Mim & Greenwich Village went together like bagels with a smear - a perfect pairing. Not that any of us dreamed, back when she spent the Summer of '66 called The Village home, how Washington Square would would play such a MAJOR role in her life. It would have seemed too incredible.
For years after Mim took her bow at the Circle in the Square, every Labor Day weekend Dad would drive us up to the Greenwich Village Art Show. The all-time great highlight was finding Val Sigstedt* with his amazing wood carvings & stained glass. As tickled as we were finding a familiar face in a favorite playground, little did we guess that one day the four of us would LIVE (and, in my case, be married out of) the very place Val got his early training - the Oliver Smith (stained glass) Studio on Woodland Road - where Hannah lives now! Delightfully small world!
The low - the show we forever dubbed "Year of Black Velvet" because the quality of the art was so flat out wretched.
To compensate for such an awful art show, Dad drove us across every one of Manhattan's bridges across the East River & the Hudson. What an jaw-dropping feat in those days long before GPS!
As dreadful as the art was that one year, the Village could never be a disappointment. We would have started with brunch at The Cookery, home of both delectable chilled strawberry soup & the great Alberta Hunter. Sweet regret - in writing this memory, just found out that Miss Hunter was rediscovered by new fans. Did Mim know? Hope so! What a voice! What sass!
It's impossible to describe the heart & soul of the Village back in those days, pre-gentrification. In 1966, no one would have believed that the four zip codes it covers would be ranked one of the Top 10 Most Expensive Neighborhoods in the America. Not in NYC - in the USA!
Even in the mid-'60s, the Village was already commercialized beyond what it was in previous decades. Beatniks were giving way to hippies, starving artists increasingly sought studios down in SOHO (South of Houston - HOWston).
Out of towners took particular delight in Mim, whose long hair (to her waist), simple jersey & gathered skirt identified her to them as a real-deal Villiage bohemian. How she loved that!!
Much as we loved strolling through Washington Square back then, watching all the activity, enjoying the endless games of chess played by intense looking men, none of us could have dreamed that Mim would graduate in that very place, not once but twice (NYU bungled her transcript; when they corrected the mess two years later, she got ANOTHER invitation to graduate & grabbed it).
If only Dad could have seen, heard the trumpeter atop the victory arch announcing the start of commencement. But he would be gone going on ten years when we heard that first, in 1981.
Balducci's, Azuma, Brentano's, Young China, the brownstones & NYU buildings, the coffeehouses & sidewalk cafes, Folk City - the Village Gate - Cafe Au Go Go - Village Vanguard - The Bitter End, The Fantasticks at the Sullivan Street Theater was still in the very early years of its epic run - all those & more, much more were part of our early years in the Village. How I'd love to be able to send this off to Mim for her to add more memories, more places I thought I'd never forget.
When you get right down to it, Mim really WAS a true bohemian, one who loved every nook & crannie of the Village, who made all of us Village People.
VAL SIGSTEDT
Principal, Sigstedt Design Studio
Artist craftsman since 1948
Designer, woodcarver, stained glass artist, mechanic and manufacturer; Training: Thorsten Sigstedt, Woodsculptor, Oliver Smith Studio, Henry Hunt Studio, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co; founded and managed stained glass department of Santa Fe Studios of Church Art; taught advanced stained glass eight years at Bucks County Community College and Bristol Glass Company; founded Sigstedt Studio in 1961 at Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania. Principal designer of the windows and shades.
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