Gays in Greenwich

Greenwich Village has always fascinated me. One expert on that bohemian corner of the world speculates that open gayness killed the Village:

In his lament that "the Village" is not what it used to be, the author floats an interesting premise: If the Village as he remembers it is dead, is it possible that gay liberation killed it? Despite Field's disastrous experiences with group therapy (which made him believe he would feel happy and whole if he simply denounced his homosexuality), despite the necessary marriages between lesbians and gay men for social safety, the constant fear of being outed and the subsequent loss of jobs, family and status that could result, Field suggests the possibility that the gay rights movement had a fissioning effect on the "private club" mentality of the pre-Stonewall era -- that the growing freedom to live openly as a gay man or lesbian was detrimental to the insular and rarefied culture of the Village of the '50s, the one he speaks of capturing in his potboiler novel, "The New Villagers."