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 prostitution. The proprietors have a guilty knowledge of the fact that prostitutes 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 passed; 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 prostitution, 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.
One of the most important of these establishments is a delicatessen store on Seventh Avenue,[79] a notorious and popular place. The little room is crowded with things to eat and drink. Small tables are placed about the vacant places and at these tables sit owners of houses, madames and inmates, pimps, runners, and lighthouses. All the forces for the conduct of the business of prostitution in parlor houses are here, scheming, quarreling, discussing profits, selling shares, securing women, and paying out money for favors received. If the walls of this little room could speak, they would reveal many secrets. The value of houses is debated, the income from the business, the expenses of conducting it, the price of shares to-day, or to-morrow, or in the future, if this or that happens. Here is the center of the trade in certain types of houses,—the stock market, where members bid and outbid each other and quarrel over advantage given or taken. The owner of this delicatessen store, a stout and rather handsome man, moves about quietly. Upstairs, his wife, hearty and ample, cares for his home and his children. Now and then the children sit at the tables with wondering eyes and listen. The eldest girl, about seventeen, dressed in white, talks earnestly with a handsome procurer or holds the hand of a madame.
In some of the places here alluded to liquor is sold without a license; in others, gambling is carried on. Poker, stuss, No. 21, pinochle, are played in the rear behind closed doors. For instance, during the month of April, 1912, a stranger entered a “coffee and cake hangout” in East 114th Street.[80] The usual crowd of pimps, crooks, and gamblers sat about the tables eating and drinking. A man rose from a table and walked to the rear to a little white door. He tapped gently; the door opened and closed behind him. As it did so, the stranger saw in an inner room men seated about a table.
Elsewhere a lucrative business in the sale of drugs is carried on. Blanche, a street walker, crazy for morphine at 2.30 A. M., on May 18, 1912, pleaded with a man in a restaurant on Seventh Avenue[81] to purchase some for her. The stranger with whom she was at the time, moved to pity at her pleading, furnished the money. A bottle of morphine tablets was hastily procured from a well-known pharmacy on Seventh Avenue. Snatching the bottle from his hand, she concealed it in her stocking.[82]
The cigar store, the pool room, the coffee and cake restaurant, are the favorite resorts of the pimps. Here they come to make deals for their women, to receive telephone messages from their girls on the street or in vice resorts, to plan “line ups”[83] when a “young chicken” is about to be broken into the business, and to buy drugs for their girls and themselves. It is common knowledge that here gangs are formed and arrangements for robberies or other criminal acts made; here the spoils are divided; guns are hidden when officers come to search, and men beaten who make a “squeal.”
The prostitute herself frequents the hairdressing and manicure parlors, popular with her for two reasons: first, because here she makes herself “beautiful” under the hands of the proprietor, and second, because through the operator she learns of resorts where she may earn “better money.” The imparting of such information is a part of the hairdresser’s trade. She is the fount of knowledge on this subject; “swell” madames patronize her place, urging her to send them attractive girls. If the right girls do not come in, she advertises in the papers, using her “parlor” as a decoy. Her husband—if she has one—may be a thrifty man who mingles with his wife’s customers, selling them attractive hats or suits, and other things, and finally acting as their bail bondsman if they are arrested and brought to court. At least one such husband has grown wealthy in the business.
Such a hairdressing and manicure parlor, for example, is conducted on Sixth Avenue.[84] The woman caters only to prostitutes; and part of her business is to find out if any of her customers are dissatisfied with their present places or if they are not attached to any resort. In either event, she offers to send them to find a place where they can earn more money. One day a woman having her hair shampooed in this parlor actually heard the proprietor send girls to different vice resorts. She advertises in the daily press for help. For instance, on Saturday, April 6, 1912, a daily paper contained the following advertisement under “Female Help Wanted”:
“Hairdresser and manicure wanted, experienced. Apply ——, —— Sixth Avenue.”[85]