PLACES WHICH CATER TO VICE
Places which cater to vice are divided into two groups. The first group,
catering directly to vice, includes saloons and their accessories, such as
concert halls and cabaret shows; the second group, operating indirectly,
comprises public dance halls, burlesque theaters, amusement parks, and
boat excursions. The proprietors of these places usually have full
knowledge of the demoralizing influence of their establishments, and
deliberately encourage such conditions for the purpose of increasing their
profits. "The saloons which cater to women," writes Professor
Rauschenbusch, "the dance halls that encourage indecent dances and supply
long intermissions for the consumption of liquor; pleasure resorts and
excursion steamers, theaters, music halls, and moving picture shows that
use the ever ready attractiveness of sex interests--are all smoothing the
downward road--and they know it."[68]
Nevertheless, it would be unjust to condemn indiscriminately all persons
connected with the places which indirectly promote vice. An exception
should be made of certain proprietors of dance halls and amusement parks,
the commissioners of public parks, and some excursion boat owners.
(1) DISORDERLY SALOONS, CONCERT HALLS, AND CABARET SHOWS.
These places may all be considered under one heading because they are
connected with saloons: they differ only in the character and grade of
entertainment given in them, this varying with the ingenuity of the
proprietor.
A disorderly saloon is one where indecent acts occur, where indecent
language is used publicly, where there is open solicitation for immoral
purposes, or to which known and habitual prostitutes resort. The records
in the office of the State Commissioner of Excise show that up to and
including January 28, 1913, 4,583 liquor tax certificates were issued in
the Borough of Manhattan under Sub-Division One of the Liquor Tax Law.
During the period of this investigation, _i. e._, from January 24, 1912,
to December 15, 1912, the rear rooms of 765 saloons at separate addresses
were investigated. Unescorted women, who from their actions and
conversation were believed to be prostitutes, were seen in 308 of the 765
rear rooms investigated, and the investigators were openly solicited by
prostitutes for immoral purposes in 107 separate rear rooms. In some of
these places white men and colored women, in others colored men and white
women, mingle freely.
The majority of disorderly saloons are situated on Third Avenue and side
streets from East 10th to East 125th Streets; on Sixth Avenue and side
streets from West 22nd to West 49th Streets; on Seventh Avenue and side
streets from West 23rd to West 52nd Streets; and on Eighth Avenue and side
streets from West 14th to West 125th Streets. There are other disorderly
saloons on the lower East Side, on the Bowery and surrounding streets, on
Amsterdam, Columbus, and Lexington Avenues.
Many of these disorderly saloons occupy the ground floor of buildings the
upper floors of which are used as assignation and disorderly hotels under
the same management. The rear rooms are filled with small tables, where
customers are served with drinks from the bar. Some of the rooms are large
and clean, others small and exceedingly dirty. The ladies' retiring rooms
in the most disorderly places are very unsanitary. A report on one of the
rear rooms describes it as being "long and narrow, with a row of tables
down the length of two walls and in the center. So narrow and low and
dirty is the room that it is as if a stable had been hastily emptied and
swept out and turned into a temporary drinking booth."
The managers of these establishments are sometimes sober and industrious
men. They have been selected by the brewers to open saloons because of
their personal qualities; for they are hail fellows well met, "good
mixers," who make and hold friends. But these qualities do not always go
hand in hand with business sagacity. The "good mixer" soon finds himself
in debt to the brewer who set him up in business. The iron-clad mortgage
which the brewer holds on the fixtures hangs over the saloon keeper like a
menacing hand. He finds that he cannot make any money in the ordinary
business of selling liquor over the bar; sales are increased if women of
the street are encouraged to use the rear room as a "hangout" where they
can enter unescorted to meet men. In addition, the proprietor finds that
he can still further increase his profits by renting rooms over the
saloons to the women and their customers. "We have to evade the law to
make any money,"[69] remarked the owner[70] of a resort in East 116th
Street.
Some of the saloon keepers, of course, need no forcing. They started out
to exploit prostitution in connection with the liquor business. Their
business is organized with that in view. Prostitutes are attached to the
rear room, as to the hotels previously described, by certain rules and
customs. For example, one woman is not permitted to entice the customers
of another; the girl who is unable to hold her customer is gradually
forced to saloons that are less exacting. When the prostitute has secured
her customer, she must in certain saloons order fancy drinks. This has to
be cleverly done so as not to offend. The girl intimates that she loves to
drink wine because it makes her jolly and companionable. If she is
personally attractive and well dressed, the man does not object. "You
know," she murmurs, "I hate a cheap skate who won't treat a girl like a
lady." If she is unsuccessful in persuading her customer to buy expensive
drinks, the proprietor puts her out as a poor "wine agent," discharges her
from his employ, as it were. This is the practice of the manager of a
well-known saloon in East 14th Street.[71] On the other hand, the
proprietor protects the successful prostitute, just as does the hotel
keeper, previously mentioned.
The giving of commissions to prostitutes on the sale of drinks to their
customers in the rear rooms of saloons does not appear to obtain as a
general practice in Manhattan; but it is understood that women do receive
commissions on bottled wine and beer which customers order when occupying
with them the rooms upstairs.
Efforts are frequently made to enliven the scene by music and singing. In
the ordinary rear room, with cheap furniture, flickering lights, bad air,
and filled with rough men, a sallow-faced youth, with a cigarette hanging
out of the corner of his mouth, sits at a piano and indifferently bangs
out popular airs in wild, discordant notes. This becomes a "concert hall"
when the proprietor provides more music and additional singers. After a
while a cafe is established, where food can be obtained as well as drinks.
The grade of the entertainment improves a bit further and the place is
known as a cabaret show, a poor imitation of the legitimate cabaret show
given in respectable restaurants. Besides music, dancing, sometimes of an
obscene character, is carried on in the rear room. Dancing is, indeed,
cultivated for the express purpose of stimulating the sale of liquor and
what goes with it. The dances are frequented by prostitutes, pimps,
thieves, and those who want to see the "sights." Young and foolish girls,
for whom "social club" dances have become commonplace, are persuaded to
visit these saloons. Here they meet men whose sole object is their
subsequent exploitation for pleasure or for money. Under this influence
and environment they drift all the more rapidly into lives of
professional prostitution.
The prostitutes who frequent certain saloons in Manhattan combine their
immoral business with crime, particularly stealing. They boldly seek out a
man who appears to be "green," or under the influence of liquor, and "trim
him," as they say. The girls use their pimps, or, what may be nearer the
truth, the pimps use their girls, to carry out these robberies. A pimp,
becoming acquainted with a stranger, "steers" him "up against" his "gun
mol" (a prostitute who is a pickpocket), who aids in the "trimming"
process. Sometimes, if the hour is late and they are in the right place,
the pimps and their women become so bold as openly to go through the
pockets of their victims and afterwards throw them into the street. On one
such occasion the victim called loudly for the police, and, though an
officer stood on the other side of the street, his eyes were withheld and
his ears were stopped. The pimp laughed at the stranger and told him to
"yell louder" for all the good it would do him.
Of the statements just made abundant confirmation is at hand:
A saloon in East 14th Street,[72] one of the landmarks of this busy
street, has been notorious for many years. Its proprietor has a wide
reputation. His home life, according to report, is all that it should be;
no one has ever seen him intoxicated. Big, jolly, aggressive, he is the
embodiment of hospitality as he stands at the bar, greeting those who
enter with a kindly shake or a friendly nod. In the rear room of his
resort disgraceful conditions exist. At one end there is a small platform,
on which a young man sits, playing popular airs on a piano through the
long hours of the night. White-faced waiters, with their hair carefully
cut and plastered down, glide noiselessly about the tables. Carefully
trained are these young men in keeping the glasses full. They work
quickly. About the tables sit equally well-trained prostitutes. A man who
entered at 6.30 P. M., January 26, 1912, and stayed until 8.30 saw the
waiters urge the men customers to invite different girls to their tables.
Two of the girls were not engaged. As the rule of the place forbade them
to go to the table where men were sitting, they enlisted the waiter's aid.
Gliding to the table where three men were drinking, he soon succeeded in
having the girls invited to join the party. The investigator gained the
confidence of the girls with whom he conversed. "A girl must order fancy
drinks here when she is treated," said one of them; "if she don't, the
manager[73] orders her out and won't let her come in again." Pearl, a girl
about twenty years of age, solicited him to go to a hotel[74] not far
away. Two months later, at about 11 P. M., there were more than twenty
prostitutes and fifteen men in this rear room. The same conditions existed
during the evening of April 8, 1912, when a woman entered the rear room
alone. She walked to the extreme end of the room and saw eleven
prostitutes and four men sitting at tables. If this woman had been a
"regular," that is, one who frequented the place night after night, a
waiter would have brought her, entirely free, a small glass of beer or
ginger ale. She learned on inquiry that if a "regular" was "arrested" the
manager would "fix it up." Inducements were also offered in the hope that
she would enter the service of this house. The "suckers" all come down
here, she was told: "We get them before the girls on Sixth Avenue do."
On January 20, 1912, a well known pimp[75] met his woman in the rear room
of a saloon on Seventh Avenue.[76] An investigator saw this prostitute
give him a ten dollar bill. The pimp upbraided the girl for not having
more money and struck her a heavy blow in the face. She fell to the floor.
There was some excitement when this occurred. The girl was advised to have
the pimp arrested, but she refused to do so although her eyes were swollen
and discolored. This same rear room harbors other prostitutes who night
after night take their customers to a furnished room house in West 27th
Street,[77] where the landlord charges twenty-five cents for the use of a
room.[78]
(2) MISCELLANEOUS PLACES
In New York City there are places of a certain type which cater directly
to vice in that they are frequented, for the most part, by immoral and
dissolute persons who not only solicit on the premises for immoral
purposes, but create conditions which stimulate the business of
prostitution. The proprietors have a guilty knowledge of the fact that
prostitutes and their kind use the premises as an adjunct to immoral
trade. Such places include restaurants, pool rooms, delicatessen stores,
candy shops, hair dressing and manicure parlors, barber shops, cigar
stores, palmist and clairvoyant parlors, livery stables, and opium dens.
The places in question are usually situated in the vicinity of vice
resorts. To the ordinary observer their outward appearance is that of any
respectable business establishment. The signs are on the windows, goods
are displayed, customers may come and go, and there is a general air of
activity. From January 24, 1912 to November 15, 1912, 180 reports were
made in connection with conditions in 91 such miscellaneous places.
In some of these places, known as "hangouts," respectable trade is neither
sought nor encouraged. A stranger is looked upon with a certain amount of
suspicion and treated as an intruder. If he asks for a meal, he is told
that the hour for serving meals has passed; if he desires to purchase a
package of food from the shelves, he is informed that the particular brand
he seeks is missing.
The real purpose of the place is to afford a rendezvous where confidences
may be exchanged and deals planned--where birds of a feather may flock
together and be fed or entertained. It is indeed a varied group that sit
about the tables or lounge idly at the entrance: owners of houses of
prostitution, madames and inmates, street walkers, pimps, procurers,
gamblers, pickpockets, thieves, and crooks of every shade and kind. Young
boys of the neighborhood become fascinated with the adventurous lives of
the men who frequent these places and soon join their ranks.
One of the most important of these establishments is a delicatessen store
on Seventh Avenue,[79] a notorious and popular place. The little room is
crowded with things to eat and drink. Small tables are placed about the
vacant places and at these tables sit owners of houses, madames and
inmates, pimps, runners, and lighthouses. All the forces for the conduct
of the business of prostitution in parlor houses are here, scheming,
quarreling, discussing profits, selling shares, securing women, and paying
out money for favors received. If the walls of this little room could
speak, they would reveal many secrets. The value of houses is debated, the
income from the business, the expenses of conducting it, the price of
shares to-day, or to-morrow, or in the future, if this or that happens.
Here is the center of the trade in certain types of houses,--the stock
market, where members bid and outbid each other and quarrel over advantage
given or taken. The owner of this delicatessen store, a stout and rather
handsome man, moves about quietly. Upstairs, his wife, hearty and ample,
cares for his home and his children. Now and then the children sit at the
tables with wondering eyes and listen. The eldest girl, about seventeen,
dressed in white, talks earnestly with a handsome procurer or holds the
hand of a madame.
In some of the places here alluded to liquor is sold without a license; in
others, gambling is carried on. Poker, stuss, No. 21, pinochle, are played
in the rear behind closed doors. For instance, during the month of April,
1912, a stranger entered a "coffee and cake hangout" in East 114th
Street.[80] The usual crowd of pimps, crooks, and gamblers sat about the
tables eating and drinking. A man rose from a table and walked to the rear
to a little white door. He tapped gently; the door opened and closed
behind him. As it did so, the stranger saw in an inner room men seated
about a table.
Elsewhere a lucrative business in the sale of drugs is carried on.
Blanche, a street walker, crazy for morphine at 2.30 A. M., on May 18,
1912, pleaded with a man in a restaurant on Seventh Avenue[81] to purchase
some for her. The stranger with whom she was at the time, moved to pity at
her pleading, furnished the money. A bottle of morphine tablets was
hastily procured from a well-known pharmacy on Seventh Avenue. Snatching
the bottle from his hand, she concealed it in her stocking.[82]
The cigar store, the pool room, the coffee and cake restaurant, are the
favorite resorts of the pimps. Here they come to make deals for their
women, to receive telephone messages from their girls on the street or in
vice resorts, to plan "line ups"[83] when a "young chicken" is about to be
broken into the business, and to buy drugs for their girls and themselves.
It is common knowledge that here gangs are formed and arrangements for
robberies or other criminal acts made; here the spoils are divided; guns
are hidden when officers come to search, and men beaten who make a
"squeal."
The prostitute herself frequents the hairdressing and manicure parlors,
popular with her for two reasons: first, because here she makes herself
"beautiful" under the hands of the proprietor, and second, because through
the operator she learns of resorts where she may earn "better money." The
imparting of such information is a part of the hairdresser's trade. She is
the fount of knowledge on this subject; "swell" madames patronize her
place, urging her to send them attractive girls. If the right girls do not
come in, she advertises in the papers, using her "parlor" as a decoy. Her
husband--if she has one--may be a thrifty man who mingles with his wife's
customers, selling them attractive hats or suits, and other things, and
finally acting as their bail bondsman if they are arrested and brought to
court. At least one such husband has grown wealthy in the business.
Such a hairdressing and manicure parlor, for example, is conducted on
Sixth Avenue.[84] The woman caters only to prostitutes; and part of her
business is to find out if any of her customers are dissatisfied with
their present places or if they are not attached to any resort. In either
event, she offers to send them to find a place where they can earn more
money. One day a woman having her hair shampooed in this parlor actually
heard the proprietor send girls to different vice resorts. She advertises
in the daily press for help. For instance, on Saturday, April 6, 1912, a
daily paper contained the following advertisement under "Female Help
Wanted":
"Hairdresser and manicure wanted, experienced. Apply ----, ---- Sixth
Avenue."[85]
Pool rooms and cigar stores offer peculiar facilities for young boys of
the neighborhood to become acquainted with the life of the underworld.
Even before leaving school, boys often frequent them; soon some of them
join little cliques and gangs formed by the criminal element. They become
pickpockets or ordinary crooks. If endowed by nature with large muscles
and an instinct for fighting, they become preliminary boxers and gradually
develop into the gang members or political guerillas who do such valiant
service at the polls on primary or election day. From the ranks of these
the pimp is developed. As neighborhood boys they have little difficulty in
securing girls who, like themselves, are adventurous, or already immoral.
It therefore becomes easy either to trap a girl and ruin her, or to "break
in" the already immoral girl to a life of professional prostitution under
protection.
It is a strange fact, but it is true, that prostitutes often select young
men whom they see in front of pool rooms and cigar stores and actually
invite them to become their pimps and share the proceeds of their
business. A young boy about eighteen years of age was standing near the
entrance of a pool room on Second Avenue one hot afternoon in August,
1912, jauntily puffing a cigarette as a stranger passed with a man who had
lived in the neighborhood many years. "See that kid?" said the man. "A
young prostitute on the avenue has picked him out for her pimp. They grew
up together and both have gone on the bum. She was 'lined up' about a year
ago by a gang that 'hangs out' in a cigar store on East 14th Street. Since
then she has been a regular prostitute."
There is another group of miscellaneous places, different from those
referred to above, namely, the natural channels through which the varied
life of a great city passes. These are freely used by the prostitute.
Attention is called to them simply to emphasize the fact that wherever
groups of people meet for innocent pleasure or for business, there the
prostitute lingers to ply her trade. Such places include subway and
railway stations, hotel lobbies, entrances to department stores, ferry
slips, and post office buildings. Prostitutes find these crowded
thoroughfares excellent centers in which to solicit or to make "dates."
Pimps and procurers also frequent such places to "pick up" adventurous
girls who are alone or in pairs, out for pleasure or excitement.[86]
(3) THE STREETS
The streets of Manhattan are openly used by prostitutes for soliciting.
During the period of this investigation, street walking has been most
conspicuous in certain localities which may be roughly described as
follows:
Broadway, from West 27th to West 68th, and the side streets from West 26th
to West 64th;
Sixth Avenue, from West 16th to West 45th, and the side streets from West
25th to West 31st;
Seventh Avenue, from West 24th to West 42nd;
Columbus Avenue, from West 59th to West 66th;
Columbus and Eighth Avenues, from West 99th to West 125th;
Second Avenue, from East 8th to 9th, and between East 12th and East 14th;
Third Avenue, from East 9th to East 28th, and from East 99th to East
137th, and the side streets to Lexington Avenue;
Irving Place, from East 14th to East 15th;
Houston Street, on the lower East Side around Allen and Forsythe Streets.
Of all these thoroughfares, Broadway is most freely utilized for
soliciting. During the nights of March 7, 11, 14, 19, 20, and 21, 1912, at
the hours of 8.30 P. M., 9 P. M., 10 P. M., 11 P. M., 11 to 12 P. M.,
11.30 P. M., 12 A. M., 12.15 A. M., 12.30 A. M., 12.45 A. M., and 1.55 A.
M., eighty-four street walkers were seen accosting men at different places
on Broadway from West 34th to West 65th Streets. This number does not take
into account prostitutes who were merely promenading or those who were
lurking in the shadows of the side streets. Reports of a similar character
could be given for the months of April, May, June, July, August,
September, and October, 1912, showing that solicitation on Broadway was
continuous.
Sixth Avenue is another favorite resort for street walkers. On September
17, 18, 23, 25, 26, and 28, 1912, at such hours as 4 P. M., 4.30 P. M.,
6.30 P. M., 7.15 P. M., and 8 to 9 P. M., fifty-five prostitutes were seen
soliciting men between West 24th and West 29th Streets. In most instances
the destination of these couples was hotels on two corners of West 28th
Street. The same general conditions as described regarding solicitation on
Broadway and Sixth Avenue exist in other sections of the city.[87]
(4) PUBLIC DANCE HALLS
No places of amusement are so filled with moral dangers to boys and girls
as certain public dance halls in New York City. A conviction to this
effect, long held, has been strengthened as a result of a thorough and
comprehensive investigation of 85 public dances given in 47 different
dance halls in Manhattan from January 24 to June 24, 1912. Ninety-six
reports were made of conditions in these dance halls by three
investigators, two young men and a young woman, who worked independently.
In some instances they reported on the same dance without knowing of the
presence of one another, thus removing all doubt regarding the facts as
presented. No special dances were selected for observation, the
investigators having been sent to those which were publicly advertised
from time to time.
Of 75 different dances reported between January 24 and June 24, only 5 are
characterized as decent; 11 were more or less objectionable, 59 wholly so.
At all but 3, intoxicating liquor was sold; at 61, minors were present; at
all but 2, the investigator concluded that the attendance was largely
disreputable.
A woman investigator reported 31 dances, at 22 of which she was solicited
by 53 men; men investigators, reporting 80 dances, were solicited 47 times
by 43 different women.
The proprietors of the dance halls in question have "open dates," on which
their halls may be rented by social clubs or other organizations for the
purpose of giving an "affair" or a "racket," as a ball is sometimes
called. There are hundreds of these clubs and organizations in New York
City, and the chief feature of the year's activity is the giving of a ball
which all the friends of the members are expected to attend. Their
membership lists are made up of cliques or gangs of young boys and men who
come together because of some mutual interest, sometimes for worthy
motives, but very often as a cover for disorderly and even criminal
purposes. Between some of these groups there is great rivalry, at times
leading to fights and disturbances.
The usual method of advertising dances is by distributing "throw aways" or
small colored cards on which are printed, not only the name of the group
giving the dance, but also the choruses of popular songs, parodies, or
verses. These latter intimate the character of the proposed frolic. They
all appeal to the sex interest, some being so suggestive that they are
absolutely indecent. During the progress of a dance in St. Mark's
Place,[88] a young girl, hardly above seventeen years of age, presented a
boy with a printed card advertising a ball soon to be held. When the card
is folded, it forms an obscene picture and title.
During the past few years aggressive measures have been taken by
different reform organizations aiming to bring about a more wholesome
atmosphere in connection with public dances, especially those attended by
poorer boys and girls. Proprietors have been induced to employ special
officers to attend the dances and keep order, prevent "tough" and
"half-time" dancing, and protect innocent girls from the advances of
undesirable persons. The duties of the special officer are difficult to
perform. If he interferes too much, the dancers go to some other place
where they enjoy more freedom. As a result, the honest proprietor who
endeavors to conduct a respectable hall loses patronage, while the
disreputable owner makes all the profit. Again, the young people who
attend these balls know immediately when a person different from
themselves appears in the hall. At once the dance becomes modest and
sedate and the visitor goes away to report "that while conditions are not
what they should be, yet on the whole there is great improvement."
A social club[89] gave a ball on the evening of March 23, 1912, at a
hall[90] in East 2nd Street. The dancing was very suggestive. The special
officer[91] was entertaining a police sergeant, but neither made any
effort to regulate the actions of the dancers. The next afternoon another
club[92] occupied the hall at the same address, with the same special
officer in attendance. Suddenly, when the dancing was in full swing, the
officer hurriedly rushed among the dancers and told them to "cut it out"
as three detectives had just come in and he did not want to see the place
closed up. A girl, apparently thirteen years of age, was dancing at the
time and the officer put her off the floor, loudly declaring that the
proprietor did not allow young girls to dance in the hall. Things resumed
their former aspect, however, as soon as the detectives retired.
Wine, whisky, and beer, freely sold in connection with certain public
dances, are responsible for much vulgarity and obscenity. Young girls have
been seen to yield themselves in wild abandon to their influence, and have
been carried half fainting to dark corners of the hall and there, almost
helpless, have been subjected to the most indecent advances.
A political organization gave a ball at a resort[93] in Avenue D, February
16, 1912. Wine, champagne and beer were sold from a bar located on the
north side of the hall or served at tables. The waiters were men, while
three women acted as bartenders. By actual count, one hundred girls and
boys were intoxicated. Many of the drunken girls were sitting in corners
of the hall on the laps of their equally intoxicated partners, who were
hugging and kissing them. The same conditions, with variations, have been
observed in other dance halls where liquor was served and where the
intermissions between the dances were extended so as to give all an
opportunity to buy drinks.
At a ball given by another organization[94] in an East 2nd Street
resort[95] on March 1, 1912, the dancing was exceedingly vulgar and
suggestive. A police officer watched the obscene exhibition in company
with the proprietor of the hall. After the officer left, a detective in
plain clothes and another officer in uniform came in. The proprietor
escorted them to the bar, where they were served. Then the host
entertained his guests by pointing out the girls whom he considered to be
the most adept; and the three men passed comments upon their cleverness.
A crowd of pimps, gamblers, pickpockets, and "strong arm guys" attended a
dance given on March 30, 1912.[96] Here a pimp named Daniel[97]
deliberately struck his girl in the face with his fist. She fell to the
floor and was carried to the dressing room covered with blood. The woman
investigator, who had been a nurse, took charge of the girl and summoned a
physician. A doctor[98] with an office in East 4th Street, sewed four
stitches in the girl's lip and charged her five dollars, which was to
include two future visits. The doctor offered the investigator fifteen
dollars to help him with a case that night, and five dollars extra if she
would accompany him to his room. Nor was this the only immoral
solicitation that the woman investigator was subjected to in order to get
the facts.
A man who was shot to death not long ago, a "gun man," gave a dance on
March 29, 1912, for his own benefit. It was a great event. "Three of the
foremost gamblers were present," a man proudly declared, and, with equal
pride further said that several madames of houses of prostitution and
their inmates were there also. The program of this dance is a veritable
directory of "gamblers," "gun men," "strong arm guys," pimps, doctors,
lawyers, and politicians. Some of the names are very familiar. They made a
motley crowd--all with mutual interests. Many in this remarkable
gathering came together and paid large admission fees at the door because
they feared the gambler who gave the dance.
The occasions above described are not utilized only by hardened
profligates: young girls, some perhaps innocent, others, if not entirely
innocent, at any rate not yet wholly depraved, and young men not yet
altogether vicious attend the gatherings in search of amusement and
change. Some of the girls who frequent these public dance halls reveal
their loose morals by their manners and actions, but many are innocent
working girls who seek legitimate recreation. The sinister element is the
pimp who attends with the coldblooded purpose of finding new subjects of
debauchery and of subsequent exploitation for gain. These agents of
commercialized vice are usually well-dressed, well-mannered, and introduce
themselves politely and easily to strangers. They often pretend love at
first sight and exhibit marked devotion, by which girls are deceived and
to which they too often yield. Clever subterfuges are sometimes employed:
a pretended drummer states that he has "sample shoes" or "sample dresses"
at his room: "If they fit, they are yours," he says. When the seduction of
the girls is accomplished, they are put on the street, and their ruin is
complete. These "powers that prey" are a constant danger in public dance
halls and find there easy quarry. The girls who refuse to be inveigled are
often so ostracized that they must unbend, if they wish to participate in
the fun. Dances and refreshments are withheld until the "wall-flower"
comes round. Examples can be cited: a model who earns $18 a week, one-half
of which she gives her father;[99] an embroidery worker,[100] making $10
a week; the head of stock in the shoe department of a Sixth Avenue
store;[101] a department store girl earning $6 a week.[102] With these
working women, pimps and professional prostitutes freely mingle. Forty
professional prostitutes were counted at one dance given on March 10,
1912.[103]
(5) EXCURSION BOATS AND PARKS
In addition to the places already mentioned, the prostitute and her
exploiter take advantage of other opportunities to ply their trade. The
excursion boats between New York and Albany, Bridgeport, New Haven,
Providence, Block Island, etc., are often used for a rendezvous.
Occurrences of a highly suspicious character are abundant:
August 25, 1912, three couples left the boat bound for New Haven because
they could not secure rooms: this, in spite of the fact that it was a day
trip. On an excursion boat bound for Montauk Point on July 28, 1912, two
young couples occupied staterooms 19 and 21. The girls appeared to be
about eighteen years of age. Two girls, apparently seventeen years of age,
rented stateroom No. 11, where they remained all day and were visited by
four different men. When the boat returned to New York the girls went
ashore and boarded a car on East 23rd Street. One pretty little girl on
this excursion was accompanied by a woman who appeared to be her mother.
The girl became friendly and offered to make a "date" with the
investigator. She lives on DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn. There were two
others, living in Harlem, evidently working girls, who were also willing
to make "dates."
It is indeed a matter of common knowledge that professional prostitutes
make a practice of soliciting on excursion boats for immoral purposes. The
women make regular trips and have a business understanding with porters
and waiters, who aid in securing customers. On July 20, 1912, as the boat
for New Haven was about to leave the dock, two prostitutes who solicit in
a cafe on West 44th Street[104] came aboard. A street walker who solicits
on Broadway and has a home in the Bronx took the trip to New Haven on
August 25, 1912. Six prostitutes were soliciting young men on the trip to
Block Island on August 11, 1912, one of them formerly an inmate in a house
of prostitution in West 47th Street.[105] Her companion solicits on
Broadway. These girls said they had rooms in a Block Island hotel,[106]
where they invited the men to meet them.
Some of the waiters and porters on these boats act as solicitors for
prostitutes. A colored porter[107] on a boat running to Block Island,
August 11, 1912, said there were many couples on board having immoral
relations. He offered to introduce two men to two girls. On August 8,
1912, a colored porter on a boat for Providence, Rhode Island, told a man
that a "wise young girl" occupied stateroom No. 68, and that she would
receive men. Robert,[108] a waiter on one of them, declared that immoral
conditions were most flagrant on the Sunday trips. He described in detail
the actions of couples in the staterooms when he served them drinks.
Amusement parks are similarly abused. Seven such parks in the vicinity of
New York City were visited during the summer of 1912, and vicious
conditions were found to exist to a greater or less extent in all of them.
In the drinking places prostitutes sit on the stage in short skirts and
sing and dance for the entertainment of men and boys drinking at the
tables. The girls are paid very low salaries, and therefore depend upon
making extra money from prostitution. The waiters aid in securing
customers and receive commissions from the girls on the stage for this
service. In some concert halls the girls have signs which they use to
indicate the time they are free to leave the stage or the price they
require. If they succeed in persuading a man to buy wine in the balcony of
the hall, they receive a commission on the sale. In the winter time some
of these prostitutes join burlesque shows or continue to carry on their
immoral business otherwise in the city.
An investigator visited a concert hall connected with an amusement park on
Long Island, July 23, 1912. There were eighteen girls seated on the stage
in short skirts, the majority of them intoxicated; in their wild efforts
to entertain the crowd of men and boys they exposed their persons.
Twenty-five girls sing and dance in a concert hall at another popular
amusement park. They are divided into two shifts, each shift working a
stated number of hours during the afternoon and night. One of the singers
was recognized by a man who had seen her in a house of prostitution in a
city in Pennsylvania; one of her companions solicits for immoral purposes
on Broadway. Many of these concert halls and similar places are connected
with the hotels to which the entertainers take their customers. A very
notorious hotel of this character[109] adjoins a disreputable concert hall
in an amusement park on Staten Island.
The conditions in dance halls in connection with certain amusement parks
are similar to those described under the heading "Public Dance Halls."
Here young and thoughtless working girls and boys often yield themselves
to the degrading influence of liquor and suggestive dancing; and here also
are found the prostitutes and their pimps.
In reference to public parks, it may be stated that the police force is
entirely inadequate to their proper surveillance. Shocking occurrences by
the score are reported in Central and other parks by different
investigators under the date of July 15, August 5, July 20, July 12, etc.
Not infrequently boys and girls of sixteen and seventeen are involved in
these affairs,--and cases implicating still younger children are reported.
The benches in certain sections of Central Park, between 10 P. M. and 1 A.
M., presented a most demoralizing spectacle to the observation of every
one who walked through the Park during the months of July and
August.[110]