Jesse Fish

The East Village has historically been visited by and home to a diverse and eclectic variety of artists, musicians and writers. More than 50 years ago it was the domicile of the late drug-ingesting, drink-swilling gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. In the winter of 1959 the 22-year-old Thompson listed his address as 69 East Fourth Street, a residence he shared with a friend.

According to Thompson’s letters in “The Proud Highway” (1997), the native Kentuckian befriended a number of Louisville expatriates while living in downtown Manhattan. Most of “them move in different circles,” he wrote to the editor of a hometown paper, ”and all of them have their own reasons for leaving.” Thompson wrote explained that his story would be “a single shot (Louisville Expatriates in New York) or a series of contrasting interviews.” New York City was not easy for The Good Doctor at this time and he had moved in and out of the area on occasion. While living in Greenwich Village a year before, Thompson wrote an unsolicited letter to a newspaper in British Columbia stating that he would be willing to “work 25 hours a day if necessary, live on any reasonable salary, and don’t give a black damn for job security, office politics, or adverse public relations.”

The erratic and spontaneous Thompson, who once stated that he had “no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me,” bounced through a variety of neighborhoods and writing jobs in Manhattan during the late 1950’s and throughout the 1960’s. During this time he also briefly studied short story writing at Columbia University and wrote a novel, “Prince Jellyfish,” which remains unpublished. The work has been described as “an autobiographical novel about a boy from Louisville, going to the big city and struggling against the dunces to make his way.”

Despite his initial grappling as a young writer in the city, Thompson always had time and money for a few brews and one of his favorite haunts, McSorley’s Old Ale House, is within stumbling distance of the East Fourth Street address. Additionally, the Hell’s Angels New York headquarters are located near this residence on 77 East Third Street. This is interesting to note because Thompson’s first published book, “Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs” (1966), was a non-fiction publication that Thompson penned while riding with the notorious biking gang in the early 1960’s. It is not known if Thompson ever visited their East Village hangout before the 1966 publication of the book, but the thought of a boozed up and downtrodden young Thompson asleep on the group’s bench outside does not seem incredibly far-fetched.

Helen Zhang Now 81, Barbara Shaum has been making sandals at her East Village shop for five decades.

Summer has faded into memory and trips to warm climes are still months off, so having just ended her busiest season, the celebrated sandal maker Barbara Shaum can take some time to sit and chat.

At age 81, Ms. Shaum, who seems to call everyone “darling,” has been fashioning custom-made leather sandals for the last 50 years in her store at 60 East Fourth Street. She arrived in New York in 1951 from a small town in central Pennsylvania with a dollar in her pocket and not a clue of what she wanted to do, except that she wanted to work with her hands.
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Hannah Thonet Founded in 1973, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe regularly features spoken word events and open mic nights

The East Village has long been considered a Mecca for poets and writers. From bars to old tenement buildings, the historic neighborhood is brimming with former haunts of longtime residents like Allen Ginsberg and W.H. Auden. The crisp weather and changing leaves makes fall the perfect season to wander through the area on a romantic tour. So here’s a roundup of iconic East Village literary landmarks – why should the West Village get all the glory?

Ginsberg Residences

206 East Seventh Street (between Avenues B and C)
170 East Second Street (between Avenues A and B)

Arguably the neighborhood’s most well-known scribe, poet Allen Ginsberg called several apartments home throughout the East Village, including one we recently told you was on the market. In addition to the 12th Street apartment, he lived at 206 East Seventh Street from 1952 to 1953 where fellow Beat poet, William S. Burroughs, was a frequent visitor. Another one of his apartments was at 170 East Second Street. Ginsberg and his longtime partner, Peter Orlovsky, also a poet, lived there from 1958 to 1961.
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