T H E S I N S O F N E W Y O R K
As "Exposed" by the Police Gazette
By: Edward Van Emery
P A R T I I
THE RICHARD K. FOX GAZETTE (1876)
Chapter 2
Glimpses of Gotham
(Peregrinations and Perceptions of Paul Prowler)
THE STRAND SALOON ON SIXTH AVENUE
But let us go back on Sixth Avenue and drop into saloons like the "Strand"
and the "Idlewild."
The Strand has a bar in front and then there is a long room in the
rear, dotted with tables. If you are taking a female acquaintance in for a
drink you enter by a hallway made by a screen and are therefore not seen by
those standing at the bar.
The Strand is democratic and beer is the most fashionable tipple. The
tables are all wet with it. Waiters are constantly running about, twenty
glasses in their grasp, filling orders. Fifty or sixty young women are in
the room. Many of them are intoxicated___one or two very much so.
It is easy to perceive that another world has been reached by walking
the few blocks, one that is considerably lower in tone than the other. The
young man at the piano is playing "Where was Moses When the Light Went Out,"
and as you pass through the chattering throng you hear double entente
remarks on the whereabouts of Moses that have the merit of being vulgar,
however much they may lack in wit.
While the song is in progress there is a fight in the bar, much
swearing and the breaking of glass. No one seems alarmed. It is something
that Sixth Avenue on a Saturday night is used to. Perhaps a young girl comes
in after the row is over and tells her friends that it was Ikey Somebody
punching So-and-so's head.
"About Liz, wasn't it?" one of the party addressed asks.
"Of course."
"I thought so___but what'll you have?"
"Give me beer."
And the girl, who is not more than seventeen, slips nonchalantly into
a chair and waits for her beer, which will be the tenth she has had since
she started from her boarding house, while she rolls a cigarette.
Away up in a Connecticut valley, just at this hour, while the smoke
floats lazily over the suffocating room, and the young man at the piano is
singing
"My Mary Ann's a teacher
In a great big public school,"
there is a light streaming from the window of a farmhouse.
Let us approach in imagination over the crisp snow and peer in as
Enoch Arden did when he looked upon his misery.
There is an old lady reading a Bible___a white-haired old lady, but
when you look more narrowly you see that she is not so old. Gazing more
intently the lines of sorrow in the face explain the white hair and the
bowed form.
Still in imagination enter the barroom of the village tavern a mile
distant. Young country sports are carousing. The applejack has made them
talkative. One handsome, dissipated-looking fellow is leaning against the
bar and is answering a question.
"I don't know what's become of Katy," he says as if it were a horse he
was speaking of. "I think, she's in New York."
Katy is the daughter of the white-haired woman in the farmhouse beyond
in the valley. The handsome young man in the village tavern was Katy's
sweetheart.
We know where Katy is. She is in the Strand, rolling a cigarette and
waiting for her beer.
SAMUEL A. MacKEEVER (as Paul Prowler)
It was simply astounding the abnormal gifts of divination and
observation possessed by Paul Prowler. The highly endowed Mr. Prowler, who
was in real life, as already revealed, Samuel A. Mackeever, was so unusually
prolific of pen that one is inclined to ask, how could he have had so much
time in between all his duties of authorship to see so much of the night
life of the great city; of its immoralities, foibles, frailties, depravities
and oppressions.
In January, 1879, when he started the series, "Glimpses of Gotham,"
from which we have lifted the excerpt heading this chapter, Mr. Mackeever
had the following features running weekly in the Gazette. He was the author,
Colonel Lynx, of "City Characters"; of "Midnight Pictures" under the pen
name of Old Rounder; and under the nom-de-plume of Marquis of Lorgnette,
regularly contributed his theatrical notes. And at the same time under his
own name he had a serial running, which was entitled, "The Phantom Friend;
or, The Mystery of the Devil's Pool. A Romance of New York City."
Samuel A. Mackeever was only thirty-two years old when he died. He had
been a contributor to various magazines during his early literary life and
previous to his three years of service with the National Police Gazette had
been an editor for the Frank Leslie publications. He was the author of the
"History of the New York Tombs," and several other tomes, and in addition
had collaborated on the play, "Nathan Hale," which is said to have made a
marked hit at the Bowery Theatre during the Seventies.
But it was as the author of "Glimpses of Gotham" that he had his real
vogue. These sketches of metropolitan life added thousands and thousands of
readers to the National Police Gazette, and when published in book form by
Richard K. Fox, shortly after the death of the author from consumption, the
sale went close to a quarter of a million copies.
Scanning through articles that made up this series one gets the
feeling that it was of the stuff fashioned to appeal to a gullible and
ingenuous reading appetite. Its humors, situations and depictions are all so
transparent as to be cause for wonder that they could be accepted as true
pictures of the time and place in which they were written___New York City as
the Seventies were melting into the Eighties. But they were accepted as true
to life, particularly by those readers who looked on the great city from a
distance. And under the overdramatic naivete and the artless jocularity of
vein in which he wrote there was a revealing and at times gracefully penned
picture of the crude and captious times in which he lived and reported. In
the Gazette obituary that marked his passing were the following lines:
In point of fact, Mr. Mackeever had a deep and thorough knowledge
of the life' mid which he lived. He was familiar with the sumptuousness of
Fifth Avenue and the squalor of the Five Points, with the boudoir of the
great actress and the cell of the condemned man. His intelligent eye
photographed all phases of existence and stored his fertile brain with a
wealth of knowledge which he poured forth to his numberless readers in a
flood of literary gold, bright as his sunny nature, sterling as his own warm
heart.
ROAMING ABOUT THE STREETS AND ALLEYS OF NEW YORK IN THE COMPANY
OF PAUL PROWLER
So let us roam about the streets and alleys of New York in the company
of Paul Prowler. And at the same time let the sophisticated reader, ere he
scoffs too openly and knowingly at these literary impressions, take a
glimpse at the news-stands and turn the pages of some of our tabloids of the
moment and go over the content of some of our "Untrue Story," "Gay
Gangster," "Wild West," "Movieland Mirrors," "Lovelorn Lassies," "Aerial
Antics," or others of similarly disguised titles and learn something of
their considerable sale and imagine how a percentage of us will look to the
student of our times fifty years hence. But, let us off with Paul Prowler on
his rambles, and along with his simple friend Charley, who usually went with
him and listened and learned about the undercurrents of a great city from
the lips of the perspicacious Prowler. Let us take the steam drawn elevated
train and get off at Fourteenth Street Station, making a few stops and
observations along the way ere we come to the Strand, where Katy was left
rolling her cigarette and waiting for her beer.
"This is a remarkably lively avenue," comments Charley,
"especially on Saturday night."
"This is one of the most remarkable avenues in every way that the
city possesses," I (Prowler) answered. "It has a distinct character and an
atmosphere peculiarly its own. Now on Seventh Avenue you perceive a
characterless condition of things. It seems given over to stables, and piano
factories. Third Avenue has a life of its own, and so have Second and
Eighth___the former reveling in beer saloons and old-time Dutch families,
and the latter in millinery stores, markets and retail emporiums of all
descriptions. Here are the shopping avenues of the metropolis."
In this vicinity Prowler indicates several, what he refers to as "sub
rosa private drinking parlors," which do a thriving business during the day,
for "it is unpleasant to relate that no inconsiderable number of society
dames and damsels have a great hankering for the exhilarating champagne, the
bracing cocktail and the seductive cobbler, sometimes with sad results."
"What is the peculiarity of this thoroughfare," asked Charley, turning
to watch two pretty girls who had passed us laughing up Sixth Avenue.
"You have just begun to perceive it. From Fourteenth to Thirty-fifth
Street it is the rendezvous of the fair but frail, the sidewalk of the
lorettes, the stamping-ground of the well-undressed unfortunates___"
" Why do you call it the stamping-ground?"
"Because it is the promenade of those who are looking for 'stamps.' "
At Twenty-third Street the avenue began to present a most animated
appearance. The windows were all ablaze with gas-jets. An electric light
(that newest of wonders) from a vast dry goods establishment threw a pale,
bluish imitation of day upon everything, making the street lamps burn feebly
and with a sickly glare.
The groups of young ladies became more numerous; here and there one
walked alone; some had companions___I am speaking, it must be remembered,
only of those who laughed loudly, who sometimes talked with a very broad
accent, and who, by some indescribable wearing of the seal-skin saque or the
jaunty hat, gave the impression that they were of the half-world where dwell
most of the heroines of your modern French dramatist and romancer.
Honest people there are on Sixth Avenue, Saturday and other nights.
Husband and wife out shopping; a young girl hurrying home from her work, and
hearing perhaps, at every corner something that makes the hectic flush on
her pale cheeks deepen into the rose tint of shame.
And, besides, was I not there?
Between Twenty-third Street and the Aquarium ( a well known resort at
the Thirty-fourth Street corner) these "fast women" were to be found in
great number, for, we are told, not only the avenue but all its side streets
were "the abiding places of the Crimson Sisterhood. Some of the enterprising
bagnios even had pictures of the charming inmates in their windows."
Laughter is constant. Not the "joyous, ringing laughter of a healthy,
innocent country girl at a frolic, but it has a hollow cadence; just as the
trumpet sugests the color of scarlet, so does the sound seem to bring before
you the painted cheeks and the sunken eyes of these revelers."
One, in particular, who stands under the gas-lamp of the street
catches the observing eye of Mr. Prowler and he pauses to sketch the
unconscious damsel.
A blonde who has been very handsome. Even now she is handsome, but
you can readily perceive that her beauty is but a recollection, a shadow
thrown behind that which is gone.
There are lines about the mouth and the eyes that glitter too far
back beneath the tracing of black cosmetique. There is too much rouge upon
the cheek and too much powder shading it.
Her dress is very rich, and the diamonds glitter as she turns. The
poor shop girl, with insufficient clothing, with thin and broken shoes, and
a faded shawl that does not keep her warm, turns to look at the luxurious
coat with the fur about the throat, and the expensive hat with the trailing
feather.
And mayhap, when she goes home, she takes the lamp and looking
into the little mirror that hangs upon the wall of her cheerless room, says:
" I am as fair as she, and why shouldn't I dress as well?"
Who knows but what Mephistopheles whispers to her in her dreams
that night?"
And who knows but what, when we next visit Sixth Avenue, we may see
her wearing furs and diamonds, the merriest of the merry.
You must remember that it was the jewel-case, after all, that gave
Marguerite to Faust.
And then he related the moral tale of the downfall of one of these
handsome working girls whom Heaven did not protect from an evil employer.
After which we are given a glimpse of her haunts and those of her kind. And
we follow, not unwillingly.
These gaily plumaged birds have places on Sixth Avenue where they
congregate in flocks___places like the semi-circular bars of the Alhambra
Theatre, London. In these bars fast young men of the town come to drink
between the acts. Women from the Haymarket below, elegantly dressed women,
the majority of whom have their own broughams and live in royal style at St.
John's Wood, loiter about, but never enter the theatre.
In our Haymarket district there are theatres and dance halls also. One
has been called the Haymarket Theatre out of very deference to the
similarity of the localities. Its Thespian career was not an over-successful
one, and it is now the delight again of the fair promenaders who enjoy the
shadow dance better than they do the farce, and who would rather take part
in a free-and-easy quadrille than sit out the best play ever written.
Within three doors from Sixth Avenue, going to the west, you can find
the Cremorne Gardens, built and conducted on the London plan, and giving now
a melange of acting and dancing. On a pretty little stage there are
performed light sketches interlarded with songs by stout women in very
low-necked dresses. On the floor below the "mazy" is continually going on.
It is a nicely waxed floor. The music is good and lively, and
everything is very pleasant.
"You don't mean to say," my friend asks in a whisper, "that these
well-bred, well-dressed women___"
"Hush! They may hear you. They are very sensitive."
How gracefully they dance, how thoroughly they melt into the
music ! There is more style here than you will find in a thousand "Germans."
It is not strange that it should be so. To dance well____to captivate their
partners___is part of the business which began with the flirtation two
blocks away.
On another platform opposite the stage are round tables at which
there are drinking and eating parties. The air is bluish with the smoke of
cigarettes which men and women both indulge in. No loud talking or laughing.
It is decorum itself.
In the street there is a line of cabs, their lamps lit. At three
and four in the morning the thoroughfare will be filled with the rattling
of the wheels over the cobblestones, and virtuopus people, turning in their
sleep, will say, in a dreamy way, "The Cremorne's out."
Farther to the west we have the Buckingham Palace, a dancing place
exclusively. It is more elegant in its appointments, and the waxed floor
seems to have a more resplendent sheen.
Benches run around the room. There is a card up announcing that a
"schottische" is the next dance. As you stroll along you see familiar faces
among the fringe of gentlemen.
I am present on business and, of course, it doesn't matter to me.
The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage and Paul Prowler, Esq., have a perfect right to
go where they choose, although I do not believe that the Brooklyn
sensationalist visited the Buckingham or any place like it. To judge from
his sermons he must have frequented places like the "Sailor's Return" in
Oliver Street, where Madden was killed.
You will find scores of solid business men at the Buckingham, and
oceans of young fellows of nobby attire, such as you see at Jerome Park or a
billiard match. There are a great many drummers taking country customers
about. A young gentleman with an undisguisable agricultural overcoat and a
general get-up which seems to suggest Pittsburgh, Pa., is talking to a
pretty brunette in a black silk dress, over which a long gold chain trails
like a yellow serpent.
The man from Pittsburgh (a place, according to the humorous Prowler,
"that is so smoky that frequently a gentleman has to kiss a dozen ladies
before he discovers by the taste which is his wife") and the brunette with a
gold chain, who proves his downfall, appear frequently through the series,
and serve not only to connect the articles, but as a moral warning of what
happens to gentlemen from Pittsburgh who start out in iniquity on Sixth
Avenue and then sink lower and lower as a result.
There isn't quite so much drinking in such places as the Buckingham
and Cremorne, we are told. The women frequenting the halls are not naturally
of a bibulous turn of mind, and when they are it is champagne they call for.
Charley and his guide, philosopher and friend, Paul Prowler, find the
sights along Sixth Avenue so diversified that they are unable to exhaust its
entertainments in one evening. That most risque of terpsichorean activities,
the French can-can, whose energetic twirling and high-kickings permitted
such an intriguing glimpse of limb and lingerie, called for a word and a
look or two. Besides, Mr. MacKeever found it advisable to save some of his
material for the issue of the following week, when. after some light chatter
they continue sailing along the animated roadway, and this what they see:
Around in Thirty-first Street is a French cafe, much frequented by
the daughters of La Belle France who belong to the midnight world of Sixth
Avenue. There you go for dinner, for black coffee, for cognac, for absinthe.
It is always crowded late at night both on the ground floor and in the
supper-rooms above.
Every one is talking French; every one is drinking, for the latest
diner has been satisfied long ago. This is still another phase of the Sixth
Avenue street-life that we have been depicting, for it is so near it, and a
very unique one. Formerly the cafe was on Sixth Avenue,. between Thirteenth
and Fourteenth Streets. That is years ago. It was during those days __or
nights, rather___that frequently the door would be closed after business
hours and genuine Mabille can-can given for the delectation of a few
privileged visitors. The girls who danced were true children of the
Boulevards and there is no doubt that their execution of the somewhat
excessively lively dance was as artistic as can be witnessed at the score of
gardens in Paris.
Occasionally they would get upon the tables and there would
sometimes be sad havoc made of glassware, but there was always some one to
pay for it and the proprietress never cared.
There is nothing like this now in the new cafe. There are
cancanners at every table, and at nearly every alternate table there are
young men who would like to see it danced in all its pink-stockinged beauty;
but morality has increased as money has vanished, and the matter is a little
difficult. We take our erotic pleasures now in a subdued way, and instead of
frequenting French cafes on Sixth Avenue to see the dance with closed doors,
we buy tickets for a theatre where a Parisian play is all the rage and see
that and a great deal worse in the company of our wives and daughters. All
along the avenue there are free and easy beer saloons in full blast. The
door swings open and you catch the chorus of a darky song, with the clatter
of the bones and the thump of the tambourine asserting themselves through
the plantation melody.
This hiring of minstrel bands by big beer saloons on the avenue is a
regular feature. The players, who are genuine "darkies" from Sullivan and
Thompson Streets, get all the beer they want, and are allowed to take up a
collection at stated intervals.
It was from a Sixth Avenue beer saloon that Horace Weston graduated on
to the concert platform and thence to the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" company which
Jarrett & Palmer have in Europe.
At the plaza formed by the crossing of Broadway, which is brilliant
with the lights of the Standard Theatre, we cross over and strike Sixth
Avenue again opposite the Armory. In this block there are several more that
are much frequented by the pedestriennes in question and on the Broadway
block there is the place where Joe Coburn kept his free-and-easy, from which
he issued to have the altercation with the police officers____a foolish
artillery practice that jailed him for ten years.
Close by is the "House of All Nations." Here the male rounder could
enjoy feminine society from all parts of the universe___girls not only from
England, France, Germany, 'Spain, Italy and Russia, but even from China,
Japan, Arabia and other parts of Asia and Africa, as well as South America,
could be had for the asking and, of course, the paying. It is the boast of
not a few young sports that, while they may not have traveled extensively,
they have managed to see a lot of the world in one night.
No mention is made of there being an Indian maid among the inmates of
the "House of All Nations," so it is to be presumed there was no keen desire
on the part of the visitors to see America first.
Ere giving Charley a glimpse of the low dives in the vicinity of the
waterfronts, a look into the resorts along the Bowery, and a peep in Bottle
Alley of the Five Points environment, Paul Prowler first makes his companion
acquainted with the wine-rooms attached to the variety theaters. His article
is a strong tirade against this form of licentiousness, which he insists
should be abolished.
"Jac" Aberle, who converted a church building on St. Mark's Place into
the Tivoli Theatre, was inventor of the "wine-room curse." After commenting
as to how Aberle had reconstructed the one-time house of religion into a
"glaring monster of white paint with lime-light eyes" he congratulates the
proprietor sarcastically on the diplomacy which has secured for him an
immunity that was not enjoyed by the "Hail Columbia" Opera House on
Greenwich Avenue.
The "Hail Columbia" must have raised something of a disturbance. The
goings-on here resulted in its proprietor. Jake Berry, doing a stretch on "
The Island." There was strong contention that Berry had been unjustly
convicted, and his eventual release by the Governor was commended, even by
Prowler himself. The "Hail Columbia," which later on became the Folly
Theatre, before its transformation boasted not only a "wine-room," but what
was known as a "French box," as well. We will let Prowler tell about his
visit:
We advance to buy our tickets.
"Do you wish a French box?" says the gentlemanly clerk.
"What is the advantage of the box?" we reply
"Oh, he answers, shrugging his shoulders, "it is so much more
private. Some gentlemen object to being seen in our establishment, although
I assure you that no legitimate theatre in the city could be more proper."
So we take a French box, and, once in it, soon discover its many
advantages. We have a full view of the stage, for instance, where some
vulgar revolving statues are being illuminated by lime-light, and are in
close proximity to the wine-room, which occupies the front of the building
over the lobby.
As we sit conning our programme there is a rush of skirts and the
sound of laughter in the narrow passageway outside the box door, which is at
length slyly opened, revealing two ballet girls in pink tights, one of whom
says:
"You look lonely, birdie." And, saying this, they both
incontinently enter and take possession of the two remaining chairs.
"Now if you are going to treat us," remarks the one who has the
least on and the most to say, "you must be quick about it. We've only got
ten minutes, because we go on in the next dance."
The easiest way out of such difficulties is to buy the drinks. So I
call a waiter, saying at the same time, "What'll you have, girls?"
"Brandy mash," says one.
"I'll take a quarter instead," whispers the other
In this way we get rid of them, and fearing similar visitations from
others, we get up and stroll out into the "wine-room." It is an apartment
with a long bar, behind which pyramids of fancifully arranged tumblers
glitter in the gaslight. There are many round tables scattered about the
room, at which sit the ballet girls dressed just as they are upon the stage,
talking to their various victims and drinking all that they can induce them
to buy.
I will not repeat any of the conversation. It is low and vile where
it is not flash and cheap. In every instance it has but one tendency, and
that to induce the besotted fools toying with these painted hags, to prolong
the acquaintanceship for a few fleeting hours after the performance.
In one corner is a senile, gray-haired old fool making love to a
bestial blonde, while in another you will see the fast young man, just
entering upon his metropolitan career of midnight dissipation. He has thrown
a gold chain and locket about the greasy neck of his inamorata and the
authoritative manner in which he orders another bottle of wine shows that he
is well-known at the bar. And in a little while he will be well-known at the
bar of justice, for he is just the kind of empty-headed youth for whom the
surroundings have an undeniable charm. The popping of the champagne corks
blends with the music of the distant band, and there is a glamour of
gaslight over all in which the faded creatures of the ballet loom up
advantageously. Every minute while we are in the room, other ballet girls
come rushing in like fantastically costumed wolves in search of prey. After
the performance the drinking goes on until, as frequently occurs, it becomes
an orgy. Then the women scream, police arrive, the lights are turned out.
While on the reminiscent tack, I may as well state that Robinson Hall
in its palmy days was a variety establishment which, while not possessing
any distinctive wine-room, afforded every facility for fools, young and old,
to part with their money. You could have the most private tete-a-tetes with
the ladies of the ballet, and entree behind the scenes was always accorded
to swells who could afford to pay for it. And, not infrequently, as the
victim of some blackmailing racket they paid heavily.
Perhaps, after all, that was the real "lum tum" idea for the fast
young man. Drinking with his girl in a more or less public bar was all very
well,but not to be compared with the exquisite pleasure of having her
sipping champagne as she sat upon his knee in the green room, from which he
could catch glimpses of the gas man in his shirtsleeves pouring beer out for
the fairy queen in spangles.
The sinful ways along Sixth Avenue could, of course, lead but in one
direction____the Police Court. And so we are taken to the Jefferson Market
hall of justice on a Sunday morning. And Charley went along. "No minions,
bound in blue and brass, like a volume of cheap poems," escorted them,
Prowler hastens to assure us. They went voluntarily. It was this way:
Having an hour which he did not know what to do with just before
church time, Prowler happens in Sixth Avenue where by chance he runs into
Charley. Charley was for putting in the morning playing some billiards, but
prowler promises him a more interesting hour and so we find them in the
Jefferson Market court looking on while the magistrate deals with hope's
outcasts in the shape of vagrants, prostitutes, and the drunk and
disorderly. It makes a curious scene, we are told.
Especially on the Sabbath morning, when the church-bells are
ringing outside, gayly dressed Sunday-school scholars are tripping along,
and the more serene and sedate fathers and mothers are walking with that
ill-concealed expression of content which comes from a knowledge that they
are in the path of duty and their best clothes.
And then there appears before the bar one who is recognized with
dramatic suddenness by both Prowler and his companion as the gentleman from
Pittsburgh whom we had seen fall into the wiles of the brunette with the
gold chain. "Pittsburgh," as this character was known, had betrayed the
confidence of his employer and was forced to go back nto a dungeon cell in
default of bail to the amount of $5,000.
Charley thereupon decided to go with Prowler, being sure, after seeing
what he had seen, that church was just the place for him. And furthermore,
he intimated with no little firmness that it was his intention not to play
any more the alluring game of billiards on Sundays.
Who says the Police Gazette was not a moral journal?
Prepared and Transcribed by Miriam Medina
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