Tenderloin, Manhattan
Encyclopedia
Red-light district
A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...
in the heart of the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
borough
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The area originally ran from 23rd Street
23rd Street (Manhattan)
23rd Street is a broad thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is one of few two-way streets in the gridiron of the borough. As with Manhattan's other "crosstown" streets, it is divided at Fifth Avenue, in this case at Madison Square Park, into its east and west sections. Since...
to 42nd Street
42nd Street (Manhattan)
42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square. It is also the name of the region of the theater district near that intersection...
and from Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among...
to Seventh Avenue
Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)
Seventh Avenue, known as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard north of Central Park, is a thoroughfare on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is southbound below Central Park and a two-way street north of the park....
, but by the turn of the century, it had expanded northward to 57th
57th Street (Manhattan)
57th Street is one of New York City's major east-west thoroughfares, which runs east-west in the Midtown section of the borough of Manhattan, from the New York City Department of Sanitation's dock on the Hudson River at the West Side Highway to a small park overlooking the East River built on a...
or 62nd Street and west to Eighth Avenue
Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)
Eighth Avenue is a north-south avenue on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic. Eighth Avenue begins in the West Village neighborhood at Abingdon Square and runs north for 44 blocks through Chelsea, the Garment District, Hell's Kitchen's east end, Midtown and the...
, encompassing parts of what is now the Flatiron District, NoMad
NoMad
NoMad is a neighborhood centered around the Madison Square North Historic District in the borough of Manhattan in New York City....
, Chelsea
Chelsea, Manhattan
Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, 30th Street to the north, the western boundary of the Ladies' Mile Historic District – which lies between the Avenue of the Americas and...
, Clinton, the Garment District
Garment District, Manhattan
The Garment District, also known as the Garment Center, the Fashion District, or the Fashion Center, is a neighborhood located in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The dense concentration of fashion-related uses give the neighborhood, which is generally considered to span between Fifth Avenue...
and the Theatre District.
Police Captain Andrew S. "Clubber" Williams
Alexander S. Williams
Alexander S. Williams was an American law enforcement officer and police inspector for the New York City Police Department...
gave the area its name in 1876, when he was transferred to a police precinct in the heart of the district. Referring to the increased payoffs he would get for police protection of both legitimate and illegitimate businesses there, especially the many brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
s, Williams said "I've been having chuck steak ever since I've been on the force, and now I'm going to have a bit of tenderloin."
History
Early in the 19th century, the major vice district had been located in what is now SoHoSoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
, called at the time "Hells' Hundred Acres", but as the city grew steadily northward, the theatre district along Broadway and the Bowery moved uptown as well, as did the legitimate and illegitimate businesses that were usually connected with show business. For some time, the city's "Rialto
Rialto
The Rialto is and has been for many centuries the financial and commercial centre of Venice. It is an area of the San Polo sestiere of Venice, Italy, also known for its markets and for the Rialto Bridge across the Grand Canal....
" centered on Union Square
Union Square (New York City)
Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...
and 14th Street
14th Street (Manhattan)
14th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street rivals the size of some of the well-known avenues of the city and is an important business location....
, but the Fifth Avenue Hotel
Fifth Avenue Hotel
The Fifth Avenue Hotel was a former luxury hotel located at 200 Fifth Avenue in New York City, New York from 1859 to 1908. It occupied the full Fifth Avenue frontage between 23rd Street and 24th Street, at the southwest corner of Madison Square in the borough of Manhattan.- Site and construction...
broke new ground when it opened at 23rd Street
23rd Street (Manhattan)
23rd Street is a broad thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is one of few two-way streets in the gridiron of the borough. As with Manhattan's other "crosstown" streets, it is divided at Fifth Avenue, in this case at Madison Square Park, into its east and west sections. Since...
and Fifth Avenue in 1859, beginning the expansion of the Union Square Rialto to 23rd Street and Madison Square
Madison Square
Madison Square is formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for James Madison, fourth President of the United States and the principal author of the United States Constitution.The focus of the square is...
. By the 1870s, the Fifth Avenue Hotel had many competitors in the area, and where the hotels were, the prostitutes followed. By the 1880s, the Tenderloin encompassed the largest number of nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
s, saloon
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
s, bordellos, gambling casinos
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
, dance hall
Dance hall
Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub...
s and "clip joints" in New York City, to the extent that one estimate made in 1885 was that half of the buildings in the district were connected with vice. Reformers referred to the area as "Satan's Circus," and one anti-vice crusading minister, the Rev. Thomas De Witt Talmage
Thomas De Witt Talmage
Reverend Dr. Thomas De Witt Talmage was a preacher, clergyman and divine in the United States who held pastorates in the Reformed Church in America and Presbyterian Church. He was one of the most prominent religious leaders in the United States during the mid- to late-19th century, equaled as a...
, denounced the entire city of New York as "the modern Gomorrah
Gomorrah
Gomorrah or Gomorra may refer to:* Sodom and Gomorrah, infamous biblical cities* Gomorrah , by Roberto Saviano** Gomorrah , based on the book* Operation Gomorrah, the Bombing of Hamburg in World War II in July 1943...
" for allowing it to exist.
The clientele of these establishments was not necessarily working-class: one set of seven sisters ran side-by-side brothels in a residential neighborhood on West 25th Street, inviting their upper class customers with engraved invitations. On some nights only gentlemen in formal evening dress were allowed to attend, and the girls of these houses were as socially adept as they were sexually; on Christmas Eve profits were given to charity.
Other well-known venues in the Tenderloin included Koster and Bial's Music Hall at Sixth Avenue and 23rd Street, a concert saloon where inebriated customers could watch the cancan being performed; the Haymarket, a dance hall on Sixth below 30th Street, where rich clients could dance with prostitutes, but not too closely, although they could take them into curtained-off galleries to have discreet sex, and sex exhibitions were on display in the balconies; West 29th Street, which featured an almost uninterrupted row of brothels; and the many gambling dens run by John Daly
John Daly (gambler)
John Daly was an American sportsman, professional gambler and underworld figure in New York during the late 19th century. A protege of John Morrissey, he was involved in illegal gambling in Broadway and Midtown Manhattan for over thirty years...
or the Madison Square Club of Richard A. Canfield on West 26th Street.
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
between 23rd and 42nd Streets, which was known as "The Line". In the mid-1890s, after the advent of electric lighting, the stretch of Broadway from 23rd Street to 34th Street
34th Street (Manhattan)
34th Street is a major cross-town street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, connecting the Lincoln Tunnel and Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Like many of New York City's major crosstown streets, it has its own bus routes and four subway stops serving the trains at Eighth Avenue, the trains at...
came to be called "The Great White Way" because of the numerous illuminated advertising signs there. This moniker was transferred to Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
when the theatre district moved uptown.
Crime was also a major aspect of the Tenderloin, which was considered to be the worst crime-ridden area of what was thought to be the most crime-ridden city of the United States. To a certain extent, police corruption kept crime under control as it regularized the financial relationship between the police and the criminals, but the area was too large, and the pickings too easy, for street crime to be managed completely. In 1906, William McAdoo
William McAdoo (New Jersey)
William McAdoo was an American Democratic Party politician who represented New Jersey's 7th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1883 to 1891, and served as New York City Police Commissioner in 1904 and 1905.-Biography:McAdoo was born in Ramelton, County Donegal,...
, who was the city's Police Commissioner in 1904 and 1905, wrote that the "Tenderloin [police] precinct, as every one knows, is the most important precinct in New York, if not in the United States, or probably in the world, from the amount of police business done there and from the character of the neighborhood."
Occasionally there would be organized attempts to clean up the Tenderloin, and reformist mayors, such as William Russell Grace
William Russell Grace
William Russell Grace was the first Roman Catholic mayor of New York City and the founder of W. R. Grace and Company.-Biography:He was born on May 10, 1832 in Ballylinan, County Laois, Ireland....
and Abram S. Hewitt would authorize raids on saloons and brothels, even those under the protection of "Clubber" Williams, but the effects were generally temporary: prostitutes would decamp to outlying areas, and return when the latest crusade was over. The net effect of these "shake-ups" or "shake-downs" was simply to drive up the cost of protection afterwards, making Williams even richer – he retired a millionaire – and putting more money into the pockets of Tammany Hall, which was deeply entwined in the graft and corruption connected with the district.
Frustration at this state of affairs led to Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock was a United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.-Biography:...
's anti-vice crusade, which operated with Federal authority from the Post Office
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
and with the support of the New York Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
and leading citizens such as J. P. Morgan
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric...
. Comstock's crusade knew no boundaries – he was as likely to target "smut" in the public libraries as he was sex-for-hire in the Tenderloin – but along with Rev. Talmage, he was able to get state legislation passed banning poolrooms, even though they continued to operate openly.
Aside from its commercial activities, the Tenderloin was also the home neighborhood for a large part of Manhattan's African-American population, especially in the downtown and western portion of the district: Seventh Avenue within the Tenderloin, in fact, became known as the "African Broadway." This was a neighborhood of blacks with middle class aspirations.
In August 1900, an undercover police officer accused a black woman, of soliciting. The woman’s husband intervened and the officer struck the husband with a club. The husband retaliated with a pen knife, fatally wounding the officer. At the officer’s funeral, police and white gangs attacked African-Americans, and burned their property while police looked on. In defense, black citizens armed themselves and formed the Citizens’ Protective League. Their appeals for justice to Mayor Robert A. Van Wyck went unanswered, and the state and the Police Boards did nothing.
By 1914 middle-class blacks from the area started moving to Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, which had been primarily white.
Eventually, the processes which created the Tenderloin also served to dismantle it. Once again, theatres and hotels began moving uptown, and the brothels and dance halls and so on followed after them. As early as 1906, McAdoo noted that the northern boundary of the district had moved to 62nd Street, and the "New Tenderloin", as he called it, was now bounded by 42nd Street on the south. The movement, he said, "is rapidly depleting the ranks of the sporting vicious element in the Old Tenderloin."
In popular culture
- The Tenderloin of the early 20th century is described from a police perspective in Behind the Green Lights, the memoirs of Police Captain Cornelius WillemseCornelius WillemseCornelius W. Willemse was a New York City policeman and detective from 1900 to 1925. He was the author of two memoirs, "Behind the Green Lights" and "A Cop Remembers". His books are among the few reliable first-hand accounts of the criminal gangs and police methods of that time.- Early life...
. - Owen DavisOwen DavisOwen Gould Davis, Sr. was an American dramatist. He received the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1923 play Icebound, and penned hundreds of plays and scripts for radio and film. Before the First World War, he also wrote racy sketches of New York high jinks and low life for the Police Gazette...
set a series of stories for the Police GazettePolice GazetteThe National Police Gazette, commonly referred to as simply the Police Gazette, was an American magazine founded in 1845 by two journalists, Enoch E. Camp, also an attorney, and George Wilkes, a transcontinental railroad booster...
in in the dance halls and restaurants of the district. They were later collected as Sketches of Gotham (1906) under the pseudonymPseudonymA pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Ike Swift" - The brothels of the Tenderloin, repeatedly raided by Anthony ComstockAnthony ComstockAnthony Comstock was a United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.-Biography:...
's vice squadVice SquadVice Squad is a punk band formed in 1978 in Bristol, England. The band formed from two other local punk bands, The Contingent and TV Brakes. Songwriter and vocalist Beki Bondage was a founding member and is currently with the band, although there was a period of time when the band had a different...
, were the setting for the 1960 musicalMusical theatreMusical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
TenderloinTenderloin (musical)Tenderloin is a musical with a book by George Abbott and Jerome Weidman, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock, their follow-up to the highly successful Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello! a year earlier. The musical is based on a 1959 novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams...
by Sheldon HarnickSheldon HarnickSheldon Harnick is an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof....
and Jerry BockJerry BockJerrold Lewis "Jerry" Bock was an American musical theater composer. He received the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Sheldon Harnick for their 1959 musical Fiorello! and the Tony Award for Best Composer and Lyricist for the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof with...
, based on a novel by Samuel Hopkins AdamsSamuel Hopkins AdamsSamuel Hopkins Adams was an American writer, best known for his investigative journalism.-Biography:Adams was born in Dunkirk, New York...
External links
- Origin of name
- Tenderloin, the musical
- http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/tenderloin-tf/ Tenderloin from Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Vol. 2, Book R...