f the houses occupied by someone
who has made American history and some of these houses have
produced some of our present great men.

"New York has nothing of the old, with the exception of
those old Colonial houses and for this reason we are trying
to preserve them.... This is the great advantage and
distinction of Washington Square and Greenwich Village and
this is what has made it popular and it will be greater as
the years go by. It will improve more and more with age,
like an old wine.

"There is only one old section of New York and that is
Greenwich Village and Washington Square, and the public are
also going to preserve this little part of old New York."

Then there is that curious quality about Greenwich so endearing to
those who know it, the quality of a haven, a refuge, a place of
protected freedom.

"It's a good thing," said a certain brilliant young writer-man to me,
"that there's one place where you can be yourself, live as you will
and work out your scheme of life without a lot of criticism and
convention to keep tripping you up. The point of view of the average
mortal--out in the city--is that if you don't do exactly as everyone
else does there's something the matter with you, morally or mentally.
In the Village they leave you in peace, and take it for granted that
you're decent until you've blatantly proven yourself the opposite. I'd
have lost my nerve or my wits or my balance or something if I hadn't
had the Village to come and _breathe_ in!"

Not so different from the reputation of Old Greenwich, is it?--a place
where the rich would be healed, the weary rest and the sorrowful gain
comfort. Not so different from the lure that drew Sir. Peter out to the
Green Village between his spectacular and hazardous voyages; that gave
Thomas Paine his "seven serene months" before death came to him; that
filled the grassy lanes with a mushroom business-life which had fled
before the scourge of yellow fever; not so different from the
refreshing ease of heart that came to Abigail Adams and Theodosia
Alston when they came there from less comforting atmospheres.
Greenwich, you see, maintains its old and honourable repute--that of
being a resort and shelter and refuge for those upon whom the world
outside would have pressed too heavily.

There is no one who has caught the inconsequent, yet perfectly sincere
spirit of the Village better than John Reed. In