"In the popular imagination, New York City's Greenwich Village has long been known as a center of bohemianism, home to avant-garde artists, political radicals, and other nonconformists who challenged the reigning orthodoxies of their time. Yet as Gerald W. McFarland shows in this detailed study, a century ago the Village was a much different kind of place: a mixed-class, multi-ethnic neighborhood teeming with the energy and social tensions of a rapidly changing America."--BOOK JACKET.