Commercialized Prostitution in New York City Part 3

Our investigation was thus restricted because of the peculiar difficulties involved in ascertaining the real character of many of these establishments. Some are transparent enough: others can be uncovered only by a customer. Our workers were instructed that it was not desired to attempt an extended investigation of every place. They were told to learn the nature of the ma.s.sage given, the equipment, prices, the bearing, attire, and general behavior of the operatives. On the basis of these data they were to form an estimate as to whether or not conditions were suspicious. From earlier investigations and reports it was already believed that in nine cases out of ten the practices in these places are immoral and degrading to the last degree.

A large number of ma.s.sage parlors are located on the upper floors of buildings on Sixth and Columbus Avenues and on the side streets from West 23rd Street to West 80th Street. They are indicated by means of large signs displayed in the windows or tacked on the doors. These places also advertise in a weekly paper published on Sat.u.r.days and offered for sale at five cents per copy on news-stands in hotels and other public places.

The rooms are usually equipped with high couches, bureaus displaying comb, brush, alcohol, and powder, and with wash stands. A manicure table is often placed by the window,--on it a set of instruments used in caring for the nails. In these places the operators insist that they give straight ma.s.sage and that they do not conduct an immoral business. In other parlors, the sign on the window or door is the only evidence that such treatment is given. These are openly disorderly, no apparent effort being made to conceal the fact. The prices charged range from two dollars to five dollars, according to the service demanded.

Not a few former madames of houses of prost.i.tution have established vice resorts under the guise of ma.s.sage parlors for the purpose of continuing in business after their houses were closed by action of the law. Into these resorts they bring their former inmates, who now pose as experts in the art of scientific ma.s.sage. In the matter of securing new girls, the keeper of a ma.s.sage parlor has a great advantage; for she openly advertises in the daily papers for girls to learn the "business of ma.s.sage," or for those who have had experience in this or that method of ma.s.sage as practiced in foreign lands. The advertis.e.m.e.nts state the age of the girl wanted and the weekly salary. As a result, many unsuspecting girls, answering advertis.e.m.e.nts, come into personal contact with well-dressed and apparently respectable proprietors. If the girl appears to be weak and easily led, the keeper begins by asking her how much money she has been in the habit of making each week; then remarks smilingly that some of her former operatives have made four or five times as much by not "being too particular." She describes in a general way what she means by "too particular." "Her customers," she says, "are often very rich and generous; if a girl is attentive and jolly, these men will give her generous prices and tips, and thus she can 'coin' money."

It is only just to say that not all ma.s.sage parlors are of the type described above. Some are legitimate and render scientific service to men and women who are actually ill. If the proprietors of such places would escape the general condemnation of their business, they should voluntarily seek the endors.e.m.e.nt of respectable physicians and engage operatives who have _bona fide_ certificates showing that they have spent a certain period of time in recognized inst.i.tutions in preparation for their calling.

A few examples only need be given:

Margaret,[58] proprietress of a ma.s.sage parlor on Sixth Avenue,[59] spent the evening of May 10, 1912, at a cafe in West 45th Street.[60] She admitted that business had latterly not been brisk: it had become difficult to get suitable operatives. The men who were procuring girls for her were becoming afraid to go after "young girls" and she did not want any "old ones." "Some fools," she said, "are writing stories about young girls being sold into slavery and even country girls are getting wise and think the men are going to put them into prison instead of giving them a chance to make a little money for themselves. That sort of thing only happens in the lower cla.s.s of places. I have a nice business and nice men and I give the girl one dollar out of every two and three, and two dollars out of five, and half of anything over that. I had two girls; but one left me the other night because I would not let her take 'dope.' There comes a time with these 'dope fiends' when it interferes with business and they have to cut it out."

By way of inducement, Margaret invited the investigator, who was a woman, to work in her ma.s.sage parlor the following Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, offering to allow her to keep all she made: she "had to have an operative to help take care of her regular Sat.u.r.day and Sunday customers"; by the following week she felt sure that her procurer would have a girl for her. The investigator called at the parlor early the following week to ascertain what had happened. She found that the house had been sold and that the new landlord had raised the rent for the "parlor" occupied by Margaret from $60 to $75 per month. Thereupon Margaret had moved out, going to the beach to open a temporary house for the summer.

Ma.s.sage parlors are not uncommonly found in tenements,--there is one, for instance, in such a building in West 47th Street.[61] Two operatives were employed there with a madame[62] in April, 1912. Different resorts in this tenement have been reported to the Tenement House Department several times by the police, and arrests have been made here as far back as 1909.

A former member of the Chicago Vice Commission was in New York City in April. His experience in studying conditions in the former city had made him watchful and suspicious. One day he noticed a number of working girls, young, and foreign in type, climbing the stairs of a building in West 43rd Street.[63] As the girls came down some appeared to be disappointed, as though they had not been successful in their errand, whatever it might be.

His interest was aroused. Observing a ma.s.sage sign on the second floor, he concluded that the girls had been answering an advertis.e.m.e.nt to call at this place of business. An investigation thus started resulted in securing the following facts:

On April 3, 1912, a morning newspaper contained the following advertis.e.m.e.nt under the cla.s.sification of "Help Wanted--Female."

"Girl for light housework, not under 18; $7 to $9 a week. Mrs.[64]

----, ---- West 43rd Street, 2 flights up."

Later in the day a young woman investigator was sent to the address with a copy of the advertis.e.m.e.nt. She was greeted at the door by the woman, who soon disclosed the character of the place. In reply to the inquiries of the investigator, she explained the nature of the business: her customers paid from two to ten dollars, the girls receiving approximately one-half. An inmate had earned $48 in a week: but a girl's usefulness is brief, for frequent changes are necessary in order to retain the trade.

On the same date a morning paper published in the German language printed the following advertis.e.m.e.nt under the cla.s.sification, "_Verlangt Weiblich_."[65] "Girl, neat, German, not under 18 years of age. One who knows how to ma.s.sage or one who is willing to learn.

Wages paid while learning. Inquire Mrs.[66] ----, ---- West 43rd Street, two flights up." This is the ma.s.sage parlor described above.

On April 9, 1912, the same investigator received the following letter from the proprietor of the parlor:

"_Dear Mrs. ----_:

"If you have not taken any position yet, would you kindly call on me?

"Respectfully, (Signed) "----."

A week later the investigator called again, finding the establishment still in operation, with a new a.s.sistant, procured through the landlord. With a little prodding, the garrulous madame resumed her confidences, explaining the process of "fixing up" girls so as to appear young, and other details of her nefarious occupation.

In the foregoing pages we have circ.u.mstantially described the more prominent forms taken by vice in New York City. It is surely no exaggeration to maintain that the evidence submitted proves that prost.i.tution in New York City is widely and openly exploited as a business enterprise.[67] The exploiters, the scenes of their operations, their methods, their a.s.sociations, and their victims are all equally notorious.

It is idle to explain away the phenomena on the ground that they are the results of the inevitable weakness of human nature: human weakness would demand far fewer and less horrible sacrifices. Most of the wreckage, and the worst of it, is due to persistent, cunning and unprincipled exploitation: to the banding together in infamous enterprises of madame, pimp, procurer, brothel-keeper, and liquor vender to deliberately carry on a cold-blooded traffic for their joint profit,--a traffic, be it added, from which the girl involved procures at the most, with few exceptions, her bare subsistence, and that, only so long as she has a trade value.

CHAPTER III

PLACES WHICH CATER TO VICE

Places which cater to vice are divided into two groups. The first group, catering directly to vice, includes saloons and their accessories, such as concert halls and cabaret shows; the second group, operating indirectly, comprises public dance halls, burlesque theaters, amus.e.m.e.nt parks, and boat excursions. The proprietors of these places usually have full knowledge of the demoralizing influence of their establishments, and deliberately encourage such conditions for the purpose of increasing their profits. "The saloons which cater to women," writes Professor Rauschenbusch, "the dance halls that encourage indecent dances and supply long intermissions for the consumption of liquor; pleasure resorts and excursion steamers, theaters, music halls, and moving picture shows that use the ever ready attractiveness of s.e.x interests--are all smoothing the downward road--and they know it."[68]

Nevertheless, it would be unjust to condemn indiscriminately all persons connected with the places which indirectly promote vice. An exception should be made of certain proprietors of dance halls and amus.e.m.e.nt parks, the commissioners of public parks, and some excursion boat owners.

(1) DISORDERLY SALOONS, CONCERT HALLS, AND CABARET SHOWS.

These places may all be considered under one heading because they are connected with saloons: they differ only in the character and grade of entertainment given in them, this varying with the ingenuity of the proprietor.

A disorderly saloon is one where indecent acts occur, where indecent language is used publicly, where there is open solicitation for immoral purposes, or to which known and habitual prost.i.tutes resort. The records in the office of the State Commissioner of Excise show that up to and including January 28, 1913, 4,583 liquor tax certificates were issued in the Borough of Manhattan under Sub-Division One of the Liquor Tax Law.

During the period of this investigation, _i. e._, from January 24, 1912, to December 15, 1912, the rear rooms of 765 saloons at separate addresses were investigated. Unescorted women, who from their actions and conversation were believed to be prost.i.tutes, were seen in 308 of the 765 rear rooms investigated, and the investigators were openly solicited by prost.i.tutes for immoral purposes in 107 separate rear rooms. In some of these places white men and colored women, in others colored men and white women, mingle freely.

The majority of disorderly saloons are situated on Third Avenue and side streets from East 10th to East 125th Streets; on Sixth Avenue and side streets from West 22nd to West 49th Streets; on Seventh Avenue and side streets from West 23rd to West 52nd Streets; and on Eighth Avenue and side streets from West 14th to West 125th Streets. There are other disorderly saloons on the lower East Side, on the Bowery and surrounding streets, on Amsterdam, Columbus, and Lexington Avenues.

Many of these disorderly saloons occupy the ground floor of buildings the upper floors of which are used as a.s.signation and disorderly hotels under the same management. The rear rooms are filled with small tables, where customers are served with drinks from the bar. Some of the rooms are large and clean, others small and exceedingly dirty. The ladies' retiring rooms in the most disorderly places are very unsanitary. A report on one of the rear rooms describes it as being "long and narrow, with a row of tables down the length of two walls and in the center. So narrow and low and dirty is the room that it is as if a stable had been hastily emptied and swept out and turned into a temporary drinking booth."

The managers of these establishments are sometimes sober and industrious men. They have been selected by the brewers to open saloons because of their personal qualities; for they are hail fellows well met, "good mixers," who make and hold friends. But these qualities do not always go hand in hand with business sagacity. The "good mixer" soon finds himself in debt to the brewer who set him up in business. The iron-clad mortgage which the brewer holds on the fixtures hangs over the saloon keeper like a menacing hand. He finds that he cannot make any money in the ordinary business of selling liquor over the bar; sales are increased if women of the street are encouraged to use the rear room as a "hangout" where they can enter unescorted to meet men. In addition, the proprietor finds that he can still further increase his profits by renting rooms over the saloons to the women and their customers. "We have to evade the law to make any money,"[69] remarked the owner[70] of a resort in East 116th Street.

Some of the saloon keepers, of course, need no forcing. They started out to exploit prost.i.tution in connection with the liquor business. Their business is organized with that in view. Prost.i.tutes are attached to the rear room, as to the hotels previously described, by certain rules and customs. For example, one woman is not permitted to entice the customers of another; the girl who is unable to hold her customer is gradually forced to saloons that are less exacting. When the prost.i.tute has secured her customer, she must in certain saloons order fancy drinks. This has to be cleverly done so as not to offend. The girl intimates that she loves to drink wine because it makes her jolly and companionable. If she is personally attractive and well dressed, the man does not object. "You know," she murmurs, "I hate a cheap skate who won't treat a girl like a lady." If she is unsuccessful in persuading her customer to buy expensive drinks, the proprietor puts her out as a poor "wine agent," discharges her from his employ, as it were. This is the practice of the manager of a well-known saloon in East 14th Street.[71] On the other hand, the proprietor protects the successful prost.i.tute, just as does the hotel keeper, previously mentioned.

The giving of commissions to prost.i.tutes on the sale of drinks to their customers in the rear rooms of saloons does not appear to obtain as a general practice in Manhattan; but it is understood that women do receive commissions on bottled wine and beer which customers order when occupying with them the rooms upstairs.

Efforts are frequently made to enliven the scene by music and singing. In the ordinary rear room, with cheap furniture, flickering lights, bad air, and filled with rough men, a sallow-faced youth, with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, sits at a piano and indifferently bangs out popular airs in wild, discordant notes. This becomes a "concert hall"

when the proprietor provides more music and additional singers. After a while a cafe is established, where food can be obtained as well as drinks.

The grade of the entertainment improves a bit further and the place is known as a cabaret show, a poor imitation of the legitimate cabaret show given in respectable restaurants. Besides music, dancing, sometimes of an obscene character, is carried on in the rear room. Dancing is, indeed, cultivated for the express purpose of stimulating the sale of liquor and what goes with it. The dances are frequented by prost.i.tutes, pimps, thieves, and those who want to see the "sights." Young and foolish girls, for whom "social club" dances have become commonplace, are persuaded to visit these saloons. Here they meet men whose sole object is their subsequent exploitation for pleasure or for money. Under this influence and environment they drift all the more rapidly into lives of professional prost.i.tution.

The prost.i.tutes who frequent certain saloons in Manhattan combine their immoral business with crime, particularly stealing. They boldly seek out a man who appears to be "green," or under the influence of liquor, and "trim him," as they say. The girls use their pimps, or, what may be nearer the truth, the pimps use their girls, to carry out these robberies. A pimp, becoming acquainted with a stranger, "steers" him "up against" his "gun mol" (a prost.i.tute who is a pickpocket), who aids in the "tr.i.m.m.i.n.g"

process. Sometimes, if the hour is late and they are in the right place, the pimps and their women become so bold as openly to go through the pockets of their victims and afterwards throw them into the street. On one such occasion the victim called loudly for the police, and, though an officer stood on the other side of the street, his eyes were withheld and his ears were stopped. The pimp laughed at the stranger and told him to "yell louder" for all the good it would do him.

Of the statements just made abundant confirmation is at hand:

A saloon in East 14th Street,[72] one of the landmarks of this busy street, has been notorious for many years. Its proprietor has a wide reputation. His home life, according to report, is all that it should be; no one has ever seen him intoxicated. Big, jolly, aggressive, he is the embodiment of hospitality as he stands at the bar, greeting those who enter with a kindly shake or a friendly nod. In the rear room of his resort disgraceful conditions exist. At one end there is a small platform, on which a young man sits, playing popular airs on a piano through the long hours of the night. White-faced waiters, with their hair carefully cut and plastered down, glide noiselessly about the tables. Carefully trained are these young men in keeping the gla.s.ses full. They work quickly. About the tables sit equally well-trained prost.i.tutes. A man who entered at 6.30 P. M., January 26, 1912, and stayed until 8.30 saw the waiters urge the men customers to invite different girls to their tables.

Two of the girls were not engaged. As the rule of the place forbade them to go to the table where men were sitting, they enlisted the waiter's aid.

Gliding to the table where three men were drinking, he soon succeeded in having the girls invited to join the party. The investigator gained the confidence of the girls with whom he conversed. "A girl must order fancy drinks here when she is treated," said one of them; "if she don't, the manager[73] orders her out and won't let her come in again." Pearl, a girl about twenty years of age, solicited him to go to a hotel[74] not far away. Two months later, at about 11 P. M., there were more than twenty prost.i.tutes and fifteen men in this rear room. The same conditions existed during the evening of April 8, 1912, when a woman entered the rear room alone. She walked to the extreme end of the room and saw eleven prost.i.tutes and four men sitting at tables. If this woman had been a "regular," that is, one who frequented the place night after night, a waiter would have brought her, entirely free, a small gla.s.s of beer or ginger ale. She learned on inquiry that if a "regular" was "arrested" the manager would "fix it up." Inducements were also offered in the hope that she would enter the service of this house. The "suckers" all come down here, she was told: "We get them before the girls on Sixth Avenue do."

On January 20, 1912, a well known pimp[75] met his woman in the rear room of a saloon on Seventh Avenue.[76] An investigator saw this prost.i.tute give him a ten dollar bill. The pimp upbraided the girl for not having more money and struck her a heavy blow in the face. She fell to the floor.

There was some excitement when this occurred. The girl was advised to have the pimp arrested, but she refused to do so although her eyes were swollen and discolored. This same rear room harbors other prost.i.tutes who night after night take their customers to a furnished room house in West 27th Street,[77] where the landlord charges twenty-five cents for the use of a room.[78]

(2) MISCELLANEOUS PLACES

In New York City there are places of a certain type which cater directly to vice in that they are frequented, for the most part, by immoral and dissolute persons who not only solicit on the premises for immoral purposes, but create conditions which stimulate the business of prost.i.tution. The proprietors have a guilty knowledge of the fact that prost.i.tutes and their kind use the premises as an adjunct to immoral trade. Such places include restaurants, pool rooms, delicatessen stores, candy shops, hair dressing and manicure parlors, barber shops, cigar stores, palmist and clairvoyant parlors, livery stables, and opium dens.

The places in question are usually situated in the vicinity of vice resorts. To the ordinary observer their outward appearance is that of any respectable business establishment. The signs are on the windows, goods are displayed, customers may come and go, and there is a general air of activity. From January 24, 1912 to November 15, 1912, 180 reports were made in connection with conditions in 91 such miscellaneous places.

In some of these places, known as "hangouts," respectable trade is neither sought nor encouraged. A stranger is looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion and treated as an intruder. If he asks for a meal, he is told that the hour for serving meals has pa.s.sed; if he desires to purchase a package of food from the shelves, he is informed that the particular brand he seeks is missing.

The real purpose of the place is to afford a rendezvous where confidences may be exchanged and deals planned--where birds of a feather may flock together and be fed or entertained. It is indeed a varied group that sit about the tables or lounge idly at the entrance: owners of houses of prost.i.tution, madames and inmates, street walkers, pimps, procurers, gamblers, pickpockets, thieves, and crooks of every shade and kind. Young boys of the neighborhood become fascinated with the adventurous lives of the men who frequent these places and soon join their ranks.