Greenwich Village — stage to generations of American cultural greats, from Edgar Allan Poe to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen — is the city’s newest historic landmark.
About 250 buildings in the neighborhood that reach back to the early 1800s, including houses and small theaters that produced artists like Lenny Bruce and Eugene O’Neill, gained historic-district status on Tuesday from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.
The 13-block South Village Historic District also includes America’s first Italian coffeehouse, the San Remo Cafe. It was the hangout of everyone from Miles Davis and Jack Kerouac to Dylan Thomas.
Advocates say the buildings have been threatened by developers looking to demolish or change 19th-century housing stock.
“I am ecstatic. We’ve been waiting a very, very long time for this,” said Mark Fiedler, 59, a musician and software entrepreneur, who has lived for 30 years on Bleecker Street in the landmarked part of the Village.
Since the 1960s, nearly 2,500 structures have been landmarked in Greenwich Village, which the commission described as “one of the most important cultural and social centers of the city.”