The East Village is one of the most historically important neighborhoods in New York City. From a Native American village, Dutch farmlands and wealthy townhouses to the first foreign-language neighborhood in America, the "melting pot," and the center of radical arts and politics in America; contributing to significant advancements in social service, education, science, labor & women's rights, and pioneering arts & entertainment which affected culture around the globe.
For over half a century, The East Village neighborhood of New York City – E.14th Street to E. Houston Street -- has been known as the counter-culture capital of the world and center of radical arts and activism in America.
Many are not aware that this neighborhood was actually considered part of the historic Lower East Side [5]until the 1960s and 70s, when the term "East Village” was coined as a real estate marketing ploy to soften the area's working-class, low-income roots and breath new economic life into the neighborhood.
The Lower East Side [5] has always been associated with slums, poverty, and licentious vice while Greenwich Village has always been associated with wealth, affluence, and intellectualism.
Even though these contrasting neighborhoods bordered each other geographically for close to two hundred years, it wasn't until the counter-cultural 1940s and 50s that the two began to be perceived as complementary, as artists and students moved in.
The term “East Village” took hold by the 1980s, and by the time gentrification was in full swing in the 1990s, and a border between the East Village and the Lower East Side [5] had been commonly accepted to exist along E. Houston Street.