The Postwar Buzz

Sheraton reports that the “pleasantly shabby Village” was abuzz with excitement at the war’s end. Abstract Expressionists painters gathered at the Cedar Tavern, which had moved the year before from Eighth Street to University Place. Everyone was in psychoanalysis. Weaving was popular and huge looms took up much of the space in some apartments. So many people took pottery classes that landlords banned home kilns as fire hazards. Art movie theaters served coffee in huge silver urns. The neighborhood abounded with bookstores and shops selling handicrafts, antiques, pottery. The panhandling drunks on the Village were more amusing than threatening, she reports. She remembers would-be poets cadging drinks and stealing sandwiches at the San Remo where she and her husband hung out on occasions.

Sometimes Sheraton stayed up until 4 AM discussing and arguing books with her friends. One of the most controversial was Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers , still intensely debated three years after its publications, with its jeremiads against mothers, the common man, sexual hypocrisy, women, the US government and the modern age. Some leftists liked it for its condemning tone although it bears a lot of resemblance to the insane rantings of today's right-wing talk radio hosts.