New Britain herald., 1919-04-10
Greenwich Village.


 From the Wall Street Journal, an omn1scleht authority on all such mat ters' we learn that the Corn Ex~ change bank of New York has an- nounced the openine of q, branch at the southwest corner of Fourth and Grove streets in the heart of Green w1ch Village. To mary this will seem astonlshlng, although with the great extension of modern facilities there is scarcely a village in the country too small to have branch bank or even an independent Trust comnanv of it's own, conducted hv one official and competent young woman as sistant The village bank in these days is quito as much 2. rncoen;zed institution as the village fire denart- ment. One drug store, one sboe s+ore one dry-goods and notions store. hay, grain and feed store. two grocery stores a Chinese laundry and hloo1, smith shop seem to make up enouph local business to warrant the main tenancc of 8 bank.
 Tn spite of it's far-hung fame, it is doubtful if more than half the people of the United States could tell off hand the exact location of Greenwich Village. Probably the uniformed would place it at a venture some where in Connecticut There is in fact q Greenwich in Connecticut, and to x +,>, T that it is som othing of a village, but 1t IS not the kind of village that is spelled with capital "V' For all Wo know there are hundred Green Wichea in this great country all of which may rank as villages, but there is only one Greenwich Village.
 In answering the question by identi- flying the Village as a Connecticut community one might possibly get by in civi! service examination, if the examiners were fairly tolerant. We cannot be sure about that, but it is certain that no plausible error of that sort would be admitted in any mod ern psychological test. And any ques- tion on that subject would have to be classified as q, psychological test
 
 Greenwich Village is above all else distinctly psychological. It is a state of mind even more than it is a To- cality. Some harsh critics have even gone so far as to declare that it is nothing less than a nightmare.
 Anyway there are sound physical reasons for questioning it's right to rank as q Village. About everyone knows what a village is like. It may be large or small, but it's distinguish ing characte ristics are unmistakable. Yet any unenlighteneI person might be set down in middle of Greenwich Village without ever recognizing any thing that fesembled a, village en- vironment. Of course, there was a time several centuries ago when the place was a sure enough village. Time has merged 1t with the surrounding terrain so that to the casual eye, un- used to mind-resders for the pur- poses of investigation, it seems mere 1 ly a part, although somewhat diff ferent part: of the physical mass know as New York.
 And yet to the more discriminating appraisal if still stands at its an cicnt value as a detached comm unity. 1 Greenwich Village is in truth @ will lage, which in many of it's conspicuous aspects has utterly failed to synchron- izs with the prevalent march of met ropolitan progress. Some of it's en- thusiastic inhabitants are wont to fancy that spiritually it has moved considerably faster than the rest of ! the city, but that is a question that might furnish a lively debate. Ger tainly there are various respects in which the district is thoroughly will lage-like and any unpreiudiCed visi- tor at any time can find an abundance of local characters who bear a stril1- ing resem blance to village "yaps.'
 We believe that to reach Greenwich Village you should go due south on