The general situation in respect to vice resorts other than parlor houses does not materially differ from the conditions described in the preceding chapter. Tenements, hotels, and massage parlors were found to be openly, flagrantly, and in large numbers utilized for the commercial exploitation of prostitution in the interest, not of the woman herself, but of a promoter who drives her to do her utmost and assists in the work by cunningly angling for victims for her. The resorts to be now described were in many, perhaps in most instances, well known, accessible, and--for the period of this inquiry--usually unmolested. (1) VICE RESORTS IN TENEMENTS The tenement house law of 1911 defines a tenement house as a "house or building, or portion thereof, which is rented, leased, let or hired out, to be occupied, or is occupied as the home or residence of three families or more living independently of each other, and doing their cooking upon the premises, or by more than two families upon any floor so living and cooking, but having a common right in the halls, stairways, yards, water-closets or privies, or some of them." Any portion of a house of this description which is habitually used for the business of prostitution is regarded in this volume as a vice resort in a tenement. During the period of this investigation 1172 different vice resorts were found in 575 tenement houses at separate addresses in Manhattan. The majority of the tenement buildings in which professional prostitutes thus ply their trade are situated between West 59th Street and West 110th Street, from Central Park west to Broadway or the river. A few of the cheaper type are conducted on the East Side in the vicinity of East 127th Street. On the lower East Side these resorts are less numerous than formerly. The conditions in many of these tenements are scandalous and demoralizing to the last degree. Children grow up in them amid unsanitary conditions, with bad air and light, wearing clothes which do not keep the body warm, eating food which does not nourish, sleeping in crowded rooms,--brothers with sisters, daughters with fathers,--dressing and undressing in the presence of boarders or distant relatives, and witnessing sights never meant for the eyes of innocence. And, as if this were not enough to complete the moral breakdown, the prostitute creeps in like an infectious disease and spreads her degrading influence,--often without the least effort to conceal her vocation. Examples are all too common: On February 19, about 7:30 P. M., an investigator was told of a disorderly place in a basement near by.[36] It was suggested that he ring the janitor's bell and ask for the woman. When he did so, a little girl, apparently twelve years of age, came to the door. The child fully understood; going to the basement door, she called for the woman, who, opening the door, carefully scrutinized the investigator and invited him to enter.