Greenwich Village Gentrifies

A long-running dispute over the renovation of the Greenwich Village park "has turned the landmark square into a battleground for community groups, which are quarreling over its physical appearance — and its future.

...Should the park, dating to the 1820s, be restored as a model of precise urban planning, with an iron fence designed to keep out dogs and vagrants? Or should the now-scruffy square, long home to beatniks, folkies, rap poets, hip hop artists and other iconoclasts, be left as it is?"