A storied brownstone in Greenwich Village, the first home of Nobel Laureate and one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, inspired many of his early songs
Pics: Icon Realty Management
The times they have a changed significantly since Bob Dylan first arrived in New York City.
In 1961, he first met Irish folk singers Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, signed to Columbia Records, and moved into a rear walk-up – a building with no lift - at 161 West 4th Street, in Greenwich Village.
Then, a complete unknown, also the title of the recent biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, he made his way to where the action was.
In the early sixties, Greenwich Village was the epicentre of America’s folk music revival, attracting aspiring young folknik musicians from all over, including Paul Simon and the future Nobel Laureate, who had started to go by the name Bob Dylan.
Shortly after arriving from Minnesota, Dylan met The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.
Makem first met Dylan in the apartment of a mutual friend, the writer and actor Bob Newhart.
His place was on nearby MacDougal Street, according to The New York Times.
This is the same street where Dylan played his first New York gig at Cafe Wha? after hitchhiking from Minnesota.
It is said that Dylan first met the Clancy Brothers at the White Horse Tavern on nearby Hudson Street.
He became a fan. "I’d never heard a singer as good as Liam, ever. He was just the best ballad singer I’d ever heard in my life - still is probably," Dylan says in the 1984 documentary The Story of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.
He and Liam Clancy became lifelong friends.
It was also Dylan’s connection with the brothers that would help him break into the music industry, with Liam recommending him as a harmonica player to Columbia Records in advance of his signing with the label.
The year was 1961, when he is reported to have moved into the apartment and to have also met Suze Rotole.
His girlfriend at the time, she and Dylan are pictured on Jones Street, around the corner from the apartment, on the cover of his 1964 album, The Freewheelin’.
That album included the protest song, Blowin’ in the Wind, and the apocryphal folk ballad A Hard Rain’s a gonna Fall.
The apartment’s location inspired other songs, too, including the scathing view of fairweather friends, Positively Fourth Street.
In his New York Times obituary, Liam Clancy, who was particularly close to Dylan, is quoted as saying, “People who were trying to escape oppressed backgrounds, like mine and Bob Dylan’s, were congregating in Greenwich Village. It was a place you could be yourself.”
Dylan lived at this address from 1961 to 1964. He apparently paid US$60 per month in rent for his unit, 3R, according to The New York Post.
The entire building, a recently renovated four-storey mixed-use brownstone, includes five apartments and two retail spaces, and has been listed for $8.25 million through agents Avison Young for seller Icon Realty Management.
More than 60 years later, the building includes two retail units, four one-bedroom, one-bathroom units, and one three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment.
All feature oak flooring, exposed brick detailing, stainless steel appliances, and marble worktops.
