Posts by John Flood

Kenneth Fearing was a major poet of the Great Depression and the founding editor of the Partisan Review.

He lived at 311 W. 11th Street and his birthday is July 28.

You can find a selection of his poems at the

Raymond Chandler did not spend very much time in the Village but he did check into the residential hotel, The Grosvenor, 35 Fifth Avenue, in the spring of 1955 and stayed for a short while.

He also wrote this in a 1954 letter to Hamish Hamilton about imagined neglected authors:

...And there was Aaron Klopstein. Who ever 

Hart Crane lived for a time at 45 Grove Street (he more famously had an apartment with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge) and his birthday is July 21.

Crane was a poet in the Rimbaud fashion. His life was restless, chaotic and short.

It may have been a good life for producing poetry, but it was a terrible life to 

Clement Clark Moore is credited with writing one of the most famous poems in the world, "Twas the Night Before Christmas," also known as "A Visit from St. Nickolas."

This poem was first published anonymously in 1823, and was not attributed to Clement Moore until it was included in an 1844 anthology of Moore's poems. Moore wrote it for his children and at their insistence he included it in this edition. Moore, however, was generally more serious minded than this poem and apparently wanted to distance himself from it. He certainly didn't need the 

Mary McCarthy is eminently quotable, so I'll let her speak for herself. June 21 is her birthday and she lived at 16 Gay Street.

The American, if he has a spark of national feeling, will be humiliated by the very prospect of a foreigner's visit to Congress — 

Mark Van Doren edited and published An Anthology of World Poetry in 1929. Amazingly, this enabled him to buy the house at 393 Bleecker Street. Van Doren was a poet himself and a playwright and a greatly admired professor at Columbia 

William Styron, like many Greenwich Village writers, came from somewhere else, in this case North Carolina.

June 11 is his birthday and he spent his early writing career living at 45 Greenwich Avenue.

Here are two quotes from Sophie's 

Before he was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, John Masefield scrubbed floors in a saloon at Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue in the Village.

My guess, that's good training to be a poet or a writer of any kind.

His birthday is June 1.

Here's 

You still have time to read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace before Hudson Park's next book discussion on Saturday, June 9, at 10:30 a.m.

Called by many the greatest writer of his generation, Wallace can be challenging, especially his 1079 p. novel Infinite 

John Cheever lived at 61 Jane Street when The New Republic published his first short story. His birthday is May 27.

Here are some words from 

Joseph Brodsky was a Russian poet, born in Leningrad, who became the American Poet Laureate in 1991. He lived at 44 Morton Street and his birthday is May 24.

Like Dylan Thomas, Brodsky wrote a birthday poem. His is called May 24, 1980, and was published in

Lorraine Hansberry lived at 337 Bleecker Street. Her birthday is May 19.

A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. Here are some quotes:

A Raisin in the Sun (1959)

I look 

Katherine Anne Porter's 1962 Ship of Fools was the best selling novel of the year and assured her financial security. She is generally more admired for her shorter works, however, such as Pale Horse, Pale Rider and her collections of short stories.

She lived at

Archibald MacLeish was the Librarian of Congress from 1939-1944 as well as an accomplished poet and dramatist. Not surprisingly, he was a huge advocate for libraries. 

He lived at 182 Sullivan Street and his birthday is May 7.

Here’s a great idea! Celebrate his birthday by

I read Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities years before I moved to New York, back when I wrote for community newspapers in my home state of Delaware. Jacobs wrote sensibly, without pretense. She observed things closely, and drew logical conclusions. She obviously cared about her subject passionately, but her arguments were not emotional. They 

May Sarton lived a little bit out of Hudson Park's area at 42 E. 11th Street, but still, close enough. She was a poet, novelist and memoirist. May 3rd is her birthday.

She is credited with saying "the deeper you go, the more universal you 

Henry James wrote one of the quintessential New York novels, Washington Square. He lived in Greenwich Village at 21 Washington Place. So on April 15, celebrate something other than paying your taxes. Celebrate Henry James's birthday!

Read one 

Gregory Corso was born at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. His family lived near Bleecker and MacDougal streets at the time of his birth.

His birthday is March 26.

His famous poem "Marriage" can 

Edward Albee's birthday is March 12. He resided at 238 West Fourth Street (near Tenth Street) in New York City.

In September, Hudson Park Library's Book Discussion Group read