TheVillager.com – Eden Wall
Greenwich Village is like a Venn diagram, in which several alphabetically marked sets represent the factions that make up the diverse neighborhood. Let us consider three of these many sets, calling them Sets A, B and C. These three sets exist beside one another; what?s more, my street corner, Horatio St., is what we as students would likely refer to as the intersection of the Venn diagram, where the three of these lettered sets overlap and coexist. This intersection is a small sample of the oftentimes overwhelmingly larger city and its ceaselessly different and coexisting elements, and this intersection is my home.
Standing on the corner of Horatio and Washington Sts., you are part of that intersection of all sets, expressed as {A B C}. Facing the Hudson River, you are essentially basking in the materialistic glory of Set A. The newly defined social life and chic inhabitance of the Village is personified in the long legs and designer handbags of the women. Their runway walk is drooled and fawned over by the curiously intrigued eyes of both men and women. They strut down the street from tall apartment buildings that in some ways seem to produce them. We do not know where they are going, but they have a purpose and a look to kill. They have made the Village their own ? have redefined it as their trendy Village, as it fills with pretentious galleries and overpriced clothing stores.
Should you turn to the right, Set B may catch you off guard. Set B is where the line between masculinity and femininity is infinitely blurred, as well as the distinction between sexuality and occupation, as full-grown men strut, not unlike the models just mentioned, in sparkly tube tops and stiletto heels.