Most of the dives are on Baltimore St. and in the vicinity, but there is no monopoly there. A store next to May’s department store, in the retail shopping district, has a window display of “sanitary rubber goods” and switch-blade knives. Ditto is a shop known as Blizzards, on Eutaw Street, which advertises a bargain, “Three dozen latex, one dollar.”
There’s a strip-dive, the Picadilly, around the corner from the Lord Baltimore Hotel, in the midst of the financial and retail district. It has pretty lowdown floor-shows and swarms with hustlers who work the bars. We saw one cute bartender there, calling herself Val, about 18, from some mountain town in Tennessee. For a dollar tip she’d let you play around and never slap your hands.
The joints on East Baltimore are bad—but on the outskirts of town, on the Pulaski Highway at Fayette Street, you find places not patronized by tourists, bums or sailors, but by local kids. You see nude floor-shows at the Ambassador, on Fayette, and at De Carlos, on the Highway, that would make Baltimore Street bums blush.
The Big Mob operates or protects the dives. It owns many of the good places, too. Every dump and purveyor of filthy pictures now has a sign in the window: “Re-elect D’Alesandro.”
The better region is along Charles Street, where the more expensive specialty and antique shops and the few better-class night clubs and lounges are. Among them is the Club Charles, part of the circuit which includes the Copacabana in New York, the Chez Paree in Chicago, and clubs in Saratoga, Miami, Las Vegas and New Orleans, which play such acts as Sophie Tucker and Joe E. Lewis. When the heat isn’t on, a game runs in the back room of the Charles.
Less elaborate is the Chanticleer, but far above deadfalls in the other part of town. It boasts good floor shows and “name strippers.” Among the good cocktail lounges in this district are the Coronet and the Blue Mirror. These are places where men take their own girls or their business associates. They provide no entertainment, but usually have a musical trio behind the bar.
As the 2 o’clock closing ordinance is generally obeyed, a problem in Baltimore after hours is to find a place to drink on the premises. But liquor package stores sell until 2 A.M., and most licensees are permitted to sell for off-premise consumption, too—a procedure practically unknown in other parts of the country. So, if you still want a drink at 2, you buy a bottle and take it with you.
Ask a cab-driver where you can get a drink after hours and he will know only of two spots—outside of Little Italy—Sue’s and Hector’s. Sue’s is a lowdown dump. Unless you are known, all you can buy there after the deadline is beer, which is also illegal. If they know you, they will sell you rotgut liquor.
Hector’s is not quite so bad, but it closes Saturdays.
The night after we were given a courtesy card to the Press Club, 100 West Fayette Street, it was raided for selling liquor at 3:30 A.M. to non-members.