Built on the marshes beside Hudson River, the quarter distinguish itself from the rest of the city through its check pattern map resulted from the winding track that joins the bed of old waterflows. From the 1920s, Greenwich Village becomes the refuge of bohemian literary and arts. Novelists O’Henry, Djuna Barnes, Theodore Dreiser, playwright O’Neil, female poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet E. Cummings, all lived in the Village at that time. During the first half of the 20th century, the theatral middle of the Village dominated the New Yorker drama scene as well, through the creation of Provincetown Players, Djuna Barnes being one of its founders, and the Cherry Lane Theater founded by Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1924. The particular ambience of Greenwich is favorable to the artistic creation. Life is mostly nocturnal : it begins at 4 PM and finishes at dawn. Cafes are places to meet and discuss new people, and where new theories on arts and literatures are experimented. Cafes Lafayette, Reggio and Breevoort (on the 5th Avenue) are some of the general quarters of artists and writers.