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
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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