Commercialized Prostitution in New York City Part 5

It is indeed a matter of common knowledge that professional prost.i.tutes make a practice of soliciting on excursion boats for immoral purposes. The women make regular trips and have a business understanding with porters and waiters, who aid in securing customers. On July 20, 1912, as the boat for New Haven was about to leave the dock, two prost.i.tutes who solicit in a cafe on West 44th Street[104] came aboard. A street walker who solicits on Broadway and has a home in the Bronx took the trip to New Haven on August 25, 1912. Six prost.i.tutes were soliciting young men on the trip to Block Island on August 11, 1912, one of them formerly an inmate in a house of prost.i.tution in West 47th Street.[105] Her companion solicits on Broadway. These girls said they had rooms in a Block Island hotel,[106]

where they invited the men to meet them.

Some of the waiters and porters on these boats act as solicitors for prost.i.tutes. 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.

Amus.e.m.e.nt 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 prost.i.tutes 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 prost.i.tution. 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 prost.i.tutes join burlesque shows or continue to carry on their immoral business otherwise in the city.

An investigator visited a concert hall connected with an amus.e.m.e.nt 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 amus.e.m.e.nt park. They are divided into two s.h.i.+fts, each s.h.i.+ft 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 prost.i.tution 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 amus.e.m.e.nt park on Staten Island.

The conditions in dance halls in connection with certain amus.e.m.e.nt 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 prost.i.tutes and their pimps.

In reference to public parks, it may be stated that the police force is entirely inadequate to their proper surveillance. Shocking occurrences by the score are reported in Central and other parks by different investigators under the date of July 15, August 5, July 20, July 12, etc.

Not infrequently boys and girls of sixteen and seventeen are involved in these affairs,--and cases implicating still younger children are reported.

The benches in certain sections of Central Park, between 10 P. M. and 1 A.

M., presented a most demoralizing spectacle to the observation of every one who walked through the Park during the months of July and August.[110]

CHAPTER IV

THE EXPLOITERS

The present investigation has established the fact that the business of prost.i.tution in New York City is exploited and, for the most part, controlled by men, though women are also involved. The names and addresses of over 500 men so engaged have been secured, together with personal descriptions and the records of many of them. Some are owners, others, procurers, the rest mainly cadets or pimps,--younger men who have a single girl, at times a "string" of girls, "working" for them on the street or in houses. The woman exploiter is at times, herself a proprietor; usually, however, she is employed by men on a salary to operate a resort.

(1) OWNERS

The men proprietors have reached their present vocation by many paths.

They have been wrestlers, prize-fighters, gamblers, "politicians,"

proprietors of "creep houses,"[111] fruit venders, p.a.w.nbrokers, pickpockets, crooks, peddlers, waiters, saloonkeepers, etc. Some of them pose as "business men," carrying cards and samples, to serve as a subterfuge when they are arrested as vagrants or for living off the proceeds of prost.i.tution. Not a few, however, without concealment, devote their entire time and energy to managing parlor houses and other resorts of prost.i.tution. Some of the latter own a business outright; others have partners who share in the profits. One man, for instance, conducts a house with from fifteen to twenty-five inmates, and, in addition, has an interest in several other ventures of the same character. In some cases the firm is a family affair, including brothers, brothers-in-law, uncles, and cousins.

For several years thirty one-dollar houses of prost.i.tution in the Tenderloin have been operated as a "combine," under the direct control of fifteen or more men. The individuals in question have been in business for many years in New York City, as well as in other cities both in this country and abroad. They buy and sell shares in these houses among themselves, and it is seldom that an outsider, unless he be a relative, can "break" into the circle and share in the profits. The value of the shares depends upon the ability of the owners to maintain conditions in which the houses, being unmolested, are permitted to make large profits.

The man who proves himself capable of achieving this through business sagacity and political pull is called the "king." Upon him falls the responsibility of "seeing" the "right" individuals.

Owners follow the trend of public sentiment with a keenness and foresight truly remarkable. If a new official indicates by orders or by sentiments expressed in public that he is in favor of an "open town," there is great rejoicing among the promoters. Agitation in the opposite direction reacts on the value of their properties: prices drop and there is a scramble to "get under cover." If spasmodic efforts at reform are made, the more prominent owners meet in council with their lawyers and solemnly discuss what their policy should be. If their houses are closed, they still keep on paying rent, ready to open again--when a favorable word comes or when the moral outbreak subsides. For the owner has no faith in reformers.

"They get tired and quit"; "all this will blow over"; "they are sick of it already";--such are his reflections as he recalls past experiences.

The majority of men exploiters of prost.i.tution in New York City are foreigners by birth. Some of them have been seducers of defenseless women all their lives. In one instance, at least, a whole family is engaged in the business,--the parents[112] conduct a restaurant, which is a "hangout"

for pimps, procurers, crooks, and prost.i.tutes; the daughters are prost.i.tutes, the two sons, pimps and procurers. The father and mother are constantly on the lookout for girls whom their sons may ruin and exploit on the street or in houses. Another family[113] has already been referred to as conducting a delicatessen store in Seventh Avenue: they occupy the upper floors as their dwelling; the shop below is the favorite rendezvous of owners, madames, procurers, pimps, and prost.i.tutes. The children of this family, one a girl just reaching womanhood, mingle freely with them.

The father keeps an eye on the handsome procurers who talk with his children; though he listens daily to their schemes for securing women and girls he would "cut to pieces" any man among them who attempted to defile his own daughters.

The owners in question did not all come directly to America. Some of them drifted to other parts of Europe with young girls whom they had secured in the small towns or cities of their own countries. South Africa was a favorite destination--especially Johannesburg. Many, going thither during the Boer War, are reputed to have made large profits from their business with soldiers as customers. The authorities, however, beat them with whips and drove them from the cities. They fled to South America and then to North America. Their trail of seduction and corruption may be traced through Argentine, Brazil, Cuba, Canada, Alaska, and the large cities of our own country--San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, b.u.t.te, Denver, Omaha, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburg, Philadelphia; finally they realize their hopes in New York City. Here they have made a center, and from this center they go back over the old trail from time to time.

If a composite photograph could be made of typical owners of vice resorts, it would show a large, well-fed man about forty years of age and five feet, eight inches, in height. His clothes are the latest cut, loud in design, and carefully pressed. A heavy watch chain adorns his waistcoat, a large diamond sparkles in a flashy necktie, and his fat, chubby fingers are encircled with gold and diamond rings.

On April 6, 1912, a group of owners were parading up and down Seventh Avenue in front of the above-mentioned delicatessen store, discussing "business." They were all dressed in their best and looked prosperous.

One, a large man with a black mustache, wore a very fine English suit and a hat which was said to have cost eight dollars. A large diamond ring sparkled on his fat hand, a diamond horse shoe pin flashed in his tie, and a charm set with precious stones hung from a heavy gold watch chain. His brother-in-law, part owner with him of a house of prost.i.tution in West 25th Street,[114] was also dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on,--a smart suit, a black derby hat, and patent leather pumps. A third partner presented an equally dignified appearance. There were eight other owners in the group, making a very imposing appearance as they eagerly waited to talk over matters of "business" with the representative of the "boss,"--a certain official who, as the men claimed, was on this day to send word whether or not the owners could proceed with their nefarious business.

The "king"[115] of this set has the reputation of being able to "see" the right persons; when a member is "in wrong" or wants to open a house, the "king" must first be consulted. The "king" is interested in eleven houses of prost.i.tution--of some of which he is the sole owner; each establishment contains an average of about fifteen inmates. He supports two notorious women,[116] who serve as madames, each jealous of every attention bestowed by him on the other. Many years ago he was a soldier in Russia, where he ruined a young girl whom he afterwards took to South Africa. Since that time she has earned thousands of dollars for him. He brought her to this country and traveled with her from city to city until finally he settled in New York, where he has since built up a prosperous business and gained an "influential" position.

Among the others are two brothers who combine the business of exploiting prost.i.tution with that of selling diamonds. They are noted for their ability to outwit the law, for they openly declare that they can buy their way out of any trial. Besides their houses, they have conducted pool parlors and restaurants, and one of them has the reputation of being a "fence," or receiver of stolen goods. The history of these two men ill.u.s.trates the manner in which pimps develop into proprietors. When they first came to America about twenty years ago, they found employment on a peddler's wagon. Soon after, one of them ruined a fifteen-year old girl who was born on Broome Street, New York City. For seven years subsequently she was his woman, earning money for him on the street and in houses. The other brother, not to be outdone, also secured a girl and became a pimp.

Later they were both employed as watchboys about houses of prost.i.tution.

Being ambitious, they were soon operating regular houses on Allen Street, which at that time was part of the old Red Light District in Manhattan.

Here they prospered for a number of years, though in the end they were driven from the East Side. With four women they then went to Boston, where they opened a house. Apprehended there, they "jumped their bail" and returned to their former haunts in New York. Their old enemy had evidently lost his power; for the brothers were allowed to continue in business. After the closing of the district, the scene of their business ventures was transferred to Buffalo during the Exposition of 1901. Driven thence, they went to St. Louis, where they soon owned houses, saloons, and gambling places. Ex-Governor Folk was District Attorney in St. Louis at that time and the brothers were among those who fell into his net. One brother, known as the "King of White Chapel," that being the Red Light District, was indicted on several counts for felonies and misdemeanors.

The other brother and one of his women[117] were also indicted. The enterprising pair secured bail, which they immediately forfeited, and, leaving all their wealth behind, began to roam from place to place with their women. One went to Havana, and one to Pittsburg; driven from Pittsburg, the latter soon joined his brother in Havana. From Havana the two men and their women went to South Africa and settled in Johannesburg.

Here once more they made a large sum of money. The authorities seized one of the brothers and sentenced him to jail; on the expiration of his term, he was whipped and ordered out of the city. The brothers then went to Vienna, to London, and from London sailed to New York City. When they returned to the city of their early business success, they opened a house of prost.i.tution on West 34th Street in company with a man who had just returned from South Africa. For a year they prospered. When the former District Attorney of St. Louis, who had since become Governor, learned of their presence in this country, he secured their extradition. The brothers took $25,000 to St. Louis with them and not long afterwards returned to New York entirely penniless. No wonder the elder and more crafty of the two brothers declares that the law cannot touch them! No wonder, when he is intoxicated, he strikes his chest and shouts defiance to the law!

During all these vicissitudes one of his women[118] remained loyal. She is known among the owners of houses all over the country as the "best money getter" in the world. When her owner was "broke" and in sore distress, she put him on his feet again. She is his woman to-day.

The instances cited are by no means exceptional. Prost.i.tution has become a business, the promoters of which continually scan the field for a location favorable to their operations; and the field is the entire civilized world. No legitimate enterprise is more shrewdly managed from this point of view; no variety of trade adjusts itself more promptly to conditions, transferring its activities from one place to another, as opportunities contract here and expand there. The keeper of a disorderly saloon[119]

finds himself hampered in Chicago: he migrates to New York to become part owner of a Sixth Avenue resort.[120] Raided in Philadelphia, another[121]

goes first to Pittsburg, thence to this city, where he purchases an interest in a West 25th Street[122] establishment. The former owner[123]

of places in St. Louis and Omaha is now part owner in two houses[124] on this same street. Still another[125] was in the business successively in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, and Los Angeles. One of the partners[126] in a resort in West 36th Street[127] has at different times had houses in Portland, Seattle, Brazil, Argentine, and London.

Another[128] is simultaneously interested in houses in this city[129] and in Norfolk, Virginia. The part owner[130] of a notorious place on Sixth Avenue[131] has conducted houses of prost.i.tution in St. Louis, Buffalo, and Johannesburg, South Africa, and has traveled all over the world in the business of exploiting prost.i.tution.[132]

(2) PROCURERS

While keepers of houses are also procurers, there is a group of men who devote themselves singly to this work. These are the typical "white slavers," whose trade depends entirely upon the existence of houses of prost.i.tution. To this point we shall in a moment recur in connection with women promoters of prost.i.tution. For the present I desire simply to emphasize the fact that the procurer has practically no chance to ply his trade unless there are houses of prost.i.tution from which he can accept orders and to which he can dispose of "goods." The successful procurer as well as the pimp, to be next described, boasts that, once a girl comes under his influence, she will do anything for him. No matter how ugly or repulsive outwardly, he holds his women. One of the most active procurers in the city is short, heavy, and humpbacked.[133] He has the reputation of being even more successful than a compet.i.tor[134] who is handsome, athletic, and well-dressed. The former has been apprehended in other cities on the charge of procuring, once serving two and a half years in Philadelphia under an a.s.sumed name.[135] To-day he walks the streets of New York City, a free man, unmolested.

Procurers frequent entrances to factories and department stores, or walk the streets at night striking up acquaintance with girls who are alone and looking for adventure. They select a girl waiting on a table in a restaurant, or at the cas.h.i.+er's desk, and gradually make her acquaintance.

They attend steamboat excursions, are found at the sea sh.o.r.e and amus.e.m.e.nt parks, in moving picture shows, at the public dance halls,--in fact, wherever girls congregate for business or for pleasure. They choose with almost unerring judgment the type of girl who may be pliable to their will.

At 5 P. M., on March 14, 1912, six procurers[136] stood on the corner of 27th Street and Sixth Avenue waiting for the shop and factory girls to pa.s.s by on their way going home from work. For one hour the investigator watched these men and saw them endeavoring to attract the attention of several girls. At last two of them[137] succeeded in interesting two girls, who accompanied them.

On Sunday, June 23, 1912, a group of procurers[138] went to a certain seash.o.r.e resort. On the beach they were joined by a notorious procurer, then employed as a life saver.[139] He greeted his comrades with the words: "Ich hob' frisch' Sch.o.r.e" (I have fresh goods.) The group then put on their bathing suits and went into the surf. After a while they missed one of their number,[140] whom they finally found with a young girl apparently eighteen years of age: she was the "fresh goods,"--the object of the "line up," as it afterwards developed.

(3) THE PIMP

The pimp or cadet as he is commonly called, has not yet developed into a professional procurer or keeper of a house of prost.i.tution. While all procurers and owners of houses are in reality pimps, the converse is not always true: all pimps are not procurers, though they may hope to be some day.

The pimp enters the business when he either ruins a young girl for his future profit or becomes the lover and protector of a prost.i.tute already in the business. As the future pimp grows up in a crowded neighborhood, he becomes a member of a gang and, as such, is admired by some reckless girl in the vicinity. Proud of her acquaintance with him, she shares the spoils resulting from his petty thieving and other escapades. Very early in their career the two begin to have immoral relations, not only with each other, but with different boys and girls of their own kind. They have never had moral standards in any proper sense of the term. The large majority of boys who become pimps and seducers of girls and the large majority of girls who become prost.i.tutes were at the start not immoral, but unmoral. Later the boy drifts to the pool parlor or gambling room for his recreation and companions.h.i.+p, the girl to public dance halls and similar places of amus.e.m.e.nt. Many of these girls are already clandestine prost.i.tutes, secretly carrying on the business of prost.i.tution while at the same time engaged in some legitimate employment "just to keep up a respectable appearance." Under the pimp's influence and suggestion the girl finally "breaks" away from her secret immoral life and becomes a "regular." The pimp shows her the way, provides places for her to solicit or "hustle" on the street or in the vice resort. He attends to the business arrangements, even to the collection of her money, though when she is "well broke," he allows her to collect her own money and give it to him. Some pimps beat their women, on the principle that that is the only way to make them fear and love them. This may seem a paradox; but it is indeed true that many prost.i.tutes do not believe their lovers care for them unless they "beat them up" occasionally.

The psychology of the relation of prost.i.tute to pimp is a complicated one, difficult for the normal individual to understand. In the cases above alluded to, boy and girl have been comrades, the boy lording it over the girl until she submits to being his property. But there are prost.i.tutes, apparently quite able to stand alone, who deliberately select a pimp; if they cease to be satisfied with him, he is discharged and a successor taken. Why should a prost.i.tute of either kind desire a pimp? There are many reasons: the pimp is her business agent in dealing with owners, hotel keepers, etc.; he is her "go-between," if she gets into "trouble" with the law; her companion, for she is lonely after the night's business; but--most important of all--her lover--one person who seems to care for her as a human being, whether he does or not, and for whom she does herself really care. A spark of affection lives at the heart of this ghastly relation.

In her relation to the pimp, as well as to the house madame, the prost.i.tute is not infrequently to all intents and purposes a white slave.

For the pimp, like the madame, subjects her in many cases completely to his will and command. This does not mean that the girl is necessarily imprisoned behind locked doors and barred windows. But restraint may be thoroughly effective, even though not actually or mainly physical.

Uneducated, with little or no comprehension of her legal rights or of the powers which could be invoked to aid her, often an immigrant or at least a stranger, she is soon cowed by the brute to whom she has mistakenly attached herself. Should she make an effort to break away, she is pursued and hemmed in by the concerted efforts of her cadet and his a.s.sociates. As a rule, however, pimps are skilful enough to play for and to obtain the sentimental loyalty of their women; so that the prost.i.tute herself becomes the greatest obstacle to her own freedom and rehabilitation.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pimps in New York City. During this investigation scores of their names and personal descriptions have been acc.u.mulated, as well as those of their women. One of the best known[141] is a "life-taker" and "strong arm guy," a dangerous fellow, twenty-two years old, who has been repeatedly arrested as a consequence of his quarrels. A "pipe fiend" and gambler, his favorite occupation is "stuss." At elections he has his own "mob" who work at the polls for corrupt politicians. His girl is a slim, bleached blonde, "good for $100 to $150 a week on the street," it is said.

On June 26, 1912, five pimps were playing cards in a restaurant on Seventh Avenue. The day was very hot. During the afternoon the girl[142] who is "hustling" for one of them[143] came into the restaurant wearing a heavy velvet suit. The wife of the proprietor asked: "What are you doing, wearing a suit like that in this kind of weather?" She replied that though she was bringing home eight, ten, and twelve dollars every night, she could not afford a new dress. "He needs it for gambling," she said, pointing to her pimp. Leaving the table in anger he deliberately slapped her in the face: "Didn't you pay $32 for that suit?" he said. "What more do you want?"

Another[144] frequents a restaurant in Second Avenue.[145] He is twenty-nine years of age, smooth shaven, with a scar on his face. Before he became a pimp he was known as a "pool room shark." He smokes opium, snuffs cocaine, and plays stud poker. With men of his kind he is not very popular: they declare that he cannot tell the truth, that for a "sh.e.l.l of hop" he would kill a dozen Chinamen, and for a nickel would "frame up" his best friend. "Just an ordinary, every day, common pimp," they say,--"can't borrow a dollar and lives on nothing but the money his woman earns."