The way Ali Joseph sees it, the chronically broke Eddie York was the richest man on earth.

Who else but a rich man would turn down money?

Back in the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. York lived in a small apartment across Lagrange Street from the Angry Sea, the Summit Street bar Mr. Joseph owned that eventually changed its name to Mugshots, a recently condemned building. Mr. Joseph would see Mr. York almost every morning when he opened the bar.

“I’d say, ‘Good morning,’ and he wouldn’t look at me,” Mr. Joseph recalled. “He’d never look at me. It took eight years.”

At the time, Mr. York was sculpting busts of famous personages for display at Andre’s Lounge, a place described in 2016 by The Blade’s retired food editor, Mary Alice Powell, as “a jumping food mecca on Summit, not too far from Lagrange

See Full Page