The West Village gives you several ways to build a walk around what people make: a bookseller’s recommendations, a cheesemonger’s choices, a band playing downstairs. I’d leave room for the garden and river, too. This route starts with film on the neighborhood’s eastern edge, takes in books and public art, and reaches the Hudson before returning inland for jazz.
LGBTQ guest curators help shape Queer/Art/Film at IFC Center, one of several programs that give you a specific way into its film selection. On the eastern edge of this walk, in Greenwich Village, the cinema presents new independent, foreign and documentary features alongside older films. You can choose a premiere or make a repertory screening the reason for coming.
Weekend Classics revisits earlier cinema, Waverly Midnights concentrates on cult movies, and Pure Nonfiction focuses on documentaries. Those distinctions are useful when you’re choosing by the kind of film you want to see rather than a title you already know.
The renovated historic Waverly theater now contains five cinemas. Short films play before features, giving smaller works a place in the program, too. Beyond the screen, the cinema’s Posteritati Gallery displays vintage movie posters from around the world.
Jefferson Market Garden
Neighbors created Jefferson Market Garden on the site of the demolished Women’s House of Detention, with the first flowers blooming in spring 1975. Today, you can follow a brick path around the lawn and turn toward the fountain and rose garden, or stop at the koi pond to watch the fish.
There’s more planting to see beyond the roses. Native ferns occupy a shady bed, and an elevated woodland garden grows in deeper shade. The bulbs change from year to year, so the seasonal garden’s planting isn’t fixed.
The former courthouse beside the garden is now a New York Public Library branch. Residents saved that building from demolition before turning their efforts toward the garden.
Three Lives & Company and Left Bank Books
The booksellers at Three Lives & Company read widely and make a point of recommending literary books that might otherwise be overlooked. If you want help choosing your next read, I’d start with that conversation. The shop’s artistic displays offer another way to browse, and discussions here extend from books into culture and current events.
Nearby, Left Bank Books buys and sells used, vintage and rare books in literature, culture and the arts. Its small shop sits on a historic block of Perry Street. The emphasis changes here: you’re browsing older books and editions, with art and cultural subjects alongside literature.
The two shops serve different searches well. Three Lives offers contemporary literary recommendations and handles special orders when you have a particular book in mind. Left Bank makes sense when the edition or the age of a book is part of your interest.
Christopher Park
George Segal’s Gay Liberation places four figures in Christopher Park: two men standing and two women seated on a bench. You’ll see white-painted bronze figures in quiet, everyday poses within the park’s plaza. Commissioned in 1979 and installed in 1992, the sculpture stands among the benches and flowers inside the iron fence.
The park is at the heart of Stonewall National Monument. It and the nearby Stonewall Inn became centers of the 1969 uprising, making this a place where public art and LGBTQ+ history occupy the same small space. For more personal accounts, the separate Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center presents exhibits and interviews sharing LGBTQIA+ stories.
Murray’s Cheese
Cheesemongers at Murray’s Cheese can guide you through hundreds of cheeses from around the world and offer tastes as you choose. That makes the Bleecker Street flagship useful for assembling something to take toward the river. You can concentrate on the cheese counter, add charcuterie and pairings, or get something hot from Bites on Bleecker.
For a board, the choices run to three cheeses, two meats and three pairings. Cheeses include High Plains Cheddar, Cave Aged Annelies and Barnstorm Blue; cornichons, almonds and dried fruits are among the accompaniments. I’d use the cheesemonger’s guidance here to narrow the selection.
The hot counter gives you a different kind of lunch. The Classic melt puts a signature cheese blend on sourdough Pullman, while the classic mac combines radiatore noodles with mozzarella, cheddar and gouda. The back room also carries fresh produce, pantry staples and craft beer.
Pier 45
With food from Bleecker Street, you can make Pier 45 the picnic stop on this walk. Its broad grass lawn stretches out over the Hudson, earning it the nickname “green beach” in summer. Spread out on the grass, or use the seating and shade structures if you’d rather stay off the lawn.
The long promenade and wood decking give you room to keep walking along the water.
Between Piers 45 and 46, look for Bow Notch, a semicircular cutout in the bulkhead. It once allowed longer ships to dock without extending beyond the federal pierhead line into the shipping channel. That curved edge is a surviving piece of how this waterfront worked.
Smalls Jazz Club
Generations of jazz players have performed and joined late-night jams at Smalls Jazz Club, a basement venue that’s served the music community since 1994. You can finish the walk inland with a live band in its intimate room. The club’s program includes both band performances and jam sessions, so the musicians and format can guide your choice.
Smalls also documents its shows, with an audio and video archive reaching back to 2007. Those recordings preserve the work of the players who pass through, and the SmallsLIVE Foundation pays royalties directly to musicians through the archive. A free livestream offers another way to hear performances from the club.
