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (sometimes also called Else von Freytag-von Loringhoven) (July 12 1874 - December 15 1927) was a German-born avant-garde, Dadaist artist and poet who spent most of her life in Greenwich Village, New York City, United States. - Carolyn Hester
Carolyn Hester (b. 1937, Waco, Texas) was an important figure of the early '60s folk revival, singing traditional material in the manner similar to that of later chanteuses such as Joan Baez and Judy Collins. Hester's first album was produced by Norman Petty in 1957. In 1960, she made her second album for the label run by the Clancy Brothers, thrusting Hester into the thick of the folk revival. - Dawn Powell
Dawn Powell (November 28, 1896 - November 14, 1965) was an American writer of satirical novels and stories that manage to be barbed and sensitive at the same time. Powell was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, a village 45 miles north of Columbus and the county seat of Morrow County, Ohio. After her mother died when Powell was seven, she lived with a series of relatives around the state. - Lanford Wilson
Eclipse Theatre Company of Chicago is proud to announce Legendary American writer Lanford Wilson as the featured playwright of the 2005 season. Lanford Wilson began writing plays in the early 1960s and has written many memorable ones including Talley's Folly, Balm in Gilead, Burn This, and Fifth of July. His plays explore themes of alienation, loneliness, and crumbling illusions. - Jimmy Walker
James J. Walker, often known as Jimmy Walker and colloquially as Beau James, (June 19, 1881 - November 18, 1946) was the mayor of New York City during the Jazz Age. Walker was the son of Irish-born William Walker, a Democratic Assemblyman and Alderman from Greenwich Village, belying certain accounts of Walker's childhood which stated he grew up in poverty. Before entering politics, the young Jimmy Walker worked as a songwriter, … - Mark Spoelstra
Mark Warren Spoelstra was an American singer-songwriter and folk and blues guitarist. He was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He began his musical career in Los Angeles in his teens and migrated around to wind up in New York City in time to take part in the folk music revival of the early 60s. He is best remembered for his activity in the Greenwich Village area. He performed with Bob Dylan soon after Dylan's arrival in New York City, … - Peter Tork
Peter Halsten Thorkelson (born February 13, 1942), better known as Peter Tork, is an American musician and actor. Although born in 1942, many news articles will have him listed as born in 1944 as this was the date given on early Monkees press releases. This is rumored to make Michael Nesmith appear to be the oldest member of the group (as leader). He was born in Washington, D.C. and began studying piano at the age of nine, … - Ralph Lee
Ralph Lee is an Obie award-winning mask and puppet maker living in New York City. In 1973, he staged a wandering neighborhood puppet show in Manhattan's Greenwich Village that would become the inspiration for New York's Village Halloween Parade, which continues to this day, now attracting audiences of two million. Lee is the Artistic Director of Mettawee River Theatre Company, an experimental theatrical company which uses masks and pageant sized puppets in its productions.
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