Somewhat related. But I recently discovered a documentary short from 1961. It's about a bunch of beats and folkies protesting the right to sing in Washington Square Park. Could have been shot yesterday, except people were much more formally dressed back then (suits and ties abound) ;)
Apparently restored by director Martin Scorsese himself. It has a great narrative quality in the edit. Nostalgic scenes of bygone NYC and its denizens. With a genuine feeling of suspense as events unfold.
That is an amazing film, it takes me right back to 1961. Not that much different than the Detroit that I knew as a kid. Detroit before the fall.
Can you imagine a fight over folk music in a public park? In a few short years the Beatles would change fashion and the Vietnam war would forever change for my generation the innocence of those simpler times.
Greenwich Village has a radical history that stretches back many decades prior to when when the folkies took up residence. At one time some artists decided to secede from the USA and declared Greenwich Village to be “The Free and Independent Republic of Washington Square” [0]. Apparently there's a staircase inside the arch in Washington Square and you can climb to the top but I've never seen it opened to the public as opposed to the Soldiers' and Sailors' arch in Grand Army Plaza (Brooklyn) which is occasionally open to the public (usually during the annual Open House New York).
I always thought that Aristide Bruant's Dans la Rue sounded suspiciously familiar enough to have been an influence on Kerouac ever since I took this class on Picasso but who knows, nobody's looked into it methinks?
...now I need to go figure out where my old beat up copy of On the Road that's been to 47 US states, ten (edit: make that 14) countries and three continents with a bunch of random things stuffed between the pages got off to.
Apparently restored by director Martin Scorsese himself. It has a great narrative quality in the edit. Nostalgic scenes of bygone NYC and its denizens. With a genuine feeling of suspense as events unfold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEvKe2WLumI