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 3
(With Stops at the Bal Mabille, the Bowery Bastile and Other Nice Places)
"After the lamplighter had gone his rounds," expounds the crudite Paul
Prowler to his ingenuous friend Charley, "seeing the jungles of a great city
has always been a favorite amusement with those sportsmen who combine a keen
desire to hunt the elephant and yet have a natural disinclination to do
their gunning too far away from the comforts of home. There are other
hunting grounds beside those that make up the wilds of Sixth Avenue."
Prowler thereupon takes Charley on a pilgrimage further downtown.
"Hunting the elephant" was the common phrase for slumming during the late
Seventies and early Eighties and the quest of the metropolitan elephant was
frequently more dangerous than the stalking of the pachydermatous mammal in
the wilds of Africa.
HARRY HILL'S PLACE, FIRST STOP OF PILGRIMAGE
"We will begin with Harry Hill's place, or ' Arry 'Ill's, as he is
called by his cockney friends," says Prowler, "for it is the best of the
worst places. And I mean exactly what my words are saying. For one thing,
your pocketbook is perfectly safe here, even rolling the lush (rifling the
pockets of a drunk) being here strictly forbidden, which is more than I can
say for some of the resorts to which I am about to lead you. It is ' Arry's
boast that no one has ever been robbed or killed in his place, which,
strange but true, seems to be a fact. No matter how inviting the
opportunity, any attempt on the part of a fair patron to life the watch or
bankroll of a male companion meant, if caught in the act (and ' Arry ' ad
a h'eagle h' eye' ), the guilty one was barred from ever showing her face in
Hill's again."
Prowler apparently had a sincere liking for the proprietor of the Hill
rendezvous, which is not surprising, for his was a very tolerable infamy.
Visitors from the four quarters of the globe who chanced to come to New York
usually made it a point to find their way through the doors of this
irregular cluster of two-story buildings at Houston and Crosby Streets, that
had been combined into the theater and house of entertainment of which Harry
Hill was the dominant proprietor. One historian refers to Harry Hill as a
divekeeper, something that will be resented by those who have an unconfused
memory of the place he operated. Even the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, when he
crossed the bridge to gather sensational sermon enlightenment, through a
slumming tour, for the Brooklyn Tabernacle churchgoers, conceded that the
Hill resort was the most orderly he had visited.
THE PROWLER DESCRIBES HARRY HILL'S PLACE
If a "dive," to follow the dictionary definition, is a place where
"drunkards and harlots consort," then Hill's was not precisely referred to.
Its feminine clientele, to be sure, was made up of what was known as the
demi-monde. But the pleasure-seeking male was required to treat them as
ladies, even if they weren't. Prowler finds fault with a contemporary print
which pictures a dancing scene here in which a man is shown puffing on a
cigar the while some terpsichorean measure is being stepped. Paul points to
a sign on the wall which reads: "Gentlemen will not smoke while dancing."
And the wall signs here exacted obedience or the proprietor saw that they
did. Drunkenness, loud conversation, or disorderly conduct is something not
tolerated here. Let Prowler show you what the place was like, and with the
assurance of one who was once in the Hill employ in its heyday, that this is
a truer pen picture than some of the highly colored ones that have been
given from time to time.
We buy our tickets___twenty-five cents apiece, ladies free___at
a little window downstairs and pass upward to where the laughter and
applause proclaim that an amusing song or farcical "nigger" sketch is in
progress or the Punch and Judy box may be providing amusement. The room is
ablaze with light and heavy with smoke. The stage is occupied by a young
lady in a wig the color of "yellow-jack molasses candy," and a pair of pink
tights. Her cheeks are bright with excitement and paint, while each
energetic gesture accompanying the topical song she is singing displays her
bosom lavishly.
When the song is finished there is a chance to look about. There
is a gallery overhead and a wine-room to one side. There is a long
lunch-counter well stocked with food of an excellent quality. You can also
get piping-hot coffee and tea. Singularly enough, Harry Hill's is more
discussed and made much of in the country than anywhere else. there is
hardly a young man who comes up to "York" but takes in Hill's, just as sure
as he gets taken in later by some siren on the Bowery. Two such young
grangers sit at the table with Charley and I, and will have an interesting
experience to tell back in Punkton or Rushville of two young ladies in
seal-skin saques who sidle down beside them like a couple of birds going to
roost.
"Won't you buy me a drink, dear?" says one.
"You'll treat me, pet, won't you?" remarks the other, and
without waiting to discuss the matter further the beautiful creature waves
one of the waiter girls, who are flitting about like bees, to the table. Of
course, the young men are equal to the occasion, even to standing a treat
for the plump little woman who brings on the beverages. They get very
sociable with the two young ladies, who live in furnished rooms on Crosby
Street, and at 2:30 A.M. the four depart in a rather tipsy but orderly
condition.
When the stage performance is not in progress there is an open
space at the head of the stairs where the dancing is done. The orchestra
strikes up and the quadrille begins. These girls dance very nicely
(decorously, we might say, if the propriety of this pleasure is conceded),
gliding through the figures with genuine grace. "No lovers wanted!" is the
suggestion from one of the terse wall signs.
Suddenly there is a crash and a table is upset. One man has
struck another in a quarrel about a girl. In any other place there would be
quite a little scrimmage. Glasses would be thrown about and the gathering
would be in a panic. But not at Harry Hill's. That ubiquitous gentleman, who
has the frame of a pugilist in constant training and a grasp of iron, has
already seized the man at fault and conducted him to the stairs, which he
finds to his advantage to descend. The dancers hardly pause and the
orchestra goes on merrily.
NOTABLES FREQUENTED HARRY HILL'S PLACE
Nothing very out of the ordinary here, you will say. And yet no
contemporary resort enjoyed the prestige or success of Harry Hill's. Its
regular patrons included notables from every walk of life, of whom mention
might be made of the son and namesake of James Gordon Bennett, Thomas A.
Edison, who had the assistance of the proprietor in making "Harry Hill's
Electric Light Hall" one of the first public places to install this newly
perfected method of illumination. Richard K. Fox and P.T. Barnum, who was
then the landlord of the property, dined there quite regularly. Oscar Wilde
(who was the target of many Gazette darts) and others of name and degree who
visited the city came often to the Hill place. And this condition of affairs
existed even when the center of New York's night life had started to shift
to Sixth Avenue and the latter district offered showier attractions to those
seeking a lively evening.
Possibly the comeliness of the sixteen carefully picked waiter maids
was part of the attraction. Also, the entertainment furnished here was
somewhat superior to that provided in opposition houses of call. Billy
Scanlon is said to have charmed audiences here with his sweet voice when
little more than a boy; Maggie Cline and other talented entertainers are
understood to have been given an early start by Hill. Quite possibly, the
factor that had so much to do with bringing so many through the portals
which were ornamented by a sign-board telling the world of....
Punches and juleps, cobblers and smashes,
To make the tongue waggle with wit's merry flashes
was that here one was likely to get an earful of the very latest in the way
of sporting chatter. For a quarter of a century, until that distinction had
been usurped by the offices in the new Police Gazette building, here was the
sporting center of the United States. All the noted men of the ring, Jem
Mace, Joe Goss, Joe Wormald, came first to Hill's. Every important match was
made here, and Harry Hill usually officiated, no matter where a contest was
settled on this side of the ocean, and often, if the affair was of
commanding importance, he traveled abroad. John L. Sullivan was brought here
by William Muldoon to make his New York debut in the ring in Hill's place
and made himself so nationally famous by knocking out Steve Taylor in two
rounds that less than one year after this feat the Boston Strong Boy was
privileged to beat Paddy Ryan for the heavyweight fistic championship of
America. Herbert Slade, the Maori, boxed here and married one of Hill's
sweet faced waitresses, Josephine. Jack Dempsey, the Nonpareil, was among
the many who exhibited his skill of fist on the Hill stage; and William
Muldoon, then a strikingly handsome young athlete, wrestled all comers.
The business integrity of Harry Hill had considerable to do with the
popularity of his house. He came, we learn, from what was known as English
"horse people," and was brought to this country by a wealthy Briton named
Woolsey, of whose stables he had charge. Early in the Sixties he opened for
business on the southeast corner of Houston and Crosby Streets. A small
stable was part of his establishment and accounted for a sign over the
Crosby Street entrance that advised of accommodation "for man and beast,"
which promise provided not a little amusement.
There was one evening in Hill's when his boast, that no one had ever
met death in his quarters, came close to being an idle claim, ' Arry himself
having a narrow squeak. Billy Edwards, a very well-known pugilist, became
involved in some trouble with an underworld coterie from further uptown and
they followed Edwards into Hill's with murderous intent. Harry gave them
successful battle, though being so badly cut about the eyes that he came
close to losing his sight. There was a woman mixed up in the trouble, none
other than Maggie Jourdan, whose name came into much prominence for the part
she played in effecting the successful Tombs escape, in 1873, of her lover,
William J. Sharkey, ward politician, sporting man and murderer.
Harry Hill's went out of existence in 1886, presumably falling in the
sweep of Mayor Hewitt's reform wave, though there is believed to be another
side to the story, which has to do with 'Arry's refusal to submit to a too
heavy shake-down burden. At the time of the Prowler visit he was rated a man
of considerable wealth, with a fine country place near Flushing, L.I., and a
reputation that no deserving individual, in genuine distress, ever went to
him in vain.
A TOUR OF HOUSTON STREET
"We will go a bit lower in our journey through the strata of New York
night life," Prowler promised Charley the following evening, "and we won't
have far to go. Only around the corner into Bleecker Street near Broadway,
where "The' Allen holds forth. But first, as it is still a little early for
the night to be really at its height there, we will walk along Houston
Street and I will tell you a little of its interesting history.
It would seem that Hill had, still had in fact, quite a number of
interesting neighbors. for twenty years it had been a nest of hotel,
drinking places, gaming palaces and dens, oyster saloons, dance halls,
policy shops, brothels and other places of a sporting character and worse.
On the same side with Hill's across Crosby Street, in the short block
extending to Broadway, where Reddy the Blacksmith, Matt Grace and a number
of others had held open house, so many persons had met violent death in one
way or another that this small walk had come to be known as "Murderers'
Row," though possibly not quite as deadly as "Murderers' Alley," one-time
Donovan's Lane, in the Five Points of the late Thirties. "Paugene"
McLaughlin was one of those shot to death in the "Row."
A little further down the street, toward the Bowery, was a Negro
dwelling which, on account of the peculiar shape of the building and for
other reasons, was known as the "Coffin House." Across the way on Houston
Street for the several blocks leading from Broadway you could find one place
after another where any type of excitement desired could be provided,
including the fancy resort of which Madame Louise was the head.
And right in the midst of it all, almost across the way from Hill's
was the somber convent of the Sisters of Mercy. From the walk the
passers-by, including the "sisters of sin" and her brethren, could see the
beautifully kept lawn where gray and white-robed nuns paraded, intoning
their prayers and oblivious of the wickedness without. Fixed to the gate was
a box for the donations of the charitably inclined, and the investments in
salvation were most generous.
THE ALLEN'S
But let us not linger, advises Prowler: "The" Allen's awaits us. The
proprietor has been prominently before the New York public for more than
thirty years at this time, though his face and figure do not hint as much.
He has stood up well under the strain for one who has been close to death on
a number of occasions and has been indicated for manslaughter and a number
of other offenses, and who has figured in numerous precarious political
schemes and enterprises, to say nothing of brawls and eye-gouging frays. He
is still a well-favored man in appearance, lithe and gracefully molded as to
figure and with features of an aquiline regularity.He must have been a
really handsome man in his prime, and the tales of his escapades as a
heartbreaker are easily acceptable. Were it not for a cruel gleam in his
eye, it would be hard to believe that here is one of the most desperate and
notorious characters in all Gotham. The cigar that invariably glows from
between his teeth is a warning signal as to his savage nature to those who
know "The" Allen well. The man, when aroused, would think nothing of jamming
the lighted cigar point into your face as the first move of conflict. And
once you were downed in a fight in Allen's he would think nothing of using
the heel of his shoe on your face in a positively fiendish manner. This
particular Allen, who had several brothers who were about on a par with him
as undesirable citizens, first became an object of police attention in 1865
as the proprietor of the St. Cloud Hotel, at Prince and Mercer Streets, a
hang-out for the criminal classes.
THE BAL MABILLE
The "Bal Mabille," or Jardin Mabille, as it is now most generally
referred to, and incorrectly so, was a music hall and ballroom after a
fashion. It was then a few doors from the imposing Bleecker Street Bank.
Originally a man named Hughes, whose time and capital had been frequently
devoted to such abodes of festivity, turned the place into a rowdy saloon,
but the Hughes administration, and that of his successor, a man by the name
of Flynn, were not for long. Thus we learn from Prowler. Also:
It was a bare and unprepossessing structure when Allen took it in
hand. He had it frescoed, architecturally beautified, filled with drinking
counters and the ordinary paraphernalia of the concert hall. Upstairs
free-and-easy singers discoursed popular or unpopular melodies as suited the
taste or fancy. Downstairs a limited orchestra furnished dancing music, to
which the youths and maidens in attendance footed it flatly; and in all
possible places on both floors waiters with abridged aprons and spacious
trays prevailed. Then there are special nights of festivity announced as Bal
Mabille "Soiree" occasions on which there are gaudy orders of dancing and
ampler inducements of saltatorial exercise. This evening happens to be one
of them. Young men in ulsters of various shades are ambling in at this
orthodox hour, and women, with and without escort, are also strolling in;
painted, bedizened creatures (the ladies (?), of course. We will get to the
other kind later.
The clinking of glasses keeps up a fitful accompaniment to the
vocalization of the singers in the hall above, while down in the basement
the dancers are rotating in the mazy. The lascivious waltz has become tame
and the orchestra, catching the infection of the hour, strikes up the merry
measures of Offenbach's can-can music. Lively feet keep time to the witching
melody in all its lewd suggestiveness and dance themselves into an agandon
till limbs of all shapes and sizes are elevated in dangerous proximity to
male physiognomy.
This dreadful can-can dance! What made its gyrations, which would now
be regarded as merely an acrobatic interpretation of music, something so
extremely naughty? Well, it seems that the dancers wore pink tights beneath
their lingerie and when they started flinging their limbs about glimpses
would be had of these fleshings even above the knee at times. Was this not
devilish?
THE BAL MABILLE IS RAIDED BY POLICE
Suddenly the doors were forced open and a clatter of footsteps broke
in on the revels of the night. Captain Byrnes was on hand, and behind him
drawn up across the entire length of the building, was a double file of the
Fifteenth Precinct men. At once there arose a hubbub, in which women
screamed and cried, young men uttered strong expressions and indulged in
doleful witticisms, and anxious glances were cast in every direction for
means of egress. But the captain had taken his precautions carefully and
every exit was guarded. Theodore Allen was behind the bar, and he was
notified to close the bar and regard himself under arrest. Then the painful
part of the proceedings began.
The girls, several score in number, were handed out and placed in
charge of the police to be taken off in relays to the station-house. Many of
them brazened it out and laughed and joked as they went along, but there
were some, too, who would be missed through the night from houses where
their whereabouts were never guessed. There were not a few of them who
seemed much affected and who sobbed as though their hearts would break as
they were led through throngs of curious onlookers. By this time word of the
raid had spread and a crowd was recruited from the district that skirted the
line of march to the station-house. The males went off by the dozen, every
pair linked with a policeman, and the whole of them aggregating several
hundred in number.
Few of the men were of the ruffian type. Mainly, it was the young man
released from his place in the counting-house or store counter that was best
represented. And they were an aggrieved multitude. One young man with a
white necktie was going to a ball and had just dropped in to get a shave.
When it was pointed out to him that there were no lady barbers in Allen's
and that his face was without whiskers, he remembered that he was wearing
shoes and he wanted to get them shined. Even though a bootblack-stand did
business on the premises, unhappily his plea was not entertained by the
hard-hearted magistrate, nor was that of those who had just peeped in to see
what all the disturbance was about. They were all marched off with the godly
and naughty alike in pairs under police watch and ward.
The resources of the Mercer Street Station-house were tested to supply
accommodations, but by a strict economy of space most of them were tucked
away. Their registration on the blotter caused another scene, the
uninitiated being at a loss to conceal their identity and the mendacious
being quite ready with pseudonyms for the emergency. If there was one thing
more marked than another about the list, it was the array of distinguished
names it bore. Samuel J. Tilden was many times multiplied among the
visitors, and of Charles McLeans there was quite an abundance. Beside
Rutherford B. Hayes and Roscoe Conkling were there. All these distinguished
individuals, and a host of Smiths and Joneses who were nominally and
physically quite ordinary, shared common cells and passed the night
bewailing their hard luck.
A note should be added to the effect that Prowler and Charley did not
round out their experience with a night in durance vile. It is hinted that
the Gazette was responsible to some extent for the police activity on this
particular night. It might also be worthy of note that "The" Allen was doing
business full blast a night or two later and for many nights thereafter.
Like many such police activities, it was probably only a gesture.
OWNEY GEOGHEGHAN
The following evening Owney Geogheghan's "Bastile on the Bowery," or,
the Old House at Home, its actual name, was favored by the presence of
Prowler and Charley, and after a short stay the latter intimated that the
presence of the police was more desirable here than at Allen's. Prowler
admitted that Geogheghan's had a bad name and was deserving of it. He added
some facts about Owney's trouble with the police and other data concerning
this rude character.
Captain Foley, before his dismissal from the police force, had
Geogheghan in hot water occasionally. After Foley had been forced to step
down his departure was celebrated by a unique wake here. A stuffed figure
made up to represent the ex-police captain was placed in a coffin and the
fancy male and female patrons of the place danced around the coffin in high
glee for a number of nights. Several attempts have been made to kill Owney,
but as he never drinks the liquor he or any one else sells, he is always on
the alert, and while he has figured in numerous rough-and-tumbles and
shooting scrapes his political strength has always enabled him to worm out
of serious trouble up until now.
Geogheghan is a stocky, muscular individual standing five and one-half
feet in height and his visage reflects his ruggedly callous disposition. He
is given quite a prize ring reputation and at one time had challenged the
world at 138 pounds and also laid claim to the middleweight championship. We
are regaled with bits of his fistic career by way of revealing his cruel and
cunning nature. One of his early fist battles after his arrival from
Ireland, in 1849, had been fought in Kit Burns' place on Water street. It
was a desperate conflict with the buckskins with Ed Tuohey, who against many
shining champions of the ring had proved that he was the "honeycomb." The
stakes were only $75. a side, and the match was fought with only the seconds
and a few others present. Geogheghan's hard-hitting and endurance won and
gave him such a reputation that he was matched in May, 1863, for an
important battle with Con Orem, the Pacific Slope Champion. It was fought at
a place named Cheese Creek, Middlesex County, New Jersey, before a hard
looking gang, of which "The" Allen appeared to be the ringleader for the
Orem supporters. Each side was armed with pitchforks, clubs and revolvers,
but no trouble was generated after Harry Hill, who had conveyed a select
party to the fighting gound, had made a plea for a square, stand-up bout
with no interference or favors. Owney emerged the victor on a claim of foul
after twenty-three minutes of fighting, though he should have been
disqualified not less than a half-dozen times for deliberately dropping to
the turf. He also spat in his opponent's face and his conduct in general was
not that of a good sport and a gentleman.
In a sparring match with an opponent known as the "Gas House Giant"
the Geogheghan reputation as a knockout hitter was found to have been
enhanced by the help of a horsehoe concealed in one of his gloves. The
broadcast of some of these truths in the Police Gazette had annoyed Owney to
such an extent that he called at the Gazette offices to do bodily harm on
the person of the publisher, and either slipped or was tossed down a full
flight of stairs. Anyway, it is a known fact that, in a very dazed
condition, he was led away from the Fox building by a couple of policemen
and that he did not return again.
Taking various things into consideration, Owney Geogheghan was not
nearly as tough as his reputation, but this does not apply to various places
of business he operated from time to time. He had a sporting house at Third
Avenue and Twenty-second Street, and was also for a time on Second Avenue,
but the Bastile at 105 Bowery was the most celebrated of his places, until
the Excise Commission revoked his license and his defiance resulted in his
arrest and a thirty-day residence on Blackwell's Island. On his release he
became ill and went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where his unsavory career came
to an end on January 29, 1885. He died quite well-to-do.
OLD HOUSE AT HOME
His Old House at Home occupied two floors and consisted of two long
concert-halls eighty feet by forty. Flashy pictures of prize fighters and
gaudy decorations abounded in profusion. Part of the area on the first floor
was taken up with chairs and tables for the convenience of the cheap
sporting and underworld element, whose main entertainment, when not drinking
and dancing, was provided mainly by second-rate pugilists who battered
themselves about nightly in a ring which had been raised on a platform at
one end of the room. If the bruisers did not go about their efforts to the
satisfaction of the crowd, their yells would bring on the scene an assistant
with a gun in his hand, and he would take aim at the offending pugilist, and
then "Bang!" he would let him have it. To be sure, the gun was only loaded
with blank cartridges, but you should have heard the yelp when the discharge
found the victim's bare pelt.
Female pugilists also mussed each other up and occasionally tested
their manhandling abilities against male bruisers, but they were never
"given the gun."
ARMORY HALL
Easily the most depraved of all these licensed iniquities in the guise
of concert halls, however, was the resort to which Paul Prowler led Charley
on the following night, and which was conducted by Billy McGlory at No. 158
Hester Street, and known as Armory Hall. For sheer debasement and depths of
degeneracy there was nothing lower than this, Prowler assures us, only
excepting the under-cover dives of a few of the Bowery cellars and those
which existed in the dark of some of the side streets or the shadows of the
water-front.
It is eight or nine years since Kit Burns of Water Street rat-pit
notoriety (Prowler wrote this in January, 1880) and Johnny Alen, of the same
locality, were running a neck-and-neck race for the unsavory distinction of
being the "wickedest man in New York." Both of these worthies were geniuses
in their way, and plumed themselves on their ability to condense more
deviltry into one day of their lives than ten ordinary sinners could manage
in a lifetime. They stood alone in their unenviable positions, with none
hardened enough to contest their right to the insignia of infamy. "Every dog
must have his day," runs the old proverb, and Kit and Johnny had theirs
until they met their fate at last at the hands of a little band of moral
crusaders, who assailed them fore and aft with a broadside of psalms,
prayers and exhortations that finally attracted so much attention that their
establishments were in time knocked into a worse condition than the
traditional "cocked hat." Neither of them survived the destruction of their
dives for long. Stripped of their power for evil, they lost their grip on
this world and "Old Nick" foreclosed his long-due mortgage and sent them
down below. Having thus taken care of his own, he set about securing some
one who would maintain with equal credit the dignity of his earthly kingdom,
and with that rare judgment which distinguishes his satanic majesty in every
particular, he selected Billy McGlory.
BILLY McGLORY
Billy McGlory, we are told, was a spawn of the Five Points and had
been a member and captain of the Forty Thieves and other desperate gangs.
For all the grossness of his nature and the foulness to which he pandered,
he had a penchant for subdued clothing and when dressed in his best black
suit unconsciously took on a smug and sanctimonious appearance, which
annoyed him considerably, as he rather gloried in the ignoble homage he
commanded. His establishment was just what he aspired to. A resort for the
lowest of pickpockets, street-women, thugs, and criminals and gangsters of
every variety. A place of repulsive degeneracy rather than a gilded den of
vice.
Armory Hall was pitched in the center of a mean cluster of frowzy
tenements that were overrun with thieves, prostitutes and similar underworld
scum. The very entrance to his place was repelling, the doorway and passage
being unlighted and having an unhealthy suggestion generally. There was
something mean and cheap about the barroom and hall beyond. The plain chairs
and tables had a greasy, fetid look, and the balcony which ran along the
sides of the hall and which had been partitioned into small compartments was
cut off by musty curtains. Only three pieces, piano, cornet and violin, made
up the orchestra. A choice gang of cutthroats and manhandlers were stationed
about to keep the ugly denizens in restraint, and the waiter girls who
served the drinks were reinforced by a number of simpering males who were
painted to resemble women and togged up in feminine raiment, and who in
falsetto voices exchanged disgusting badinage among themselves and with the
patrons.
This type of pervert was then something new, or at least did not bring
its disgusting brand to attention. The "queers," as these abnormals among
the male and the female are now known, have come to light of late as a
reality that cannot be altogether ignored, now that books and plays have
been written around them, but it remained for Billy McGlory first to
advertise such moral deformity.
However, there was nothing squeamish about the McGlory stock-in-trade.
Here is no pretense at modesty in either the singing or the dancing. As for
the happenings in the curtained compartments, there is no limit to what may
take place within these confines, only that the male occupant shall
interrupt his diversions sufficiently long enough to put in his order for
refreshments, and that the time between drinks shall be short. A visit to
one of these boxes means that you will be without company for no more than
the wink of an eye. Poor Charley was hardly seated before he and his guide
and philosopher, Paul Prowler, were joined by no less than six bold brunette
dames, who seated themselves as well as possible on their respective laps.
Charley and Prowler may have preferred blondes, but no such blondes as
these. They pleaded to have coins placed in their stockings. Not to make
themselves overly conspicuous the investigating pair invested to the extent
of one quarter to each lady, and while these ready-made banks had their
attraction and the garter display was seductive, Paul and Charley excused
themselves as quickly as possible, though the former cynically advised his
modest young companion that he would be surprised at what those ladies would
do for a dollar. But the blushing Charley said he wouldn't.
Prowler pointed out any number of the male and female company who had
prison records and looked the parts. It was plain to see that aside from its
under-world assemblage the visitors were out-of-town sightseers or seafaring
men. They would be fortunate if they escaped being drugged or robbed, or
both. Victims of a night at McGlory's were even said to have been left
stripped naked in the very gutter, which may have been exaggerated reports,
Prowler conceded, though he would put nothing past the McGlory place.
Shortly after midnight Prowler intimated that he smelled some fighting
and blood-letting brewing and gave his opinion that it was high time to
depart. Charley admitted, fervidly, that he had had enough for one night.
A few years later on, McGlory's became a "respectable tough joint."
That is to say, it was made safe for the visiting sensation hunter. The
orchestra was enlarged, and became known as Gaetano's Ban Milita, and the
resort became something of a show place for those who desired to have a look
in on the underworld. And they were welcome, since they were usually good
spenders and blew generously to champagne, or what was sold here as such. It
became something of a hang-out for many well-known newspaper men who were in
search of what they called color, which was a good enough name for what they
found. Billy was discovered to be something of a wit and his name oftern
appeared in print in connection with various amusing stories.
One that was quite popular had to do with a relative of his, Barney
Williams, who enjoyed some fame as an actor and who was renowned for his
extensive wardrobe. The thespian died rather suddenly and when McGlory, who
was his heir, was asked how he had fared, he replied:
"The only things he left to me that fit are his watch and his
handkerchiefs."
In those "respectable" days, one of the attractions was a hard-visaged
announcer know as "Poison Face," a blase personage of grotesque humor and an
English accent which carried his voice in a sing-song monotone, no matter
the occasion or the interruptions. One evening his lugubrious voice
announced:
"Miss Fanny Montmorency will now sing "Love Among the Roses."
"Miss Fanny Montmorency is a _____" mocked a balcony occupant, who
minced no word in telling just what he thought Miss Fanny Montmorency was,
which was certainly no lady.
Nevertheless," continued "Poison Face" without a glance upward, nor a
particle of change in his monotonous drawl, "Miss Fanny Montmorency will now
sing "Love Among the Roses."
And she did.
Sins of New York
As "Exposed" by the Police Gazette
By Edward Van Every
Publisher: Frederick A. Stokes Company--New York
Copyright: 1930 3 Printings October 15, October 23 and October 30.
Prepared and Transcribed by Miriam Medina
RETURN to POLICE MAIN
RETURN to MANHATTAN MAIN
Back To BROOKLYN Main