Commercialized Prostitution in New York CityKneeland, George J. (George Jackson)
History
Commercialized Prostitution in New York City
Kneeland, George J. (George Jackson)
Prostitution -- New York (State) -- New York
In no essential respect does the conduct of a tenement vice resort differ
from that of the parlor house previously described. Prices are of the same
range, from fifty cents to ten dollars; occasionally twenty-five dollars
may be demanded. The same pretense of medical examination is made. The
same advertising devices are employed. A madame who conducts a prosperous
business in a tenement in West 58th Street sends a letter to her former
customers announcing the removal of the "library."[38] The use of the
word "library" to indicate the resort and of "books" to indicate inmates
is a popular one. Another madame urges her former patrons to renew their
"membership in the library"; "new books," she asserts, are "on file in our
new quarters." Still another enterprising promoter invites men to her
place of business by saying, "Please call as I have a _new_ member in the
lodge." Similarly, business is procured through the same agents utilized
by the parlor house--runners, bartenders, cabmen and chauffeurs. Where
several establishments are conducted in one apartment building, elevator
boys are given liberal tips by rival madames for "steering" callers to
their flats. Often the madames or selected inmates go to public places or
on the streets to solicit men. Sometimes they visit a large office
building and under some pretext seek an interview with the heads of firms
or with managers, and leave their cards. One day a young lawyer received a
letter asking him to call at a certain address in Harlem on a matter of
business. Though he did not recognize the name, he kept the appointment.
He was dumfounded to find the supposed client a madame who had four
inmates in her resort.
Liquor is more largely sold in tenement resorts than in parlor houses; the
prices are usually the same, five dollars for a small bottle of wine, two
dollars for a round of beer. In many of the resorts in tenements drugs are
used by the inmates and sold to customers. For instance, the investigator
of a resort on West 111th Street found several men smoking opium. In
another flat, on West 37th Street, one of the colored inmates was
snuffing cocaine. In a tenement on West 39th Street there is an opium
"joint" on the second floor where prostitutes "smoke." Some of the girls
spend five and six dollars a day in this place. A girl who solicits on the
street for a vice resort in a tenement on West 38th Street is a "dope
fiend," and the madame of a flat on West 43rd Street, where there are four
inmates, is addicted to the opium habit.
Not infrequently an apartment is utilized as a call-house: girls, not
living on the premises, are summoned by telephone when customers arrive.
Additional recruits are also procured by call, when needed. The "call" is
sometimes a half-way stage for the working girl on the road to complete
prostitution. One day the madame of a call-house on West 58th Street
received a special delivery letter, the number of which was 14.446--9,
reading as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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