Edwards shows up as a character in this rackety 1933 novel by that other (and considerably darker) Village personality, Maxwell Bodenheim.  Despite the fictional name Bodenheim bestows on our troubadour, this may be an accurate description of Edwards at work.  The lyrics, at any rate, are lifted from genuine Edwards songs. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Much to my surprise, I found this charcoal sketch at the flea market last weekend.  The artist, Edward C. Caswell, frequently sketched Village subjects.  Edwards is seen here as a sidewalk sketch artist at an outdoor art show.  A note accompanied it: “This was drawn in Macdougal Alley and Macdougal St.  Bobby had just told […]

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I’ve long been interested in the career of Bobby Edwards, who played and made ukuleles in Greenwich Village in the ‘teens and ‘twenties, and established himself as one of the Village’s most conspicuous and colorful personalities. I haven’t been able to dig up much biographical information.  I know that he was born in Buffalo in […]

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…that you can write things in a notebook?  Many stores offer packets of paper, held together with glue, thread, or wire spiral; and a selection of pens and pencils that you can use to make marks on the paper.  Simply open the notebook the way you would a laptop, and “make believe” that the bottom […]

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You should always wash the hand which You will use to hold the sandwich. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who joke that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t; and those who don’t. My […]

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On Sunday, May 16th, hardcore fans of the suggestive braved suspended subway service and a glorious sunny afternoon to take in some harmless smut at the Ullage Group’s “Not Dirty, Just Spicy” event at Jalopy. Doug Skinner started things off by reviewing the rhetoric of extended double-entendre. To drive the point home, he performed the […]

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Bobby Edwards (seen here in a self-portrait from 1917) gave his own history of the “Greenwich Village Epic” in that quintessential Village journal, The Quill, in the November 1917 issue: “Down in dear old Greenwich Village,” or, as the Bard sings, “Way Down South in Greenwich Village,” originated in Polly’s about four years ago. Lucy […]

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“The Greenwich Village Epic,” aka “Way Down South in Greenwich Village,” or “Down in Dear Old Greenwich Village” is often quoted in books on the Village. It’s usually credited to a famous Village character of the ’20s, Bobby Edwards, “the Troubadour of Greenwich Village.” (I’ve been assembling material on him, by the way; I hope to post it here […]

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Ancient coral or ancient ladies’ swimming cap? On the first day of spring, which in New York City was particularly welcome and unseasonably warm, I took a long walk on the sands of Dead Horse Bay, a quiet inlet tucked away not far from Floyd Bennett Field (the City’s very first airport), now abandoned to […]

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The Ullage Group’s sixth public outing attracted our largest turnout yet.  We ran out of chairs and pews; some had to stand, fidgeting. After an introductory sermonette, Lisa uncorked the ullage, and poured out the traditional offering to our hosts at the Jalopy Theater, Geoff and Lynette Wiley.  She then discussed the cultural history of […]

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