Tracing Bob Dylan's NYC Roots: Washington Square Park

Washington Square Park, 1953Photo byAngelo Rizzuto, Library of Congress

A Complete Unknown, a film that follows the dawn of Bob Dylan’s career after the 19-year-old Minnesotan arrived in New York City, is now being filmed around town. In an excerpt from the book New York Groove: An Inside Look at the Stars, Shows, and Songs That Make NYC Rock, we look back at one of Dylan’s favorite spots to perform: Washington Square Park.

The Washington Square Arch at the southern end of Fifth Avenue is the gateway to Washington Square Park. Musicians have performed around the fountain at its center since World War II. Greenwich Village residents often complained about the noise and in 1947 the city began requiring permits for all park performers. Buddy Holly, who lived in the nearby Brevoort apartments at 11 Fifth Avenue in 1958 often brought his guitar and joined the young musicians.

Washington Square Park, 1953Photo byAngelo Rizzuto, Library of Congress

Bob Dylan often played in Washington Square Park after arriving in New York in 1961. “Washington Square was a place where people you knew or met congregated every Sunday and it was like a world of music,” Dylan recalled in Playboy. “You know the way New York is; I mean, there could be 20 different things happening in the same kitchen or in the same park; there could be 200 bands in one park in New York; there could be 15 jug bands, five bluegrass bands, and an old crummy string band, 20 Irish confederate groups, a Southern mountain band, folk singers of all kinds and colors, singing John Henry work songs.

“There was bodies piled sky-high doing whatever they felt like doing. Bongo drums, conga drums, saxophone players, xylophone players, drummers of all nations and nationalities. Poets who would rant and rave from the statues. You know, those things don’t happen anymore. But then that was what was happening. It was all street. Cafés would be open all night. It was a European thing that never really took off. It has never really been a part of this country. That is what New York was like when I got there.”

Washington Square Park, 1967Photo by© Frank Mastropolo

By the spring of 1961, the city’s new parks commissioner, Newbold Morris, ruled the park off-limits to folk singers. Morris refused to issue performance permits to the musicians. Morris claimed the crowds they attracted trampled the grass. Izzy Young, the owner of the Folklore Center, tried unsuccessfully to have permits issued. On April 9, Young and hundreds of protesters and musicians that included Dylan met in Washington Square and sang in defiance of the ban. The New York Daily News described the demonstration.

“Embattled beatnik musicians, joined by friends and veteran anti-cop shouters, turned peaceful Washington Square Park into a wrestling ring yesterday afternoon in a defense of free speech for zither players, mandolin strummers, and folk singers. A platoon of more than 35 harassed cops, summoned in answer to a riot call, unhappily took up the anti-music-in-the-park order of Parks Commissioner Newbold Morris.”

Washington Square Park, 1953Photo byAngelo Rizzuto, Library of Congress

Permits were again issued and in 1970 the city’s broad street performance ban came to an end. Another crackdown on the park’s performers came in 2011 but was lifted in 2012. Today musicians are found in many corners of the park.

Frank Mastropolo is the author of New York Groove: An Inside Look at the Stars, Shows, and Songs That Make NYC Rock and Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever.