Here are some of the sights of East Baltimore Street:
At Number 116, a couple of doors from the Emerson Hotel, is an amusement arcade where the kid pick-ups come. Those who like them so can walk off with 13-year-olds.
The first thing you notice is the profusion of stores and shops and stands selling “sanitary rubber goods” and other immediate accessories. In the lobby of the Globe Burlesque Theatre is a sign reading, “SALAMI—RUBBER GOODS.”
A sign in the window of 424 East Baltimore reads “TRY OUR HAMBURGER—SANITARY RUBBER GOODS—SHOOTING GALLERY IN REAR.”
Most of these novelty stores and newsstands also sell dirty pictures, including series of snaps showing strips. In one we recognized a New York chorine we know. On sale are playing-cards with naked females on the faces.
In the window of the Maryland Gift Shop, in addition to a lavish display of “rubber goods” and salacious pictures, are switchblade knives. The newsstand at Gay and Baltimore Streets has “rubber goods” on display beside newspapers and the usual pictures. Gordon’s Novelty Shop, at 428 East Baltimore Street, hands out a business card with a drawing on the reverse side showing a short-skirted cutie standing next to a young soldier in a rainstorm, with the caption: “Don’t forget your rubbers.”
Though we saw “rubber goods” displayed in at least 40 store windows, not only on Baltimore Street, but in other parts of town, we can’t remember seeing so many pregnant women anywhere else. In New York one seldom sees such displays, even on the streets.
Many Baltimore Street joints are pointedly pick-up bars. One is the 408. Another is the Midway Bar, where the local hoodlum hot-shots hang out. Harry’s Bar has strippers and pick-ups. Katherine’s Bar goes in for a couple of cheap teasers and a lot of cheap whores working the tables. Next door to Katherine’s Bar is a sign, “Rooms one dollar a night.”
Down a couple of blocks in the Victoria Hotel, a tawdry assignation joint, is a dive called Bettye Mills Night Club. It was once known as the Stork Club, but Sherman Billingsley brought suit. It has a couple of long bars where soiled strippers work on platforms, above the bartenders. While you sit on the stools, dames come over and ask you to buy them drinks. This doesn’t surprise anyone, because they do it in every low joint in town. Such places have female bartenders, and many lean over and kiss customers. If not too busy, they come out and sit with the trade.
One bartender at Bettye Mills is a character known as Mitzie, a plump little broad, a retired stripper. She has a running line of patter. If you give her a dollar tip she will pull up her skirt, pull down her panties and stash the bill in full sight of the customer.