Thomas A. Edison, Inc.

But for a French pastry cook, a proprietor of an ice cream parlor, and an Italian printer journeyman who owned a handful of type and an old-fashioned hand press, there would never have been a Bruno's Garret, never a Greenwich Village Gazette, which became later Bruno's Weekly.

Charles Edison, Thomas A. Edison's son, would have never come to Greenwich Village to start here his Thimble Theater, his dancing on Washington Square, his musicals, and New York would not have now its famous Latin quarters.

Greenwich Village had never been more than a geographical conception to me, something quite different from merely an old part of the city.

True, there are old quaint houses and crooked, funny streets, Italian restaurants in imitation of Europe with red ink and French table d'hôte.

And inside of nine months, my correspondence was brought in in big mail bags.

The sightseeing buses stopped in front of my old frame building, which, by the way, had been erected a hundred and fifty years ago by the first public gravedigger of New York, Washington Square then being Potter's Field.

One day, Charlie Edison, who had patronized the garret frequently unknown to me by name, asked me if the same things that I was doing for painters and writers couldn't be done for musicians.

We formed a partnership, built Edison's Thimble Theater opposite the Brevoort Hotel, issued an appeal to all musicians and composers of America.