“Dear Madam,—“I tried to get you on the wire, but could not get you. Kindly send Miss Viola, the pretty little blonde, over at 2.30, not later if possible, on Monday afternoon (to-morrow) without fail—this is a good engagement.“Also send me another pretty young girl and accommodating at 1.30 sharp. Now please do not disappoint me.[39]“Signed (Mrs.) ——“Sunday, May 28th.”
“Dear Madam,—
“I tried to get you on the wire, but could not get you. Kindly send Miss Viola, the pretty little blonde, over at 2.30, not later if possible, on Monday afternoon (to-morrow) without fail—this is a good engagement.
“Also send me another pretty young girl and accommodating at 1.30 sharp. Now please do not disappoint me.[39]
“Signed (Mrs.) ——
“Sunday, May 28th.”
Call-houses are usually cozy and homelike, presided over by a woman who dwells upon her efforts to makeher customers happy and comfortable. She declares that there are so many “nice respectable men” who are lonely in a big city and who want places where they will feel absolutely safe, where they can meet pretty girls, spend the evening, and get a few drinks. The stock in trade of such a house is usually a collection of photographs of the girls who are “on call.” In addition, the madame exhibits a description of them, with measurements to show their physical development; the prices are appended. Her victims are variously procured: sometimes in restaurants frequented by girls who are employed in offices and stores: again, her place of operation may be the ladies’ retiring room, where she enters into conversation with girls, inviting them to a meal or to spend an evening in her apartment. If she sees a girl alone at a table, she asks whether she may sit down with her and urges her to have a “little drink.” Thus acquaintance springs up and “dates” are made for the theater, the madame paying the bill. At other times she goes to a department store and selects a girl, from whom she makes her purchases. The girl may be flattered by evidences of interest and friendship, or tempted by the prospects of fine clothes, leisure, and opportunities for pleasure. The danger is especially great if she has previously lapsed.
On certain streets on the East Side below 14th Street and in Harlem there are a number of cider “stubes” in the basement of tenement houses. In these “stubes” foreign girls act as waitresses, serving small glasses of cider or other soft drinks to customers. While serving, the girls solicit their customers to enter small rooms in the rear of the basement. The keepers of these “stubes”are constantly advertising in the foreign papers published in New York for waitresses, offering to pay five or six dollars a week for such service. There is no doubt that many ignorant foreign girls are thus lured into lives of prostitution. One keeper who had a waitress about 38 years of age told the investigator that she expected to have two or three young girls in a few days. Another proprietor tried to secure the custom of the investigator by saying that he expected to secure two nice young girls for his “stube.” Both were advertising in a German paper for help at the time. Such an advertisement for a very disreputable “stube” on East 4th Street appeared in a German newspaper on March 29, April 6, 8, 12, 13, 14, and 19.
Our records abound in material illustrating the foregoing account. For example, on May 19, 1912, at 7P. M., and again on May 20, 1912, at 8P. M., the investigator visited a vice resort in a tenement in West 43rd Street.[40]There were four inmates in the receiving parlor, all claiming to have medical certificates. The madame[41]declared, however, that if none of them suited she would for a larger price call up a young girl who was not “a regular sport.” Thereupon she summoned the girl by telephone.[42]The newcomer appeared to be about eighteen years of age. While talking with the investigator, Irene said she had been in the “business” since last September but worked in a department store in Brooklyn.[43]Previously to this she had been employed in a store on Sixth Avenue. About one and a half years ago—so she says—her sweetheart, a shipping clerk, who makes $12 aweek, seduced her, promising marriage: he does not know that Irene is making money “on the side” in this manner. Her aunt, with whom she lives, is very strict with her, requiring her to be home at ten o’clock every night.
The investigator pretended not to be satisfied with Irene; thereupon another girl, Margie, spoke up: she knew a “kid” that would suit, but the price would be ten “bucks” (dollars). From other remarks made, the investigator believes that the “kid” referred to is her sister. Margie leaves the flat at 5.30P. M., for her home in Brooklyn, where she lives with her parents. They are under the impression that she is employed through the day in a wholesale millinery store downtown. The madame still insisted that if the supposed prospective customer really wanted young and pretty girls she could get them: “but,” she added, “these girls come high, five and ten dollars.”
On November 6, 1911, a woman who was afterwards employed in this investigation received a letter concerning a cider “stube” in a tenement in East 5th Street.[44]The letter read as follows:
“Reading of your good work in lending your services to assist the unfortunate creatures, I hope you will give your undivided attention, for this certain woman[45]is engaged in this business for the last seven years and is too shrewd to be caught. You will have to watch carefully her movements. She keeps a cider store on East 5th Street, New York.... Look up her record and you willsee she was arrested a few times.... She just was sentenced four months over the Island.... Please I beg you to look into this matter. I would give you my name, but it is impossible for me to do so. I am a citizen of the U. S. A. I know this place ruins many young girls.”
“Reading of your good work in lending your services to assist the unfortunate creatures, I hope you will give your undivided attention, for this certain woman[45]is engaged in this business for the last seven years and is too shrewd to be caught. You will have to watch carefully her movements. She keeps a cider store on East 5th Street, New York.... Look up her record and you willsee she was arrested a few times.... She just was sentenced four months over the Island.... Please I beg you to look into this matter. I would give you my name, but it is impossible for me to do so. I am a citizen of the U. S. A. I know this place ruins many young girls.”
At 12.30P. M., February 22, 1912, the investigator found two women in this place, by both of whom he was solicited to go to a rear room for immoral purposes. When they failed in their efforts, the proprietor said that she could get him a young girl if he preferred. Two days later the resort was visited by another investigator, who found two women acting as waitresses, by one of whom he was similarly solicited.
The various establishments above mentioned were all repeatedly visited in order to show their relatively permanent character and their freedom from interference: one[46]on Broadway was visited nine times in five weeks: another,[47]in West 29th Street, five times between February 8 and August 19; a third,[48]in the same neighborhood, five times in four months.
(2) ASSIGNATION AND DISORDERLY HOTELS
The parlor house and the tenement vice resort are, like shops, fixed places for the carrying on of prostitution as a trade. There is, besides, an enormous amount of itinerant prostitution utilizing mainly disorderly hotels. These places are commonly called “Raines Law” hotels.
The history of the creation of the “Raines Law” hotels in New York City is exceedingly interesting. Theprimary object of the framer of the law was to minimize the evils connected with saloons. As pointed out in the report of The Research Committee of The Committee of Fourteen, issued in 1910 under the title of “The Social Evil in New York City, a study of Law Enforcement,”[49]
“from the passage of this law dates the immediate growth of one of the most insidious forms of the Social Evil. This growth was due to a heavy increase in the penalties for a violation and the expected increased enforcement of the law by state authorities beyond the reach of local influences. To illustrate, the license tax was raised from $200. to $800., and the penalty of the forfeiture of a bond was also added.[50]To escape these drastic penalties for the selling of liquor on Sunday in saloons, saloon keepers created hotels with the required 10 bedrooms, kitchen and dining-room. The immediate increase was over 10,000 bedrooms. There being no actual demand for such an increase in hotel accommodations, the proprietors in many instances used them for purposes of assignation or prostitution, to meet the additional expense incurred. In 1905 there were 1407 certificated hotels in Manhattan and the Bronx, and of these about 1150 were probably liquor law hotels. In 1906 an important administrative provision was added to the law. This amendment, known as the Prentice Act, provided that hotels must be inspected and passed by the Building Department as complying with the provisions of the law, before a certificate could be issued to them. As a result of this new legislation, 540 alleged hotels were discontinued in Manhattan and theBronx. A large number of these places, however, continued under saloon licenses.”
“from the passage of this law dates the immediate growth of one of the most insidious forms of the Social Evil. This growth was due to a heavy increase in the penalties for a violation and the expected increased enforcement of the law by state authorities beyond the reach of local influences. To illustrate, the license tax was raised from $200. to $800., and the penalty of the forfeiture of a bond was also added.[50]To escape these drastic penalties for the selling of liquor on Sunday in saloons, saloon keepers created hotels with the required 10 bedrooms, kitchen and dining-room. The immediate increase was over 10,000 bedrooms. There being no actual demand for such an increase in hotel accommodations, the proprietors in many instances used them for purposes of assignation or prostitution, to meet the additional expense incurred. In 1905 there were 1407 certificated hotels in Manhattan and the Bronx, and of these about 1150 were probably liquor law hotels. In 1906 an important administrative provision was added to the law. This amendment, known as the Prentice Act, provided that hotels must be inspected and passed by the Building Department as complying with the provisions of the law, before a certificate could be issued to them. As a result of this new legislation, 540 alleged hotels were discontinued in Manhattan and theBronx. A large number of these places, however, continued under saloon licenses.”
Since that time the fight against these vicious hotels on the part of the Committee of Fourteen has been constant and effectual. As a result, the business of prostitution as formerly carried on in them has been well-nigh suppressed. Very few of the hotels found to be used for “assignation” and “disorderly” purposes during the present investigation are ten-room establishments. In 1912, 400 of the 425 ten-room hotels which now exist were conducted as hotels for men only.[51]
A disorderly hotel, as we use the term, is one which violates Section 1146 of the Penal Law (keeping a disorderly house) by admitting the same woman twice in one night with two different men, or by renting the same room twice in one night to two different couples, or by regularly admitting known and habitual prostitutes. An assignation hotel is one doing business with transient couples, the women not necessarily being habitual prostitutes.
According to the official records, there were 558 hotels in Manhattan in 1912 which were certificated under the Liquor Tax Law. This number includes the legitimate commercial hotels as well as those which were the outgrowth of the Liquor Law. During the period of this investigation in 1912, 103 hotels were found which are classed as being assignation places, disorderly, or suspicious. Evidence was discovered which proved that habitual prostitutes were openly soliciting men on the streetand elsewhere to go to 65 of these hotels for immoral purposes. A woman investigator discovered 25 additional hotels where prostitutes declared they could freely take customers or have them openly visit their apartments or rooms. This gives a total of 90 different hotels in Manhattan which may be classified as “disorderly.” In addition to these, seven different hotels were discovered which prostitutes claimed to be able to use for immoral purposes, though admitting that they had to be careful not to frequent them too often. In some of these places prostitutes are not allowed to use a room more than twice during every twenty-four hours, once during the day and again at night. There are six very high-class hotels which prostitutes asserted to a woman investigator they had used, or could use, under certain conditions. It is no uncommon thing for the more prosperous and well-dressed prostitutes to solicit trade in the lobbies of these hotels.
The hotels above referred to are situated in the following sections of Manhattan: Sixth Avenue from West 23rd Street to West 46th Street; Eighth Avenue from West 116th to West 125th Streets; the side streets between Broadway and Sixth Avenue from West 34th to West 53rd Street; Lexington, Third, and Fourth Avenues, and Irving Place. The centers where soliciting for these hotels is most flagrant are as follows: East 14th Street and Third Avenue, and north on Lexington Avenue; Sixth Avenue and West 28th Street; Seventh Avenue and West 35th Street; Longacre Square to the east; Columbus Avenue from West 60th to West62nd Street; Eighth Avenue from West 116th to West 125th Streets.
Of these resorts many are weather-beaten buildings, dirty and unsightly without, unsanitary and filthy within. The small rooms are separated by thin partitions through which even conversations in low tones can be heard. The furniture is cheap and worn with constant use. A dilapidated bureau or dresser occupies one corner; a rickety wash-stand equipped with dirty wash bowl and pitcher stands in another. Cheap chromos hang on the wall, dingy with age. A small, soiled rug partly covers the floor which is seldom, if ever, scrubbed with soap and water. The air is foul and heavy with unpleasant odors, for the windows are rarely opened. The awnings that shut out the light are seldom lifted; they are sign-posts to the initiated, hanging mute and weather-beaten all the year round.
During the fall of 1907 a large number of parlor houses in the Tenderloin were raided and closed through the combined efforts of the Police Commissioner and the District Attorney’s office. Some of these houses had been operated by men who subsequently transferred their activities to “hotels,” where they continued to practise their former methods. Others took their women with them, lodging them in the “hotels,” paying them certain commissions, and treating them in the same manner as in the house. A group of women thus attached to a “hotel” solicit for it on the street or in the rear rooms of saloons.
Between the proprietors of these “hotels” there isgreat business rivalry. They constantly try to induce prostitutes attached to other resorts to patronize their place of business and become “regulars.” They even go so far as to hire young men to make friends with the women and to offer them large commissions and better protection than they can secure elsewhere. At times, saloon keepers who allow prostitutes to solicit in their rear rooms do so on condition that the women take customers secured in their places of business to friendly hotels. For instance, the owner of a notorious saloon in East 14th Street demands that the women in his rear room take their customers to a certain hotel on Third Avenue. If one should break the compact and go to a rival place, she would be thereafter debarred, as if she had violated a code of honor.
Most of the solicitation for “hotels” is nowadays done on the street. Even here the proprietor attempts to keep his women in line. He sets spies at work to see that they take the trade where it belongs. The young men so employed are often the “pimps” of the street walkers, keen to see that their women do not “get away with any money” by going to a strange hotel, from which they cannot collect the commission. A young man of this character stations himself near the entrance of a certain hotel on the Bowery and, as his woman enters with a customer, carefully takes a pin from the right lapel of his coat and puts it on the left lapel. Woe to the woman if she fails to produce the money represented by the accumulation of the pins in the left lapel, when the business of the night is over!
When the street walkers of certain hotels are arrested,the proprietor hastens to court to pay the fines, should such be imposed, or offer bail so that the girls may return to their “duties.” In some cases he insists on repayment of the money he has advanced; and the girl is grateful because he has saved her from the Island. If a girl “breaks away” from a hotel and goes to a rival place of business the proprietor will go so far as to have her arrested again and again to teach her the lesson of “loyalty.” In some cases she is glad to return to his good graces, especially if she finds herself on the Island.
There are many street walkers who are “free lances,” taking their trade to the hotel which offers the best inducements. They realize that they are adrift—with no one but their “pimp” to protect them. And “pimps” are usually admirable protectors, masters of the art of “saving” their women from the hand of the law. They are keen, wise young men, well grounded in the business of exploiting the girls of the street at the least possible expense. Some of them are known as “gun men,” “strong arm guys,” “guerillas,” and do effective work for politicians.
The prostitutes who are attached to certain hotels, as well as those who go from place to place with their trade are often given “rebates” or “commissions” on all the business they bring in. The rebate system was found to exist in 21 of the 65 hotels to which investigators were solicited to go for immoral purposes. If a customer pays $2.00 for a room, the prostitute receives $1.00 as a rebate. If, when in the room, he orders wine or beer, the girl receives another rebate or commission on the amount of the bill. Sometimes it is ten per cent, sometimestwenty-five per cent: this, in addition to her own price, which varies from $1.00 to $5.00, or as much as she is able to persuade the customer to give her. Many hotels have rebate clerks whose duty it is to keep the accounts of the girls and pay them the commissions due them. This is a very important branch of the business; for if the solicitor is satisfied and is making “good money,” she feels like continuing her patronage and “hustling” all the harder for her hotel.
Some of the disorderly hotels have two registration books, one of which is used for entering single visits during a period of twenty-four hours, the other to register the number of times different rooms are used during the same period. The first book is the one displayed to inquisitive investigators or inspectors. In some resorts there is a regular office, as in a legitimate hotel, where couples register at the desk; in others, a small window is all that can be seen. The clerk pushes the book through the opening and the man registers, often without seeing the clerk’s face. The woman is not seen by the clerk at all, as she stands in the shadow away from the window.
Disorderly hotels offer a comparatively safe place in which to commit crimes of one kind or another. A well-known hotel referred to on another page has been the scene of murder. But the chief crime is stealing. The most successful prostitutes who solicit for these hotels are “gun mols,” that is, pickpockets. They use all manner of subterfuges to “lift” the “roll” from the pockets of their customers. When their victim is heavy and sleepy from drink, they usually succeed, getting away before he realizes his loss.
But the hotel is utilized not only by the criminal prostitute: it is too often the scene of first seduction. A young, weak, and foolish girl is induced to dine, then to drink, with a comparative stranger who has first taken pains to ingratiate himself with her: without recollection of what has taken place in the interval, she awakens next morning amid the totally strange surroundings of a hotel of this character.
A brief description of a typical assignation and disorderly hotel will illustrate some of the general observations above made:
A Third Avenue hotel[52]has had an interesting and varied history. The ground is owned by citizens who are well known in social and financial circles. The name of the place has been changed since 1906-7, but the same proprietor conducts the establishment. Once he ran a house in the old Eldridge precinct, later another in East 9th Street. When these places were suppressed, he opened the hotel here in question. He and his manager[53]were both members of the Independent Benevolent Association in 1909. For some years this hotel has been on the Police List as under “strict surveillance”; now and then it has been raided. As far back as 1906 one of the agents of an investigation then in progress was told by a prostitute that detectives had informed the girls that if they resorted to this hotel they would not be molested; whether this is true or not, the fact remains that the hotel was still doing business during the period of this investigation.
On January 26, 1912, an investigator was solicited inthe rear room of a notorious saloon on East 14th Street by “Pearl,” who said she would have to take him to the hotel in question. Knowing the history of the resort, he accompanied the girl to the sitting-room in order to see if conditions were still the same; while there he talked with two other girls who are attached to the place. Thus he ascertained that the proprietor has two relays of solicitors, one group on the street from early morning until night, the other group on duty all night. To see that they attend strictly to business, a young man is employed to watch them at their work. If the girls enter into a dispute with customers over terms, the assistant endeavors to straighten out the difficulty. If they are arrested, he informs his employer, who, in turn, goes to the court and does what he can to secure their release. Mamie and Mary both stated that the rebate clerk gives them all amounts over $1.00 which their customers pay for rooms. In case customers buy wine at $5.00 per bottle, the girls receive $2.00 per bottle as a commission.[54]
(3) FURNISHED ROOM HOUSES
In addition to the more elaborate establishments already described, furnished rooms frequently serve their occupants as vice resorts. During the period of this investigation 112 furnished room assignation houses were discovered. The majority of these are within the following boundaries: First Avenue, Houston Street, the Bowery,and Avenue B; Second Avenue, 27th Street, Seventh Avenue, 31st Street; 33rd Street, Seventh Avenue, 42nd Street; Third Avenue, 27th Street, Seventh Avenue, 31st Street; Eighth Avenue, 33rd Street; Seventh Avenue, 42nd Street. The places are particularly dangerous because a stranger, seeking inexpensive board and lodging, has no way to ascertain their character: an innocent girl may thus unwittingly find herself in the most demoralizing surroundings.
Prostitutes do not necessarily live in the furnished room house. They may simply have an understanding with the madame, who, in reality, conducts an assignation house run on the same principle as a hotel, but without register or clerk. The price of the room is determined by the “privileges” for which the girl stipulates,—usually to the effect that, though not resident, she may bring “friends” there at any hour of the day or night. In some houses the prostitute pays $2.00 per night; elsewhere the landlady demands as much as $3.00 per night, or half of what the prostitute earns. In this way a large weekly rental is secured for very inferior quarters. Once possessing such a room with “privileges,” the prostitute solicits or picks up customers on the street, and in public places of all sorts, such as dance halls, restaurants, and the rear rooms of saloons.
The women who use the furnished room houses are divided into three classes. The first are the occasional or clandestine prostitutes, to whom the furnished room offers a more secret place than the hotel for both the woman and the man. The second are regular prostitutes who use hotel and room alternately. They prefer togo to the hotel, as they declare it is safer. “We are protected in the hotel,” they say; “the proprietor knows us and you won’t be molested.” But customers who object to hotels are taken to her furnished room if the girl is not suspicious. The third class, who use the furnished rooms almost exclusively, are women who are nearing the end of their vogue as professional prostitutes. Rejected by hotels because they are dirty, diseased, or in the last stages of drug and liquor habits, these outcasts from the prosperous marts of trade escort their prey to their own miserable quarters.
A few illustrations of the manner in which the furnished room trade works will suffice:
A house of this character in West 31st Street[55]is one of the most notorious in the city. Late at night, August 23rd, 1912, it was entered by a large number of couples from a dance hall near by; subsequently, one of the men, about forty-five years of age, complained to the investigator that he had been robbed there that night. Four evenings later, eight different prostitutes entered with their customers in the course of less than five minutes. Shortly after, a colored maid from the house applied to a saloon near by to change two five-dollar bills. During the conversation she told the bartender, from whom she frequently bought liquor for the guests, that the rooms in the house were nearly all taken.
At 11P. M.on March 19, 1912, several prostitutes were soliciting on Third and Lexington Avenues for a furnished room house in East 116th Street.[56]They each pay the landlord $2.00 per night for room and “privileges.”One of these women appeared to be about twenty-one years of age. “I pay $2.00 per night for my room,” she said, “and bring in as many men as I can grab. Whenever I am ready to quit for the night I meet my ‘fellow’ and we go there to sleep.”
A furnished room house in West 40th Street[57]is surrounded by tenements in which many white and colored families are living. On February 9, 1912, two colored women stood in the doorway, soliciting men as they passed by. As the investigator approached, two white children about ten and twelve years of age respectively, stood a few feet away listening to what was said.
(4) MASSAGE PARLORS
The massage parlor, so-called, is the last of the resorts to be dealt with. It is estimated that there are over 300 so-called massage parlors in Manhattan, a large part of which are believed to be vice resorts: only 75, however, were actually investigated in the course of this study and this is the number used in calculating the number of vice resorts in Manhattan.
Our investigation was thus restricted because of the peculiar difficulties involved in ascertaining the real character of many of these establishments. Some are transparent enough: others can be uncovered only by a customer. Our workers were instructed that it was not desired to attempt an extended investigation of every place. They were told to learn the nature of the massage given, the equipment, prices, the bearing, attire, and generalbehavior of the operatives. On the basis of these data they were to form an estimate as to whether or not conditions were suspicious. From earlier investigations and reports it was already believed that in nine cases out of ten the practices in these places are immoral and degrading to the last degree.
A large number of massage parlors are located on the upper floors of buildings on Sixth and Columbus Avenues and on the side streets from West 23rd Street to West 80th Street. They are indicated by means of large signs displayed in the windows or tacked on the doors. These places also advertise in a weekly paper published on Saturdays and offered for sale at five cents per copy on news-stands in hotels and other public places.
The rooms are usually equipped with high couches, bureaus displaying comb, brush, alcohol, and powder, and with wash stands. A manicure table is often placed by the window,—on it a set of instruments used in caring for the nails. In these places the operators insist that they give straight massage and that they do not conduct an immoral business. In other parlors, the sign on the window or door is the only evidence that such treatment is given. These are openly disorderly, no apparent effort being made to conceal the fact. The prices charged range from two dollars to five dollars, according to the service demanded.
Not a few former madames of houses of prostitution have established vice resorts under the guise of massage parlors for the purpose of continuing in business after their houses were closed by action of the law. Into these resorts they bring their former inmates,who now pose as experts in the art of scientific massage. In the matter of securing new girls, the keeper of a massage parlor has a great advantage; for she openly advertises in the daily papers for girls to learn the “business of massage,” or for those who have had experience in this or that method of massage as practiced in foreign lands. The advertisements state the age of the girl wanted and the weekly salary. As a result, many unsuspecting girls, answering advertisements, come into personal contact with well-dressed and apparently respectable proprietors. If the girl appears to be weak and easily led, the keeper begins by asking her how much money she has been in the habit of making each week; then remarks smilingly that some of her former operatives have made four or five times as much by not “being too particular.” She describes in a general way what she means by “too particular.” “Her customers,” she says, “are often very rich and generous; if a girl is attentive and jolly, these men will give her generous prices and tips, and thus she can ‘coin’ money.”
It is only just to say that not all massage parlors are of the type described above. Some are legitimate and render scientific service to men and women who are actually ill. If the proprietors of such places would escape the general condemnation of their business, they should voluntarily seek the endorsement of respectable physicians and engage operatives who havebona fidecertificates showing that they have spent a certain period of time in recognized institutions in preparation for their calling.
A few examples only need be given:
Margaret,[58]proprietress of a massage parlor on Sixth Avenue,[59]spent the evening of May 10, 1912, at a café in West 45th Street.[60]She admitted that business had latterly not been brisk: it had become difficult to get suitable operatives. The men who were procuring girls for her were becoming afraid to go after “young girls” and she did not want any “old ones.” “Some fools,” she said, “are writing stories about young girls being sold into slavery and even country girls are getting wise and think the men are going to put them into prison instead of giving them a chance to make a little money for themselves. That sort of thing only happens in the lower class of places. I have a nice business and nice men and I give the girl one dollar out of every two and three, and two dollars out of five, and half of anything over that. I had two girls; but one left me the other night because I would not let her take ‘dope.’ There comes a time with these ‘dope fiends’ when it interferes with business and they have to cut it out.”
By way of inducement, Margaret invited the investigator, who was a woman, to work in her massage parlor the following Saturday and Sunday, offering to allow her to keep all she made: she “had to have an operative to help take care of her regular Saturday and Sunday customers”; by the following week she felt sure that her procurer would have a girl for her. The investigator called at the parlor early the following week to ascertain what had happened. She found that the house had been sold and that the new landlord had raised the rent for the “parlor” occupied by Margaret from $60 to $75per month. Thereupon Margaret had moved out, going to the beach to open a temporary house for the summer.
Massage parlors are not uncommonly found in tenements,—there is one, for instance, in such a building in West 47th Street.[61]Two operatives were employed there with a madame[62]in April, 1912. Different resorts in this tenement have been reported to the Tenement House Department several times by the police, and arrests have been made here as far back as 1909.
A former member of the Chicago Vice Commission was in New York City in April. His experience in studying conditions in the former city had made him watchful and suspicious. One day he noticed a number of working girls, young, and foreign in type, climbing the stairs of a building in West 43rd Street.[63]As the girls came down some appeared to be disappointed, as though they had not been successful in their errand, whatever it might be. His interest was aroused. Observing a massage sign on the second floor, he concluded that the girls had been answering an advertisement to call at this place of business. An investigation thus started resulted in securing the following facts:
On April 3, 1912, a morning newspaper contained the following advertisement under the classification of “Help Wanted—Female.” “Girl for light housework, not under 18; $7 to $9 a week. Mrs.[64]——, —— West 43rd Street, 2 flights up.”Later in the day a young woman investigator was sent to the address with a copy of the advertisement. She wasgreeted at the door by the woman, who soon disclosed the character of the place. In reply to the inquiries of the investigator, she explained the nature of the business: her customers paid from two to ten dollars, the girls receiving approximately one-half. An inmate had earned $48 in a week: but a girl’s usefulness is brief, for frequent changes are necessary in order to retain the trade.On the same date a morning paper published in the German language printed the following advertisement under the classification, “Verlangt Weiblich.”[65]“Girl, neat, German, not under 18 years of age. One who knows how to massage or one who is willing to learn. Wages paid while learning. Inquire Mrs.[66]——, —— West 43rd Street, two flights up.” This is the massage parlor described above.On April 9, 1912, the same investigator received the following letter from the proprietor of the parlor:“Dear Mrs. ——:“If you have not taken any position yet, would you kindly call on me?“Respectfully,(Signed) “——.”A week later the investigator called again, finding the establishment still in operation, with a new assistant, procured through the landlord. With a little prodding, the garrulous madame resumed her confidences, explaining the process of “fixing up” girls so as to appear young, and other details of her nefarious occupation.
On April 3, 1912, a morning newspaper contained the following advertisement under the classification of “Help Wanted—Female.” “Girl for light housework, not under 18; $7 to $9 a week. Mrs.[64]——, —— West 43rd Street, 2 flights up.”
Later in the day a young woman investigator was sent to the address with a copy of the advertisement. She wasgreeted at the door by the woman, who soon disclosed the character of the place. In reply to the inquiries of the investigator, she explained the nature of the business: her customers paid from two to ten dollars, the girls receiving approximately one-half. An inmate had earned $48 in a week: but a girl’s usefulness is brief, for frequent changes are necessary in order to retain the trade.
On the same date a morning paper published in the German language printed the following advertisement under the classification, “Verlangt Weiblich.”[65]“Girl, neat, German, not under 18 years of age. One who knows how to massage or one who is willing to learn. Wages paid while learning. Inquire Mrs.[66]——, —— West 43rd Street, two flights up.” This is the massage parlor described above.
On April 9, 1912, the same investigator received the following letter from the proprietor of the parlor:
“Dear Mrs. ——:“If you have not taken any position yet, would you kindly call on me?“Respectfully,(Signed) “——.”
“Dear Mrs. ——:
“If you have not taken any position yet, would you kindly call on me?
“Respectfully,(Signed) “——.”
A week later the investigator called again, finding the establishment still in operation, with a new assistant, procured through the landlord. With a little prodding, the garrulous madame resumed her confidences, explaining the process of “fixing up” girls so as to appear young, and other details of her nefarious occupation.
In the foregoing pages we have circumstantially described the more prominent forms taken by vice in New York City. It is surely no exaggeration tomaintain that the evidence submitted proves that prostitution in New York City is widely and openly exploited as a business enterprise.[67]The exploiters, the scenes of their operations, their methods, their associations, and their victims are all equally notorious. It is idle to explain away the phenomena on the ground that they are the results of the inevitable weakness of human nature: human weakness would demand far fewer and less horrible sacrifices. Most of the wreckage, and the worst of it, is due to persistent, cunning and unprincipled exploitation: to the banding together in infamous enterprises of madame, pimp, procurer, brothel-keeper, and liquor vender to deliberately carry on a cold-blooded traffic for their joint profit,—a traffic, be it added, from which the girl involved procures at the most, with few exceptions, her bare subsistence, and that, only so long as she has a trade value.
CHAPTER III
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 West14th 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 rearroom 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 proprietorprotects 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 café 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 andenvironment 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 therear 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 6.30P. 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 11P. 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 thepremises 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 cakehangout” 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 2.30A. 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 arrangementsfor 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, April6, 1912, a daily paper contained the following advertisement under “Female Help Wanted”: