Buffalo Whore (The) A mildly bawdy song

From the Ivan Walton Manuscript. Collected from Norman "Beach" McIvor of Goodrich in 1934

This ode to to the working girls of Canal Street (in Buffalo) is pretty goofy, and kind of rude, but I thought I ought to include it in any case. It’s almost identical to another old bawdy song that Oscar Brand recorded decades ago, called “The Winnipeg Whore”. I don’t know which came first. Imagine yourself in on of Buffalo’s Canal Street saloons for this one. (or in Toronto’s Brunswick House Tavern in the 1970s)

“Canal Street had such a bad reputation that Erie canallers could dine out on stories of the the debauchery to be found there, even among the hard-living salt-water sailors they met in New York harbour. During the 1880s, 60% of the buildings on both sides of Canal Street were brothels, 30% were saloons, and the remaining 10% were grocery stores and other “respectable” businesses. Canal Street is gone now. It was located near present-day Veterans’ Park.

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• The Buffalo Whore