by Bruno, Joe
Bishop Simpson chided Kennedy over his report, saying Kennedy was not considering the thousands of “street walkers” who frequented dive bars and stalked the streets of New York City during the dimly lit night hours. Reverend Thomas De Witt Talmage, who was on a mission to end the sins of Satan's Circus, called the entire city of New York “the modern Gomorrah” for allowing Satan's Circus to exist.
In the 1860s, the most famous of the bordellos in Satan's Circus was called Sisters' Row, which was located at 25th Street near Seventh Avenue. Sisters' Row was a series of seven side-by-side brothels run by seven sisters, who had come to New York City from a New England village seeking fame and fortune. At first, the seven sisters tried to get legitimate jobs, but then they realized that the sex trade was rampant, out in the open, protected by the police, and quite profitable. So why not make some serious money from this phenomenon?
Sisters' Row was considered the most expensive bordello in New York City. It was frequented by the blue-bloods of society, and quite frankly, only the rich could afford the prices. The working girls were advertised as “cultured and pleasing companions, accomplished on the piano and guitar, and familiar with the charms and graces of correct sexual intercourse.”
On certain days of the month, no man was admitted unless he had an engraved invitation, wore evening dress, and carried a bouquet of flowers. And on Christmas Eve, all the proceeds garnered that night on Sisters' Row was donated to charity.
By 1885, police estimated that half the buildings in Satan's Circus were dedicated to some form of deviant behavior. Sixth Avenue itself was teeming with brothels, dives, and all-night saloons. Plus, the streets were packed with seedy customers looking for a few bright moments in their otherwise dull lives.
Satan's Circus and the entire Tenderloin district were the responsibility of the 29th Precinct, whose jurisdiction ran from 14th Street to 42nd Street, and from Fourth to Seventh Avenues. In 1876, Captain Alexander “Clubber” Williams was transferred to the 29th Precinct to be its leader. Williams, the exact opposite of Kennedy in terms of honesty, was quite pleased with his transfer.
Williams told a pal, “Well, I've been transferred. I've had nothing but chuck steak for a while, and now I'm going to get me a little of the tenderloin.”
One of the most famous joints in Satan's Circus was the Haymarket, on Sixth Avenue between 29th and 30th streets. The Haymarket originally opened right after the Civil War as an opera house and was named after a similar playhouse in London, England. But The Haymarket could not compete with the more established playhouses like the Trivoli Theater and Tony Pastor's, so it closed in 1878.
Soon after, the Haymarket was renovated and re-opened as a dancehall. But it was actually a dancehall in only the very restrictive sense of the word. Quite frankly, the Haymarket became a three-story, yellow brick den of iniquity. It was a hunting ground for prostitutes, thugs, and pickpockets who preyed mostly on out-of-town yokels, who had heard of the infamous Haymarket and wanted to experience its storied vices. The Haymarket reached the height of its fame in New York City's Gilded Age of the 1880s and 1890s, and after enduring several closings, the Haymarket remained open, in one form or the other, until 1913.
Woman at the Haymarket were admitted at no charge. However, men were obliged to pay a 25-cent admission fee, which allowed them to buy cheap drinks, dance, and carouse with the young ladies, the vast majority of whom were cheap prostitutes. In addition to a huge bar, all three floors of the Haymarket contained little private cubicles, where raunchy woman gave their marks a cheap rendition of the cancan, and for a few bucks more they turned these cubicles into a New York City version of the French peep shows. One can imagine what a few bucks more might have enticed these women to do, and do quickly, so that they could move on to their next customer.
The real action came well after midnight, when the Haymarket's floors were littered with drunken revelers, some of whom were barely conscious. That's when the muggers and pickpockets sprang into action, leaving the poor men, again, most of them out-of-towners, with no loose change in their pockets to make their way back home.
If you wanted to see a bearded lady with a bat, the place to go in Satan's Circus was the French Madame's on 31st Street just off Sixth Avenue. The place was named after its owner, a big bruiser of a broad who had a five o'clock shadow all day long and every day of the week. This female moose sat on a high stool near the cash register, and if a young lady was making too much noise, or making a fool of herself, the French Madame would clock her on the head with a bludgeon and then fling the young lady out into the street by her hair.
The main room of the French Madame's looked like a dining room, but in fact, no food was served there except black coffee. The booze flowed freely, and there were small cubicles on the second floor where women, young and old, pretty and pretty-ugly, danced the cancan for anyone who cared to watch. For a buck, a young lady would dance in the nude, and for an additional fee, who knows what else transpired in those small private cubicles.
If someone wanted an alcoholic beverage mixed by the best bartender in town, the place to go in Satan's Circus was the Star and Garter, located at Sixth Avenue and 30th Street, owned by Ed Coffee, a renowned sportsman of his time. Coffee employed Billy Patterson, who was generally thought of as the best darn mixer-of-drinks in all of New York City. Billy made a mean martini, but he also was an expert in creating exotic mixtures, containing two more types of liquors; which if you asked for these same drinks in virtually any other ginmill in town, you would have been thrown out by the scruff of your neck.
A sign stating “Booze or beer, or get the heck out of here” was the norm in virtually every dive in New York City, but not at the Star and Garter.
Patterson was such a jovial fellow, and he made so many people happy with his drink concoctions, it was thought that Patterson didn't have an enemy in the world. But apparently that was not the case. One day as Patterson left the Star and Garter by a side entrance, someone clocked him in the side of the head with a rock slung from a slingshot. The assailant was never found, but the phrase “Who Struck Billy Patterson?” resounded throughout the streets of Satan's Circus for many days to come.
After a while, that phrase took on a life of its own. It was uttered whenever people were mystified about anything.
“Who Struck Billy Patterson?” was uttered when somebody robbed a cash register, or if a favored sports team was somehow beaten by a rank underdog. “Who Struck Billy Patterson?” was also exclaimed when someone, who was one day very poor, somehow came into some cash, by legitimate, or illegitimate means.
Another popular Satan's Circus hotspot was the Cremorne, located in the basement of a building on 32nd Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. The owner of the Cremorne, which was said to have been named after a British tavern, was an overbearing dolt known only as Don Whiskerandos. The Don was a whale-shaped man with a huge beard and a walrus-type mustache, which ran down both sides of his bloated face. Don Whiskerandos's mission in life was to ensure the scantily clad ladies, whom he employed, made certain the men who staggered inside his dive bought the ladies drinks at inflated prices.
Men's drinks cost 15 cents or two for a quarter. But ladies drinks cost a whopping 20 cents, of which the ladies were paid a small commission by Don Whiskerandos.
Every time a sap bought a lady a drink, the lady received a small brass check to keep a tally on what she was owed at the end of the night. And if a sucker sprang for a bottle of wine for the lady, she kept the cork as proof of purchase.
Next door to the Cremorne was an establishment with the same name. It was not a drinking joint, nor a place where a man might pick up a chick. It was, in fact, a mission run by a former alcoholic named Jerry McAuley.
Quite often, and always by accident, some lad looking for a good time would wander into the wrong Cremorne. When this happened, McAuley sprang into action. He quickly locked the door behind the befuddled chap. Then after plying him with sandwiches and coffee as thi
ck as mud, McAuley would launch into a mighty sermon on the wages of sin caused by the excesses of alcohol.
Needless to say, McAuley and Don Whiskerandos were not the best of pals, since The Don blamed McAuley for any shortages in The Don's daily cash register receipts.
Other noted dives in Satan's Circus were Egyptian Hall on 34th street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues; Sailor's Hall on 30th Street (which was mostly frequented by Negroes); Buckingham Palace on 27th Street, which was famous for its masked balls, and Tom Gould's on 31st Street, which was basically a large saloon with rooms for rent upstairs, rented by the day and sometimes even by the hour.
By the turn of the 20th century, Satan's Circus was in steady decline. The advent of the Ladies Temperance Movement and the stalwart work of people like Carrie Nation and the Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst, prompted the New York City police to crack down on the vices being perpetrated in Satan's Circus.
In 1895, Mayor Strong appointed Teddy Roosevelt as Police Commissioner of New York City. Roosevelt went hard after crooked cops who were taking pieces of the pie from the dives in Satan's Circus. Soon, places that were teeming with sex and sexual innuendo were the exception and not the rule in the area between 24th and 40th Streets, and between Fifth and Seventh Avenues.
After the police crackdown in Satan's Circus, drinking establishments still abounded in all parts of New York City. But bawdy play and sex-for-pay was moved from out in the open to behind closed doors, where, of course, they remain to this very day.
As much as things change, sometimes they still remain the same.
Typhoid Mary Mallon
She was an ignorant, ill-tempered woman, but an excellent cook. However, Typhoid Mary Mallon's refusal to accept the fact she was a healthy carrier of the deadly typhoid bacteria helped cause the deaths of at least three people.
Mary Mallon was born in 1869 in Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland (now Northern Ireland). She emigrated to America in 1884 and worked in a succession of menial jobs, until she discovered she had an exceptional talent as a cook (it was reported she made a delicious peach ice cream).
No one knows when the anomaly occurred, but sometime in the early 20th century, Mary became a healthy carrier of the typhoid bacterium (Salmonella typhi). Mary never got sick herself, so it was beyond her comprehension (or maybe she didn't want to believe it was possible) that she was a monumental cause of extreme physical distress to other people, who just happened to come into contact with her while she worked at her cooking profession. (Washing her hands properly before cooking and serving food wouldn't have hurt much either.)
Typhoid fever is a world-wide bacterial disease “transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, containing the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi.” The bacteria then penetrates though the infected person’s intestinal walls into their blood stream. The symptoms of an infected person include high fever, diarrhea, and gastroenteritis. If not treated properly, the fever can last up to four weeks and sometimes ends with the infected person experiencing delirium, before finally dying. A person may become an asymptomatic carrier (suffering no symptoms themselves) of the typhoid bacteria, and five percent of the people infected continue to carry the disease after they recover.
The World Health Organization estimated that through the years 1906-1960 there were anywhere from 16-33 million cases of typhoid fever worldwide, with 216,000 of them resulting in fatalities. The age group with the highest incidence of infection were children and teenagers between the ages of 5-19.
In the time period of around 434-430 BC, it is believed that typhoid fever killed one-third of the population of Athens, Greece, including Greek leader Pericles. During this period, the entire population of the peninsula of Attica was quarantined within the Long Walls, and they lived in tents.
Historians believe that in the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia, between 1607 and 1624, typhoid fever killed more than 6,000 settlers. During the Civil War more than 81,000 soldiers died of either typhoid or dysentery. And in the 1890s, the typhoid fever mortality rate in Chicago averaged 65 per 100,000 people a year. The worst year was in 1891, when the typhoid death rate was 174 per 100,000 people.
By all accounts, Mary Mallon worked steadily as a cook from 1900-1906. In the summer of 1906, Mary took a position as a cook for the family of New York banker Charles Henry Warren, who decided to take his family to a rented house on Oyster Bay, Long Island for their summer vacation. On August 24, one of Warren's daughters became violently ill. She was subsequently diagnosed with typhoid fever. Soon, Warren's wife took ill, as well as the gardener and another one of Warren's daughters. Before the summer vacation was over, 6 of the 11 people living in the house were infected with the typhoid bacteria.
George Thompson, who owned the home which Warren had rented, was worried he could no longer rent the house, since he feared the water was contaminated and was the source of the typhoid bacteria. Thompson hired investigators to examine his water and other possible sources of the contamination, but they were unsuccessful in discovering the source of the bacteria.
Thompson then hired George Soper, a civil engineer by trade, who had experience in typhoid fever epidemics. After eliminating one possible cause after another, Soper finally determined that it was the cook, Mary Mallon, three weeks gone from the Warren's employ, who had been the carrier of the disease. But Soper had no definitive proof, so he set out to find Mary and trace her employment history, to see if there was a common denominator in Mary's employment as a cook and typhoid outbreaks.
Through dogged grunt work and numerous knocks on people's doors, Soper was able to trace Mary's employment record back to 1900. He was not too surprised to discover that from 1900-1907, Mary had worked at seven different households where 22 people had been infected with the typhoid bacteria, including one young girl who had perished from the disease.
It took Soper almost seven months, but in March of 1907, he was able to track down Mary, who was now working as a cook in the family home of Walter Bowen. Soper was intent on getting samples of Mary's urine and blood, but the astounded, befuddled, and belligerent Mary would have none of that.
“I had my first talk with Mary in the kitchen of this house,” Soper said. “I was as diplomatic as possible, but I had to say I suspected her of making people sick and that I wanted specimens of her urine, feces, and blood. It did not take Mary long to react to this suggestion. She seized a carving fork and advanced in my direction. I passed rapidly down the long narrow hall, through the tall iron gate, and so to the sidewalk. I felt rather lucky to escape.”
Still, Soper was determined and not deterred. The following day, hidden outside the Bowen residence, he waited for Mary to leave the house. When she did, Soper followed Mary (at a safe distance) to her home. Assured Mary was where she could easily be located, Soper left and soon returned with Dr. Bert Raymond Hoobler, who as a doctor might be able to convince Mary that testing her was the right thing to do. This tactic did not work too well either, as Mary cursed at both men and chased them with a knife from her humble abode.
Knowing quite well that Mary would not submit to any testing unless she was forced to do so, Soper went to the New York City Health Department and conferred with the department's commissioner Herman Biggs. Commissioner Biggs agreed with Soper's theories about Mary being a healthy carrier of the typhoid bacteria, and as a result, he decided to send a female doctor, Dr. S. Josephine Baker, to try to reason with Mary. However this tactic didn't work any better than the previous ones. Mary Mallon refused to be tested for the typhoid virus, and she made it very clear to Dr. Baker, that she would not do so without a fight.
Dr. Baker soon returned to Mary's residence, accompanied by five burly policemen and an ambulance.
Dr. Baker described the scene as such: “Mary was on the lookout for us, and she peered out from the front door, a long kitchen fork in her hand like a rapier. As she lunged at me with the fork, I stepped back, recoiled onto the po
liceman, and so confused matters that by the time we got through the door, Mary had disappeared. 'Disappeared' is too matter-of-fact a word; she had completely vanished.”
Baker and the police searched the house, but alas, there was no Mary Mallon to be found.
Finally, one of the policemen spotted a set of footprints in the corner yard that led from Mary’s house to a chair placed up against the fence separating Mary's house from the house next door. The police then spent five hours searching both houses, but to no avail. Finally, one of the policemen spotted “a tiny scrap of blue calico caught in the door of the areaway closet under the high outside stairway leading to the front door.”
The policemen forced open the door to the closet, and according to Dr. Baker, “She came out fighting and swearing, both of which she could do with appalling efficiency and vigor. I made another effort to talk to her sensibly and asked her again to let me have the specimens, but it was of no use. By that time she was convinced that the law was wantonly persecuting her, when she had done nothing wrong. She knew she had never had typhoid fever; she was maniacal in her integrity. There was nothing I could do but take her with us. The policemen lifted her into the ambulance, and I literally sat on her all the way to the hospital. It was like being in a cage with an angry lion.”
Mary was taken to the Willard Parker Hospital in New York. There, samples were taken and examined, and surprise-surprise, the typhoid bacilli was found in her stool. Without any trial or a hearing of any sort, the Health Department transferred Mary to an isolated cottage, which was part of the Riverside Hospital, on North Brother Island in the East River near the Bronx.
Just like that, Mary Mallon went from being a fine cook, to a pariah, to a prisoner of the state. All without any due process from the courts.
