Growing Up Bank Street

The warmth and eccentricities of Greenwich Village leap off the page in Donna Florio’s inviting read. Having walked the streets of the Village, visiting the shops, photographing John and Yoko’s 105 Bank Street entryway and enjoying the ambiance of this unique neighborhood, Florio paints a portrait that made me feel as if I was there. Growing up as the child of opera performing parents, she lived among a vast cultural audience of artists, blue collars, actors, musicians and visionaries. The sparkle and flair mingled with the downtrodden peppered her life. This was her neighborhood, the dangerous and the safe, the struggling and the affluent, the dreams and disappointments. We travel through the early days of the AIDS epidemic and the personal and devastating effects  of 9/11. This is a coming of age story, a journey of self discovery, of shadows and light and a historic neighborhood that has a colorful and vibrant soul.
Highly recommended.
Thanks to NetGalley, New York University Press and especially Donna Florio for this most enjoyable ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Donna Florio has lived in various apartments in 63 Bank Street, Greenwich Village, since her birth in 1955.  This book is a labor of love and the result of many years of work.  Her goal appears to have been giving readers a true feeling for what her neighborhood has been like since the late 1800's and the changes it has gone through.  She has a love for the architecture and the bohemians who have come and gone and made their homes on Bank Street and its environs for over a century.  In addition to people Florio knew of or knew personally, she has collected anecdotes and life stories of the more interesting people who have lived within the six blocks of Bank Street (and Bleeker Street).  Among them are the original Auntie Name, Rex Harrison, Jack Gilford and his wife, Charles Kuralt, Bella Abzug, and many others.  The stories can be a little chopped-up in places, introducing certain people in one place in the book and then going back to their stories later.  For example, Frank McCourt was Florio's English and writing teach but is mentioned briefly in two different places.  I wanted to know much, much more about someone she knew throughout high school who is one of my all-time favorite writers.  I found myself wishing that each person had a section to him/herself.  But then, sometimes the author organizes her narrative by addresses.  For some people, this form of organization (or disorganization) may interfere with their enjoyment of the book, but I just read it as written...full of interesting people and times.  If you don't mind vignettes, you should like this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Growing Up Bank Street.

This was a fascinating, lively portrait of a woman who grew up in the heyday of the Village; when artists and rock stars hung out, where you mingled with actors and drag queens, the educated, the artsy, the downtrodden, the mentally ill.

Ms. Florio describes an unconventional upbringing with actor parents who never fulfilled their creative and artistic potential (and sadly blamed Ms. Florio for her arrival and thwarting their big Broadway dreams), her neighbors, some damaged, some harboring deep secrets, but all she learned from and grew up with.

Ms. Florio honed useful and necessary street smarts as she navigated both safe and dangerous blocks in her neighborhood; she doesn't mince words. She may have grown up in a different time, but it didn't mean it was safe.

The author paints a neighborhood and backdrop long gone; a Village that was a true reflection of New York City, filled with artists and vagrants, the elite and ill repute mingling together, the rough and tumble with the educated and downtrodden.

I spent my angst filled teen years in the Village in the 90s, when it was still cool to hang out, before it became gentrified and Starbucks and trendy boutiques moved in. 

I remember my BFF at the time and I would watch hustlers con victims out of their hard earned cash at three-card monte, vendors hawking their wares, and once I saw a man walk down the street in nothing but chaps and cowboy boots. Only in the Village, I thought.

Those days are long gone.

Ms. Florio's memoir captures a past that has moved on, her stories of her eccentric and no less fascinating neighbors captivated me just as much as her run-ins with celebs like Sid Vicious and John Lennon. I can't imagine her childhood; heartbreaking and heartwarming, shocking and endearing, sad but hopeful.

The author paints a time we may never have been a part of or is long gone; a neighborhood where the tenants and neighbors watched out for each other; knew your name and waved from across the street, reminding us that location is not just about prime real estate, its where you grew up, and how it shapes you into the person you will later become.

I highly recommend this to anyone interested in reading about New York City and its artsy, bygone past.

This is a history of old New York City, especially Greenwich Village, told from a lifelong resident of Bank Street. Bank Street is a 6 block section of the far West Village and is community unto itself. Many celebrities of stage, screen, music, and the literary worlds lived, worked, and entertained in their Bank Street residences. The author tells intimate stories of many, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Sid Vicious, the REAL Auntie Mame, Charles Kuralt, Alan and Adam Arkin and many others.

She researched the history of her neighborhood and spent years interviewing residents past and present, including their family members. For those interested in NYC history, this is an informative and entertaining read.

This was a no-brainer for me when I spied it on NetGalley not too long ago. Even though I have never been to New York City, I feel like it is my home. I devour books about the city, its individual boroughs, the whole history from New Amsterdam to now, because I want to know every last detail and try to imagine what life would be like to be a child of NYC. Now, don't get me wrong, I had an amazing childhood and am incredibly lucky and blessed and loved. But if that amazing childhood could have been transplanted to the Village, that would have been most excellent.

The author delves into the history of the street, one street - maybe one of the most famous streets in the entire country, in easily the most famous neighborhood in the country. She weaves together the stories of her life and the lives of those around her with such clarity, and they all flow together well as we see the street change and grow, as the author does along with it.

Florio leaves no stone unturned as she described her unconventional upbringing. Raised on opera and theatre life by her patents, she spent her days and nights among an eclectic and eccentric mix of people who would each leave their definitive mark on her, shaping Florio into the adult she would become.

The author lovingly recounts all the good and bad related to roaming the Village as a child, youth, and adult. We see firsthand the neighbors who came and went, the cast of characters who simply could not be made up - this is the Village. I found her story about accidentally dumping water on John Lennon's head quite amusing, which apparently he did too. Yoko, on the other hand, did not seem as pleased. Reading her account of the brief time in which Sid Vicious was her next-door neighbor was especially touching.

There were also plenty of encounters with regular every-day people as well and Florio specifically recounts the AIDS crisis hitting the Village hard. To read of her pain and fear in the wake of the attacks on September 11th was especially powerful - this place she loved so much, this place that had seeped into her bones and became part of her, was suddenly unrecognizable. Still, she slowly but surely found her way back from those awful days, weeks, months.

Greenwich Village and Bank Street in particular owe a huge debt of gratitude to Florio. She so beautifully captured the beating heart of the neighborhood, describing with such perfection the changing village over the passing decades. The Village of her youth is long gone, and typing those words truly brings more than a touch of sadness; never again will such a mix of colorful characters exist in this way together. The culture that thrived despite the truly glaring differences of those who inhabited the buildings along Bank Street can never be recaptured in reality, so I am thankful that Florio has done that so splendidly here.

This is a must-read for anyone with a love for all things NYC. Highly highly recommended.

Donna Florio pens a tender love letter to her forever-home, Bank Street, in this rose-tinted memoir.

Memoirs aren't typically my cup of tea, but the synopsis of this one intrigued me! As someone who grew up in the rural American south, and had only ever seen New York City once (two years ago), I really wanted to dive deeper into this particular perspective of NYC. Donna takes a rather common storyteller's approach in this one. It's actually not hard to imagine sitting down with her like you might with an older relative - the beverage of choice in your hands - as they prattle on about days that now exist only in their memories.

Donna doesn't pretend to be some gilded authoress. She tells it like it is. Overall, this was an enjoyable look into the history of Bank Street and the culture of New York.

Big thank you to NYU Press + Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book!