A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from May 29, 2018
Baloney Boulevard (Broadway)

Syndicated newspaper columnist Walter Winchell (1897-1972) introduced the term “Boloney Boulevard” in Life magazine on September 28, 1928, in an article titled “Along the Main Stem”:
   
“Then he ankled into the club proper and waited for his ‘heart,’ and those of us on the sidelines thought it was the most different romance we had ever witnessed along Boloney Boulevard.”
     
The Broadway nickname—usually spelled as “Baloney Boulevard”—is of historical interest today.
 
       
Wikipedia: Broadway (Manhattan)
Broadway /ˈbrɔːdweɪ/ is a road in the U.S. state of New York. Broadway runs from State Street at Bowling Green for 13 mi (21 km) through the borough of Manhattan and 2 mi (3.2 km) through the Bronx, exiting north from the city to run an additional 18 mi (29 km) through the municipalities of Yonkers, Hastings-On-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, and Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County.
(...)
Broadway in Manhattan is known widely as the heart of the American theatre industry, and is used as a metonym for it.
     
28 September 1928, Life magazine, “Along the Main Stem” by Walter Winchell, pg. 6, col. 3:
Then he ankled into the club proper and waited for his “heart,” and those of us on the sidelines thought it was the most different romance we had ever witnessed along Boloney Boulevard.
 
16 November 1971, Philadelphia (PA) Daily News, “Winchell” by Bob Thomas, pg. 36, col. 2:
Hardened Artery, Bulb Belt, Baloney Blvd. (Broadway)
 
23 February 1972, Orlando (FL) Sentinel, “Winchell: Three Dots With A Dash,” pg. 16-A, col. 2:
WINCHELL WAS known for his contributions to slang, including Renovating (going to Reno for divorce), Park Rowgue (newspaperman), Hard Times Square, Baloney Blvd. (Broadway) and giggle-water.
 
24 August 1975, Springfield (MA) Sunday Republican, “A Gloozzery of Wword Wwedings” *Walter Winchell glossary—ed.), pg. IT14, col. 5:
Bologny Boulevard...Times Square
 
25 December 1988, The Sunday Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), “Reporter at Large” by Mark Finston, Accent: People, pg. 10, col. 4:
During the first half of this century Broadway gossip columnist vied fiercely with each other to characterize their Great White Way in the most colorful way possible. Some of the nicknames invented in these Winchelleeers: Gay White Way, Great Tight Way, Mazda Lane, Dazzling Gulch, the Galaxy, the Grand Canyon, Milky Way, Neon Boulevard, Tungsten Territory, Baloney Boulevard, Hard Times Square, Times Queer, the Rue of Roues, Buzzard Boulevard, Fraudway, Aspirin Alley, Gin Gulch, Hooch Highway, Coffeepot Canyon, Orange Juice Gulch and the Dirty White Way.
 
Google Books
Take My Life, Please!
By Henny Youngman with Neal Karlen
Thorndike, ME: Thorndike Press
1992
Pg. 181:
Winchell had a gimmicky writing style; in the wacky world of Winchellese, booze was “giggle water,” getting married was “middle-aisling it,” and Broadway was “Baloney Boulevard.”

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityStreets • Tuesday, May 29, 2018 • Permalink


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