Art is leaving Greenwich Village in sad haste this year. Studios with huge north windows and facades trimmed with old rose and pea green paint are more numerous than ever, but the artists are departing, not because they love the village less but because they can no longer afford it. Before the Invasion of the returning wealthy bourgeoisie, who once more choose to reside in the vicinity of Washington square, the artist must retreat—but where?
This is what they themselves ask you, with a rather desperate air. Where, indeed, can they find an inexpensive, down-at-the-heels neighborhood into which they can infuse their own careless and artistic atmosphere without attracting a pursuing mob of rich, would-be bohemians? For, like Mrs. Vanderbilt, the artists of Manhattan suffer from too great popularity. As soon as they move into a locality, get their easels and smocks unpacked, let their beards grow, put antique brass knockers on their front doors and pink borders around their windows, Wall street brokers follow suit and rents rise.
Rich Deserted the Village.
The rich grew weary and deserted Greenwich Village more than half a century ago. Their great estates gave place to rows of mid-Victorian dwellings, owned and occupied by respectable merchant families, elevated trains started coming down Sixth avenue as far as Bleecker street, with business in their wake, the merchant families moved on. Clerks and small retailers took over their houses until in time the Immigrants came and crowded them out. The neighborhood had set in for a period of rapid decay, such as that which destroyed the once-lovely Third.  avenue, and proper owners of the district had resigned themselves to great pecuniary loss, when suddenly New York artists discovered the possibilities of Washington. When the square. 