The blue camper on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan summed up the free-spirited 60s. It was owned by a New York butcher and this is its hidden story
New York City’s Greenwich Village has always been a magnet for outsiders, artists and poets. In 1963, one of those types was Bob Dylan, a kid from Minnesota who had felt the pull of the Village and its cafes and nightclubs where young guitar players would plan their lives – alongside the old-school butcher’s shops, bakeries and other Village staples – as a new, anything-goes counterculture bubbled up.
Dylan was 21 years old when Don Hunstein, the great photographer for Columbia Records, dropped by his third-floor walkup at 161 West 4th Street one cold February day that year to shoot some pictures for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, his second album, which turns 60 years old in May. The cover shows the singer with then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo holding tight to his arm as they walk along a snowy Jones Street just outside their apartment. On the left side of the image is a parked blue Volkswagen van – a model nicknamed a “splitty” back then for the two-piece front windshield. You can’t miss it.
