Tenderloin, Manhattan
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The Tenderloin was an entertainment and red-light district in the heart of the
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, 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 ...
of
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
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 thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
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
"23rd Police Precinct ("Tenderloin") Station House Designation Report"
, pp. 2–3
encompassing parts of what is now
NoMad Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...
, Chelsea,
Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, or Midtown West on real estate listings, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, ...
, the Garment District and the Theater District.


Etymology

New York Police Department The City of New York Police Department, also referred to as New York City Police Department (NYPD), is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, munic ...
Captain Alexander S. "Clubber" Williams gave the area its
nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...
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, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...
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 in an American city;
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
is among the other cities with a well-known " Tenderloin District".


History

Early in the 19th century, the major
vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...
district had been located in what is now
SoHo SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...
, 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 neighbourhood, neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row (Manhattan), Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th ...
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 broke new ground when it opened at 23rd Street and
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
in 1859, beginning the expansion of the Union Square Rialto to 23rd Street and Madison Square. By the 1870s, the Fifth Avenue Hotel had many competitors in the area, and where the hotels were, the
prostitutes Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-p ...
followed. By the 1880s, the Tenderloin encompassed the largest number of
nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...
s, saloons, bordellos, gambling casinos,
dance hall Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for Dance, dancing, but usually refers to a specific type of twentieth-century venue, with dance clubs (nightclubs) becoming more popular towards the end of the century. The palais de danse was a term ap ...
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 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 at
Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue, also known as Avenue of the Americas, is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The avenue is commercial for much of its length, and traffic runs northbound, or uptown. Sixth Avenue begins four blocks b ...
and 23rd Street, a concert saloon where inebriated customers could watch the
can-can The can-can (also spelled cancan as in the original French /kɑ̃kɑ̃/) is a high-energy, physically demanding dance that became a popular music-hall dance in the 1840s, continuing in popularity in French cabaret to this day. Originally dance ...
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 Club of Richard A. Canfield on West 26th Street. The "Main Street" of the district was Broadway 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 34th Street most commonly refers to 34th Street (Manhattan) 34th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs the width of Manhattan Island from the West Side Highway on the West Side to FDR Drive on t ...
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 Neighborhoods in New York City, neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway (Manhattan), ...
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 a law enforcement officer breaks their political contract and abuses their power for personal gain. A corrupt officer may act alone or as part of a group. Corrupt acts include taking ...
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 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 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 an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local ...
, which was deeply entwined in the graft and corruption connected with the district. Frustration at this state of affairs led to Anthony Comstock'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 letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
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 a ...
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 and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ...
. 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.


Anti-Black mob and police 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 known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
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, 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 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 assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...
"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 or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
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's
vice squad Vice Squad are an English punk rock band formed in 1979 in Bristol. The band was formed from two other local punk bands, The Contingent and TV Brakes. The songwriter and vocalist Beki Bondage (born Rebecca Bond) was a founding member of the b ...
, 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 Character (arts), charac ...
'' Tenderloin'' by
Sheldon Harnick Sheldon Mayer Harnick (April 30, 1924 – June 23, 2023) was an American lyricist and songwriter best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as '' Fiorello!'', '' She Loves Me'', and ''Fiddler on the Roof''. Ear ...
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 Tony A ...
, 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'' 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 '' Anno'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ' ...
game ''The Division'' features an area on the map labeled Tenderloin. * The TNT and
Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
series '' The Alienist'' centres on crimes committed in or linked to The Tenderloin. The series is based loosely on characters created by Caleb Carr in the novel of the same title.


See also

* John W. Goff * Lexow Committee * 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 an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local ...
* Tenderloin, San Francisco * Red-light district *
Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963) Pennsylvania Station (often abbreviated to Penn Station) was a historic railroad station in New York City that was built for, named after, and originally occupied by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). The station occupied an plot bounded by Seve ...
, razed 2 full blocks to construct, from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue and 31st to 33rd Streets.


References

;Notes ;Bibliography * *


External links


Origin of nameNew 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 Former red-light districts in the United States Neighborhoods in Manhattan Race riots in the United States Prostitution in New York (state) African-American history in New York City Former New York City neighborhoods