Two or three years ago the little triangle of a park known as Sheridan Square was surrounded by structures of red brick that dated from the days when Greenwich Village preserved something of its proud individuality.

Then a plan of transformation, involving a new avenue, cleared a wide path with the suddenness of a Kansas cyclone.

Bits of the picturesque past went tumbling down before the onslaught of the demolishers.

But in various nooks and corners that remained there sprang up bits of a picturesque although probably ephemeral present.
It is easy to regard the Lane of the Mad Eccentrics from the point of view of metropolitan sophistication; to dismiss the Vermilion Hound and the Hell Hole and the Pirate's Den and the Purple Pup and Polly's as clap-trap and tinsel designed for the mystification of yokels and social investigators from Long Island City.

But it is impossible to deny that the crazy decorations have added a touch of real colour to what had been a drab corner of the town.