Washington Square looks much the looks much the same as it did in the 1960s when hundreds of folk musicians, both aspiring and established, converged at the large circular fountain for weekly hootenannies. On a recent Sunday afternoon, there was no evidence of what the banjo-picking traditionalist Hedy West, arriving from North Georgia in 1958 described as a "turgid biosphere ... a strange and perverse place." Not a musician in sight. The tourists who joined sunbathing residents on the steps of the fountain had to content themselves with photos of each other.
Everybody brightened when regular performers Tic and Tac showed up on the south side of the fountain around 3PM; a portable stereo blaring early '80s Michael Jackson heralded their arrival. The 26 year old twins have been raking it in for 17 years now with their gravity defying breakdancing act. Whereas the '60s folk revival was driven primarily by educated white kids from privileged homes, agitating on behalf of the downtrodden, Tic and Tac earned themselves three garbage bags of money, by backing up their amazing human helicopter trick with a crowd-pleasing gangsta pose.
The Gaslight is gone. The current tenant is a boutique specializing in watches and piercing jewelry. Cafe Wha? is still hauling them in, 40 years after Bob Dylan graced its stage in his first New York appearance but the big draw these days is a play called Six Goumbas and a Wannabee, which features several moonlighters from The Sopranos. The Fat Black Pussycat sells tickets for concerts at a bar that was once Gerdes Folk City. The young box office guy studies the schedule of upcoming events. "Folk music? No, I don't think so. Well, maybe this guy, he plays with country bands sometimes."
MacDougal Street's current vibe is best exemplified by the reeking Off the Wagon Bar and Grill where "Coors Light Proudly Presents Yard Night." No open mike, but for five greenback dollars, you can get 36 novelty inches of beer and every yard thereafter is only three bucks.
Bleecker Bob's on 3rd street is still a reliable source for used vinyl, although folk music, which the store doesn't carry at all on CD, has been relegated to the back. It fills a mere three bins, buttressed by an automatic teller machine and a glass display case filled with fluorescent water pipes for "legal tobacco use" only. You can get tattooed and pierced back there, too.
A drummer and a man playing a stringed and studded gourd had each staked a claim on the 4th Street subway station. Finally, on the ramp heading down to the A train, some folk-style music -- a lone gray-haired figure, singing his heart out as he strummed an acoustic guitar with a drawing of a cactus on it. When asked who wrote the song he just played, he acknowledged that it was an original composition. He figured that if he just stuck to it, he might make it some day. He sounded pretty good. So far, he'd netted a dollar and change in his open case. A tourist thought he might make a good picture, but she'd used up all her film on Tic and Tac.
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