Village bohemians and working commuters shared the same public space in 1960.

Evidence

The June 16 installment of Bill Manville’s Voice column “Saloon Society” described a long night of drinking that began once the bars opened at 10:00 p.m., having been closed for Election Day (a primary that brought some victories for the Village’s reform Democrats) and, thanks to a buddy’s bottle of applejack, was able to continue, after the bars closed, in Washington Square. Around 6:00 a.m. a “party of beats” paraded through the square “dancing, jigging along the paths to their East Side jungle pads.” An hour or so later, the drones appeared—early people on their way to work and disapproving mothers of small children. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 140