Hey, Mary:

Things changed very rapidly in the mid and late 60's. When I moved out of New York City, I was still just a 50 minute train ride into New York, and I continued to go in to the Village. But, everything changed radically over a short period of time. Where I could sit for a whole evening, nursing a cup or two of coffee at the Gaslight Cafe and listen to two or three long sets by a performer, they instituted a cover charge and emptied the place between "Shows." Shows? Yep. The Village was increasingly heavily hyped as a tourist attraction, and the people I knew couldn't afford to go to hear the music in many of the places we'd hung out. If I'd been wiser, I would have started a "Rent-A-Hippie" service and cleaned up.
The Village sprang back to life a little in the 70's and 80's with Fast Folk, and there still is a loyal group in NYC who keep the music alive. But, it will most likely never be the same. Or, if if ever comes back, it will be in another low-rent district. They tried to shift much of the Village atmosphere to the East Village in the 80's, but it was mostly upscale art galleries and restaurants.

A good example of the change is that I'd hear Tom Paxton all the time for the price of a couple of cups of coffee at the Gaslight (where he recorded his first album on the Gaslight label... which I still have.) In the 70's I went down to hear him and had to buy rather expensive tickets that afternoon, and heard a 45 minute "show." Tom hadn't changed, but the atmopshere was very different.

Someone used the term "star" in one of these threads recently. I'd have to go back and see if it was in this one. There were no "stars"
in the Village in the early sixties. BD, that is. Actually, the whole concept of a folk "Star" is rather humorous. Folk "Stars" sell fewer albums than a rock group does as a test pressing. Stardom isn't what it's all about, and Paxton, Van Ronk, LeFarge. Sky and the rest would have laughed at the concept. One of the jokes going around back in those days, when the Prestige label started recording folk music, through the efforts of Ken Goldstein was "I record for Prestige, but I'd rather record for money."

Jerry