THE PICTURE BOOK OF GREENWICH VILLAGE ...

THE PICTURE BOOK OF GREENWICH VILLAGE by R. Bruce Gaylord (Citadel: $16.95). Although the region of Manhattan now bounded by 14th Street, Spring Street, Broadway and the Hudson River was first settled by the Dutch in the mid-17th Century, it didn’t receive its familiar name until 1721, when it was a British village. For most of its history, the Village has enjoyed a reputation for Bohemianism and freedom--artistic, literary, social, sexual--that has attracted a veritable Who’s Who of American authors, from Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe to Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norman Mailer. Gaylord’s rather quirky history mentions most of the key figures in passing but is most notable for its exceptional array of historic photographs.