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 “Little Blue Books” were published by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, of Girard, Kansas, from about 1919 to 1947.  They were small, cheaply made, and sold for a nickel or dime.  The covers were originally blue, but other colors were pressed into service if the card stock was cheaper.  By the time the company crumbled, they had […]

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Step inside. Some friends who, like me, frequent that bane of productivity, Facebook, alerted me to a piece recently published in the New York Times, about the short-lived Greenwich Village Bookshop and its very special door. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas has created a wonderful website for this relic, so that […]

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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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