Washington Square Arch

Washington Square Arch with Empire State Building in the Background, 1967

It was a big deal when my mother let me take the subway with friends to go into Manhattan. We usually went to Greenwich Village and my mother had a rule: There had to be at least four of us because there was safety in numbers. And we had to take a bus to a train instead of taking the subway near our house because they were different train lines and the one nearest to our house went through bad neighborhoods.

When we went into Manhattan most times, we had to dress up, which meant wearing a skirt. In the late-'50s and early-'60s, that also meant wearing white gloves! But going to Greenwich Village meant we could dress more informally than in midtown Manhattan to take in the holiday show at Radio City Music Hall or to visit a museum uptown. It meant we could wear jeans and sneakers!

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