8. Diane di Prima’s Many Apartments

Diane di Prima's first New York City apartment on E. 5th Street. 
Diane di Prima’s first New York City apartment on E. 5th Street. 

Diane di Prima is a poet who, like many Beatniks, dropped out of college in the 1950s and set up shop in the West Village. There, she spent a week in a madhouse with the poet Ezra Pound, founded several radical magazines, became an instrumental player in the feminist movement, befriended Yoko Ono, founded the New York Poets theatre, gave birth to the poet LeRoi Jones’ child, and much more, all in a breakneck-speed series of events which she chronicled in her autobiography, “Recollections of my Life as a Woman: The New York Years.”

Many of the places di Prima blazed through have since closed, but the apartments she stayed at still stand. She lived in five apartments throughout her time in New York – one at Cooper Square, one at East Houston St., one at East 4th St., one at East 5th St., and one in Hell’s Kitchen.