The Tenderloin was an entertainment and
red-light district
A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are partic ...
in the heart of the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The area originally ran from
24th Street to
42nd Street and from
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping ...
to
Seventh Avenue.
[Elsroad, Lisa. "Tenderloin" in , p.1161] By the turn of the 20th century, it had expanded northward to
57th or
62nd Street and west to
Eighth Avenue,
New York City Landmark Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...
"23rd Police Precinct ("Tenderloin") Station House Designation Report"
pp. 2–3 encompassing parts of what is now
NoMad
A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
,
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
,
Hell's Kitchen, the
Garment District and the
Theater District.
Etymology
New York Police Department
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
Captain
Alexander S. "Clubber" Williams gave the area its
nickname
A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...
in 1876, when he was transferred to a police precinct in the heart of this district. Referring to the increased number of bribes he would receive for police protection of both legitimate and illegitimate businesses there – especially the many
brothel
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub p ...
s – Williams said, "I've been having
chuck steak ever since I've been on the force, and now I'm going to have a bit of
tenderloin."
[Burrows & Wallace, p.959]
The name became a generic term for a
red-light district
A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are partic ...
in an American city;
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
is among the other cities having a well-known "
Tenderloin District".
History
Early in the 19th century, the major
vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character t ...
district had been located in what is now
SoHo
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was deve ...
, called at the time "Hells' Hundred Acres", but as the city grew steadily northward, the theater district along Broadway and the
Bowery
The Bowery () is a street and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north.Jackson, Kenneth L. ...
moved uptown as well, as did the legitimate and illegitimate businesses that were usually connected with show business. For some time, the city's
"Rialto" theater district centered on
Union Square and
14th Street, but the
Fifth Avenue Hotel
The Fifth Avenue Hotel was a luxury hotel located at 200 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City from 1859 to 1908. It had an entire block of frontage between 23rd Street and 24th Street, at the southwest corner of Madison Square.
...
broke new ground when it opened at
23rd Street and
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping ...
in 1859, beginning the expansion of the Union Square Rialto to 23rd Street and
Madison Square
Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, fourth President of the United S ...
. By the 1870s, the Fifth Avenue Hotel had many competitors in the area, and where the hotels were, the
prostitutes followed.
By the 1880s, the Tenderloin encompassed the largest number of
nightclub
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gen ...
s,
saloons,
bordello
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub pa ...
s,
gambling casinos,
dance hall
Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities in ...
s, and "
clip joints" in New York City, to the extent that one estimate made in 1885 was that half of the buildings in the district were connected with vice.
Reformers referred to the area as "Satan's Circus",
and one anti-vice crusading minister, the Rev.
Thomas De Witt Talmage, denounced the entire city of New York as "the modern
Gomorrah" for allowing it to exist.
[Federal Writers Project, p.147]
The clientele of these establishments was not necessarily working-class: one set of seven sisters ran side-by-side
brothels
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub ...
in a residential neighborhood on West 25th Street, inviting their upper class customers with engraved invitations. On some nights only gentlemen in formal evening dress were allowed to attend, and the girls of these houses were as socially adept as they were sexually;
on Christmas Eve profits were given to charity.
Other well-known venues in the Tenderloin included
Koster and Bial's Music Hall
Koster and Bial's Music Hall was an important vaudeville theatre in New York City, located at Broadway and Thirty-Fourth Street, where Macy's flagship store now stands. It had a seating capacity of 3,748, twice the size of many theaters. Ticket pr ...
at
Sixth Avenue
Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...
and 23rd Street, a concert saloon where inebriated customers could watch the
can-can being performed; the Haymarket, a dance hall on Sixth below 30th Street, where rich clients could dance with prostitutes, but not too closely, although they could take them into curtained-off galleries to have discreet sex, and sex exhibitions were on display in the balconies; West 29th Street, which featured an almost uninterrupted row of brothels; and the many gambling dens run by
John Daly or the
Madison Square
Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, fourth President of the United S ...
Club of
Richard A. Canfield on West 26th Street.
The "Main Street" of the district was
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
between 23rd and 42nd Streets, which was known as "The Line". In the mid-1890s, after the advent of electric lighting, the stretch of Broadway from 23rd Street to
34th Street came to be called "
The Great White Way" because of the numerous illuminated advertising signs there. This moniker was transferred to
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
when the theater district moved uptown.
Eventually, the processes which created the Tenderloin also served to dismantle it. Once again, theaters and hotels began moving uptown, and the brothels and dance halls and so on followed after them. As early as 1906, McAdoo noted that the northern boundary of the district had moved to 62nd Street, and the "New Tenderloin", as he called it, was now bounded by 42nd Street on the south. The movement, he said, "is rapidly depleting the ranks of the sporting vicious element in the Old Tenderloin".
Crime
Crime was also a major aspect of the Tenderloin, which was considered to be the worst crime-ridden area of what was thought to be the most crime-ridden city of the United States.
To a certain extent,
police corruption
Police corruption is a form of police misconduct in which law enforcement officers end up breaking their political contract and abuse their power for personal gain. This type of corruption may involve one or a group of officers. Internal pol ...
kept crime under control as it regularized the financial relationship between the police and the criminals, but the area was too large, and the pickings too easy, for
street crime
Street crime is a loose term for any criminal offense in a public place. The difference between street crime and white-collar crime is that street crime is often violence that occurs in a public area whereas white-collar crime is non-violent crim ...
to be managed completely. In 1906,
William McAdoo, who was the city's Police Commissioner in 1904 and 1905, wrote that the "Tenderloin
oliceprecinct, as every one knows, is the most important precinct in New York, if not in the United States, or probably in the world, from the amount of police business done there and from the character of the neighborhood."
Occasionally there would be organized attempts to clean up the Tenderloin, and reformist mayors, such as
William Russell Grace
William Russell Grace (May 10, 1832 – March 21, 1904) was an Irish-American politician, the first Roman Catholic mayor of New York City, and the founder of W. R. Grace and Company.
Early life
Grace was born in Ireland in Riverstown near the ...
and
Abram S. Hewitt, would authorize raids on saloons and brothels, even those under the protection of "Clubber" Williams, but the effects were generally temporary: prostitutes would decamp to outlying areas, and return when the latest crusade was over. The net effect of these "shake-ups" or "shake-downs" was simply to drive up the cost of protection afterwards, making Williams even richer – he retired a millionaire – and putting more money into the pockets of
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
, which was deeply entwined in the graft and corruption connected with the district.
Frustration at this state of affairs led to
Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 – September 21, 1915) was an anti-vice activist, United States Postal Inspector, and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV), who was dedicated to upholding Christian morality. He ...
's anti-vice crusade, which operated with
Federal authority from the
Post Office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...
and with the support of the New York
Chamber of Commerce
A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ...
and leading citizens such as
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...
. Comstock's crusade knew no boundaries – he was as likely to target "smut" in the public libraries as he was sex-for-hire in the Tenderloin – but along with Rev. Talmage, he was able to get state legislation passed banning
pool halls, even though they continued to operate openly.
Race riot
Aside from its commercial activities, the Tenderloin was also the home neighborhood for a large part of Manhattan's
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
population, especially in the downtown and western portion of the district: Seventh Avenue within the Tenderloin, in fact, became known as the "African Broadway".
This was a neighborhood of blacks with
middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. C ...
aspirations.
In August 1900, an undercover police officer attempted to arrest a black woman for
soliciting. The woman's boyfriend intervened and the officer struck him with a club. He then stabbed the officer with a
penknife
Penknife, or pen knife, is a British English term for a small folding knife. Today the word ''penknife'' is the common British English term for both a pocketknife, which can have single or multiple blades, and for multi-tools, with additional too ...
, and ran away. The officer died. At the officer's funeral, police and white gangs attacked African-Americans, and burned their property while other police officers looked on. In defense, black citizens armed themselves and formed the Citizens’ Protective League. Their appeals for justice to Mayor
Robert A. Van Wyck went unanswered, and the state and the Police Boards did nothing.
In popular culture
* The Tenderloin of the early 20th century is described from a police perspective in ''Behind the Green Lights'', the memoirs of Police Captain
Cornelius Willemse.
*
Owen Davis
Owen Gould Davis (January 29, 1874 – October 14, 1956) was an American dramatist known for writing more than 200 plays and having most produced. In 1919, he became the first elected president of the Dramatists Guild of America. He received t ...
set a series of stories for the ''
Police Gazette'' in the dance halls and restaurants of the district, and often referred to that section of Broadway running through the district as “The Line”. The stories were later collected as ''Sketches of Gotham'' (1906) under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...
"Ike Swift". They chronicled the high jinks and low life of the Tenderloin as it was between the 1890s and
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
in a lively and memorable manner. Swift described the district so:
It may be that you -whoever you are or wherever you are- don’t know what it means to go “down the line”. But in New York -in order that we may start right- “The Line” means that part of Broadway where at night the lights burn brightest, and where the mob -swell and otherwise- move back and forth like the ebb and flow of the tide - hunting, hunting, ever on the hunt.
From Twenty-third street to Forty-second, and back again, and you have gone down The Line. Sometimes it costs you nothing for this innocent little amusement; this feast of the eyes; and then again it is liable to cost you a great deal.
It all depends on who you are, and what you are and how easy you are.
And there you are.
*The
now-lost film ''
Tenderloin'' was a crime film taking place in the Tenderloin district.
* The brothels of the Tenderloin, repeatedly raided by
Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 – September 21, 1915) was an anti-vice activist, United States Postal Inspector, and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV), who was dedicated to upholding Christian morality. He ...
's
vice squad
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tr ...
, were the setting for the 1960
musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwo ...
''
Tenderloin'' by
Sheldon Harnick
Sheldon Mayer Harnick (born April 30, 1924) is an American lyricist and songwriter best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as ''Fiorello!'' and '' Fiddler on the Roof''.
Early life
Sheldon Mayer Harnick was ...
and
Jerry Bock
Jerrold Lewis Bock (November 23, 1928November 3, 2010) was an American musical theater composer. He received the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Sheldon Harnick for their 1959 musical ''Fiorello!'' and the To ...
, based on a novel by
Samuel Hopkins Adams
Samuel Hopkins Adams (January 26, 1871 – November 16, 1958) was an American writer who was an investigative journalist and muckraker.
Background
Adams was born in Dunkirk, New York. Adams was a muckraker, known for exposing public-health in ...
* The Tenderloin, at the turn of the 20th century, is the setting for one of author Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Mysteries, ''Murder on Sisters' Row''.
Google Books
/ref>
* The Cinemax television series ''The Knick
''The Knick'' is an American medical period drama television series on Cinemax created by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler and directed by Steven Soderbergh. The series follows Dr. John W. Thackery (Clive Owen) and the staff at a fictionalized ve ...
'' featured the 1900 race riot in the season one episode "Get the Rope".
* The Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', '' Far Cry'', ...
game ''The Division'' features an area on the map labeled Tenderloin.
* The TNT and Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
series ''The Alienist
''The Alienist'' is a crime novel by Caleb Carr first published in 1994 and is the first book in the Kreizler series. It takes place in New York City in 1896, and includes appearances by many famous figures of New York society in that era, inc ...
'' centres on crimes committed in or linked to The Tenderloin. The series is based loosely on characters created by Caleb Carr
Caleb Carr (born August 2, 1955) is an American military historian and author. Carr is the second of three sons born to Lucien Carr and Francesca Von Hartz.
He authored '' The Alienist'', ''The Angel of Darkness'', ''The Lessons of Terror'', '' ...
in the novel of the same title.
See also
* John W. Goff
* Lexow Committee
Lexow Committee (1894 to 1895) was a major New York State Senate probe into police corruption in New York City. The Lexow Committee inquiry, which took its name from the committee's chairman, State Senator Clarence Lexow, was the widest-ranging ...
* Charles Henry Parkhurst
* Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
* Tenderloin, San Francisco
The Tenderloin is a neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, in the flatlands on the southern slope of Nob Hill, situated between the Union Square shopping district to the northeast and the Civic Center office district to the southwest. It enco ...
* Red-light district
A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are partic ...
* Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963)
Pennsylvania Station, often abbreviated to Penn Station, was a historic railroad station in New York City, named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original tenant. The station occupied an plot bounded by Seventh and Eighth ...
, razed 2 full blocks to construct, from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue and 31st to 33rd Streets.
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*
*
External links
Origin of name
New York City Police Dept. activities: cells in new Tenderloin station - Bain News Service - loc.gov
Tenderloin - The Bowery Boys: New York City History
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20041215223800/http://www.musical-theatre.net/html/cdreviews/tenderloin.html ''Tenderloin'', the musical
"Tenderloin"
from ''Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance'', Vol. 2, Book R.
{{Prostitution in the United States, state=collapsed
Historical red-light districts in the United States
Neighborhoods in Manhattan
Race riots
Prostitution in New York (state)
African-American history in New York City
Former New York City neighborhoods