PROSTITUTION
While excavating for construction of the Metropolitan Water District
headquarters near Union Station in 1996 archaeologists uncovered remnants of
the Los Angeles red light district. Pulled from century-old outhouses were
bottles of prophylactic fluid, jars of face cream and other tell-tale relics of
the area's seamy past, reminders of a time when the city permitted legal
prostitution to thrive as long as it remained within the limits set for it.
Tarnished Angels, the hard-to-find little volume in which W. W. Robinson
gave readers a brief glimpse of the bordellos that flourished in the 1880s and
1890s, recounts the arrival in 1853 of the first shipload of prostitutes from
San Francisco. They took up residence on Upper Main Street and for the next
half century brothels and their hostesses held forth on various streets,
especially Main, Alameda and Buena Vista, within a few blocks of the old plaza.
In 1874 the council found it desirable to prohibit houses of prostitution
within the business district. The ordinance adopted that year placed off-
limits the blocks bounded by Fort {Broadway}, Los Angeles, First and Short. As
the city grew and the business section expanded, so did the prohibited area.
Fire insurance maps of the 1880s labeled some buildings "female boarding,"
the euphemism for brothels. More directly to the point in identifying red
light locations, although referring to 1897, is the "Souvenir Sporting Guide"
printed for distribution to visitors during the city's annual flower festival,
the charitable purpose of which was the antithesis of the guide's purpose.
Reprinted in Tarnished Angels, it carried advertisements for Madame Van at 327
1/2 New High Street, the Octoroon at 438 N. Alameda, the Little Brick at 435 N.
Alameda, Madame Wier at 312 N. Alameda, the Oakwood Inn on Old Adobe Road, and
numerous others scattered along Main Street, both north and south. For those
desiring the friendly advice of a knowledgeable hack driver, Jack Barber
advertised that his hack, No. 62, was available from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. at a
stand conveniently located opposite Western Union's First and Spring office.
The red light was actually used. Describing one brothel on N. Broadway,
Robinson noted that the light was displayed over the open doorway of each
cubicle, with a silk-clad woman seated before a curtain in the doorway. Once
her customer arrived, they entered the cubicle and the light went out.
Porcupine editor Horace Bell waged an unrelenting fight against bordellos
on Los Angeles Street. As a result of his persistent grousing and additional
complaints from numerous residents and businessmen, the city council adopted an
ordinance intended to remove prostitutes from that street. Response to the
council's action centered on concern that the ordinance was selectively
enforced. "Diego's" concluding phrase in Latin - Let justice be done, even if
the heavens fall - would be repeated in another letter on prostitution from
"Buena Vista," suggesting that the two might have been written by the same
author.
{Times, May 4, 1882, p. 3}
Is It Just?
Editor Times: Justice seems queer in our beautiful
city. The other day several women of the town were arrested
and fined $20 apiece for carrying on their business on Los
Angeles street. To this we do not demur, for it was a just
penalty for the violation of a City ordinance. But this
ordinance should be as good at the north end of the street as
at the south end. We humbly suggest that on Los Angeles
street are many Chinese women equally as guilty as their
depraved Caucasian sisters, and that these Chinese women
might be made to replenish the city treasury with a few
twenties the same as the white have done. What say you,
Messieurs Policemen? Fiat justitia, ruat coelum.
DIEGO.
{Times, Sept. 22, 1882, p. 2}
Conundrum as to the Nymphs du Pave.
To the Editor of The Times:
Permit me to ask why it is that the authorities were so
zealous in the work of removing the demi-monde from Los
Angeles street on the score of public decency, and then allow
them to occupy one of the principal thoroughfares, where they
constantly hail passers-by, which they did to my knowledge
yesterday and to-day?
COMMON DECENCY.
Los Angeles, Sept. 21.
{Times, Oct. 3. 1882. p. 4}
Los Angeles Street.
To the Editor of The Times:
Now that the disreputable women have left the west side
of Los Angeles street, one can walk along on that side of the
street, even with his family, without insult or annoyance.
The contrast between the present and former condition of that
thoroughfare is indeed very striking, and very agreeable.
If the Alvarados and Mr. Childs, and one or two other
property holders on the east side of this street, would now
complete the good work and drive the loose women out of their
houses, then would Los Angeles street, or at least that
portion of it between Commercial and First, be indeed
redeemed from its long, immoral saturnalia.
PATER FAMILIAS.
September 30, 1882.
"Cleaning up" Los Angeles street did not mean that the city was no longer a
vale of sin and vice. The madams and their employees merely moved to other
streets nearby: Main, Alameda, San Pedro, New High and Commercial. That
brought complaints from passengers arriving by rail at the Alameda Street
depot, whose first welcome to the city was likely to be one that resulted in a
blush. As prostitutes left Los Angeles Street, one resident of Buena Vista
{No. Broadway} responded with the "not in my back yard" argument that would
become so common decades later when city government moved to relocate other
unwanted fixtures of society. Later in the decade, when a suggestion had been
made to clear prostitutes from Alameda Street, sending them to New High, "F.L.S."
also became a "nimby."
{Times, May 12, 1883, p. 4}
A Kick from Buena Vista Street.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: We wish to occupy a
little space for a few words in your paper, and we want them
clear-cut and right to the point, for we say what we mean and
mean just what we say. Some two weeks since there was a
petition before our City Council, respectably signed by
property-owners and residents on Buena Vista street, praying
for the immediate removal of all persons engaged in
prostitution on said street, and also to prevent all such
persons in the future from occupying places on the same.
Said petition was received by the Council, and an order made
instructing the Chief of Police to remove the nuisance
complained of immediately. Now, what we want to know is
whether or not the members comprising a council for the
government of this city are to be hood-winked by prostitutes
and their abettors, or whether we are to look in another
direction for the moral protection of our families that all
good governments should strenuously maintain; or whether,
with all, our executive officer is inefficient or derelict in
the performance of his official duty? If either, we would
simply suggest to him, in vulgar parlance, to throw up the
sponge, and let some one more capable take his place. In
writing this article we have no desire whatever to make any
reflection on either the Council or police, for we have the
highest respect for both. But as citizens who have the
welfare of families and our beautiful street at heart, we do
want to know if the government of this city will carry out
its mandate and protect our families from the moral curse of
all curses that is fast encroaching upon us.
BUENA VISTA.
{Times, July 14, 1883, p. 3}
When the Hawk is on the Wing Let the Timid Dove Beware.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: Owing to an article in
your paper from "Buena Vista" of about the 12th of May last,
it has been remarked by certain individuals that squibs don't
amount to much. Well, perhaps they don't; but that reminds
me of the story of an old man who found a rude boy in one of
his apple trees, stealing apples, and desired him to come
down, which the young saucebox plainly told him he would not
do. Those of your readers who are familiar with the story
will remember well what steps the old man took to bring hIm
down, and to those who have not, suffice it to say that after
he had used good words, with no avail, and had pulled up and
thrown a number of tufts of grass at him, which only made the
young rascal laugh, he then had recourse to something that
had a more persuasive effect than good words or grass, and
which soon brought the youngster down to beg the old man's
pardon. So, in writing this article, we do not intend to
fire squibs, nor have anything to do with grass, but we do
intend to come boldly to the front with quiver and bow,
though we do not mean to be personal, and have no wish
whatever to wound the feelings of false pride of any who may
be taken in our range.
Some months ago a number of prostitutes were removed
from off Los Angeles street, in this city, by an action of
the City Council, and it is presumable that said action was
based on a legal right under the city charter for the
abatement or abolishment of all nuisances within the city
limits; and, if not by a legal right, then the Council had no
right at all for said action, and if the charter gave them no
right, and we were an attorney, and placed in the impecunious
circumstances that, no doubt, some of the legal fraternity
are, (no insinuation, gentlemen, that any of you are on the
bedrock,) we would take up the cause for one and all of those
persons so removed, and most certainly this city would have
to pay a bill for damage. And, again, a short time ago a
petition was before the City Council, respectably signed by
property owners and residents of Buena Vista street, praying
that honorable body to speedily remove all persons engaged in
prostitution on said street, and also prevent all such
persons in the future from occupying places on the same.
Said petition was acted upon and an order made by the Council
instructing the Chief of Police to remove the nuisance
complained of immediately. Well now let us see how near that
order has been obeyed, if indeed it was intended to be obeyed
at all, for to all appearances it does seem that it was not.
And it does seem to us that it is like many other orders and
ordinances to be found on the minutes of our City Council,
not worth the paper and time that it took to write them. We
will name some of them presently. But allowing that the
order was made in good faith with the people of Buena Vista
street, then certainly somebody has been derelict in their
official duty. On the night that said petition was acted
upon, and the order made for the removal of said persons from
Buena Vista street, a grand raid (if it is lawful to call it
such) was indiscriminately made upon the habitues, both male
and female, of the city at large, and they were pulled in to
the number of dozens, and O! what a splutter and
jollification there was a few days after over the hundreds
and hundreds of shining shekels that had been raked in from
the poor miserables to enrich the city's coffers or
somebody's pockets, for it does seem to us that the raid was
made more for the sake of the money there was in it, than to
abate a nuisance. And when the misters and madams who were
captured in that raid were being arraigned before His Honor
he might have pertinently asked the question of their
accusers, as it had been asked in olden time, without
compromising his dignity in the least! "He that is without
sin among you, let him cast the first stone at" them. It is
true on the night of that memorable raid there were a few of
those persons complained of taken from Buena Vista street,
and for a few days their places were closed up, but in less
than a week they were reopened, and several new ones were
added to their number. And now, gentlemen of the Council,
has the Chief of Police ever informed your honorable body
that he had faithfully executed your mandate, or have you
taken any step whatever to know whether he has or not? You
were not elected to the honorable position you occupy to play
hide and seek, or second fiddle to nobody, and if you had the
law on your side in the Los Angeles street case, that law has
not been repealed, and the people of Buena Vista street are
as much entitled to your protection by the law as those on
Los Angeles street, or elsewhere; and it is a well-known fact
that if a petition for a like purpose for any street south of
the courthouse were before your honorable body, that it would
be acted on at once, and the star spangled brass buttons and
blue would be on hand in full force, and not an hour's grace
would be given, and the poor soiled doves would have to fly,
even if those that had their wings clipt in the memorable
raid were among them.
Then, gentlemen, in your official capacity act like men
who have brains enough to set a steel trap or a hen on the
side of a hill. The eyes of the people of Buena Vista
street are upon you, and will hold you to a strict account
for your stewardship. "Yes," says one member, perhaps a
newcomer, "But where is this Buena Vista street?" "Well,"
says another, "Buena Vista is a street running up through
what is called Sonoratown, where the people raise so many
dogs and fleas, every family is expected to have from one to
half a dozen of the former and legions of the latter." True,
gentlemen, Sonoratown can boast of having all the dogs the
law allows, and perhaps a few dozen more, and certainly it
has as many fleas to the square foot as almost any place in
the city, but it is about as hard to account for the tastes
of some people as it is for the acts of a city council. And
allow us to say that Buena Vista street can also boast of
many very elegant residences and moderately fair business
houses, and is fast improving, and when the grade is finished
and the bridge across the river, it will be one of the most
pleasant drives in the city, overlooking, as it does, all the
new depot grounds and the country for miles away, and we can
also boast of a very elegant and commodious public
schoolhouse, which is only a few steps from our western line;
but alas, how disgusting it is, and particularly as to the
parents, to see our young lady folks wending their way to and
from school, through the purlieus of prostitution; and yet we
are told our City Council cannot and will not take any steps
to prevent it being so. No, gentlemen of the Council, that
cannot be; it is your bounden duty as the guardians of this
city, to guard the morals of the youth of this street and its
environs the same as you would those of any other street; and
if the City Charter confers the right on you to abolish
nuisances, then why in the name of the Judge of all Councils
would you hesitate a minute when a rightful request has been
laid before you, to remove a nuisance so detestable and
demoralizing as the one complained of? Teach those abandoned
creatures that they cannot and shall not flaunt their lewd
obscenities in the face of a civilized and respectable
community. Let them go and sin no more, or retire to a more
secluded place, and give our street the unstained meaning its
name implies--Good View. In regard to those dead-letter
ordinances that we made mention of a little way back, we will
only call the attention of our city fathers to a few:
First--An ordinance against gambling.
Second--Leaving animals unhitched.
Third--Riding or driving at a breakneck speed,
particularly over street crossings.
Fourth--That foolish and dangerous practice of
scattering paper broadcast on the streets and sidewalks. In
many places the city presents the appearance of an Indian
rancheria after a big feast on mescal, much more than it does
clean and well-kept streets.
Fifth--Obstructing streets and sidewalks. These are all
well-framed and statutory ordinances and should be executed
to the letter, and no doubt would be only for the incapacity
and negligence of our police; and it is our opinion, and the
opinion, too, of many others who pay heavy tax levies in this
city, that if there were fewer aristocratic airs indulged in
around headquarters and less visits paid to side shows and
standing before those things in which we see ourselves as
others see us, and a little more of something done in the
right way towards earning the hard cash so easily pocketed on
pay-days, that those large cobblestones that lie where the
sidewalk ought to be, nearly opposite the Pico House, might
be removed, and many other places aligning the streets might
be put in better shape. So of Sunday mornings, when the
people walk out to church, and to the picnic grounds, their
senses might be regaled by the thoughts of a pleasant walk.
And strangers and country people coming into the city would
be loud in their praise of the elegant streets and sidewalks,
(not of gold) asbestos, in the city of Los Angeles. In
conclusion, notwithstanding we have been somewhat criticising
in our remarks, we hope you, gentlemen of the City Council,
will be assured of our highest respects for you'all, and
believe us when we tell you that we clearly see with our
mind's eye, standing on a magnificent platform in the midst
of our Council chamber, gleaming in the effulgent rays of its
incandescent light, the lovely form of that most beautiful
creature, the scales in one hand and her scepter in the
other, and we distinctly hear you exclaim, una voce, fiat
justitia, ruat coelum. And looking still a little farther in
the background we plainly see the eager faces and stalwart
features of a host of janizaries ready and willing to do your
bidding.
BUENA VISTA.
{Times, Aug. 30, 1888, p. 6}
A Kick from New High Street.
Los Angeles, Aug. 29.--[To the Editor of The Times.] In
reply to "Citizen," who writes wishing to send prostitutes
from Alameda street into the 50 vacant houses on New High, I
will say that if the property-owners of Alameda street take
the same means to clean up that thoroughfare that most on New
High are doing, viz., let the houses stand empty, until the
street is renovated, they may have some chance for a future
respectable street.
Character has something to do with avaricious landlords
as well as bad women.
There is a law that can be made effective, that persons
of this class shall occupy only the second story. So New
High will be a poor refuge for such, especially as there is a
force now at work that will make it as hot as possible for
such quality.
On the hills northwest of the city lay the houses of
some of Los Angeles' best citizens. The ladies from these
neighborhoods may object to living so near such dens, and
numbers of children have to go to school through these
streets. So, would it not be well for "Citizen" to suggest
some other back street than one within a stone's throw of the
Plaza, and one of the busiest parts of the city. When the
electric road is completed, New High street will be a common
thoroughfare from one part of the city to another, and are
our citizens and our tourist visitors to be obliged to
witness this flagrant shame in so well used a street--such a
blemish to so fair a city as ours?
F. L. S.
Efforts to further segregate the location of brothels continued. Numerous
arrests of women on morals charges led Mayor William Workman to appoint Mrs.
Helen A. Watson, the socially-prominent and outspoken reformer, to the newly
created post of jail matron referred to earlier. The Times joined the ranks of
those seeking to contend with prostitution by designating specific areas within
the city where it could continue. That, coupled with a petition to the city
council in early July, 1889, from junk and used clothing dealer Horatio Marteen
asking that houses of prostitution be allowed on a portion of New High Street,
brought a sharp response from the Tribune. The short-lived, bitter rival of
the Times was directed for a while by Otis' former partner Col. Henry H. Boyce.
In support of the position taken by Otis, "Ah There" offered this advice.
Theodore Summerland served on the city council in 1889; George Knox was a
police commissioner.
{Times, July 12, 1889, p. 3}
One of the Social Evils.
Los Angeles, July 11.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
The Tribune devotes an editorial commending Police
Commissioner Knox's idiotic motion at Tuesday's meeting, to
the effect that the City Council ought to pass an ordinance
finding signers of petitions for the removal of houses of
prostitution to certain limits guilty of a misdemeanor. It is
to be presumed that Mr. Knox, no matter how small his
knowledge of law may be, has at least a modicum of common
sense, and, taking this for granted, it is easy to see that
he "poses" for the gallery with his one-horse motion. Knox
is aware that there is such a thing as the Constitution, and
that an ordinance, in the sense in which he desires it, would
be against that Constitution. He knows, too, that the City
Council could not pass, and would not put itself on record by
attempting to pass, such a ridiculous ordinance. The idea
that signing a petition to the Council or to the Board of
Police Commissioners, asking for the better government of the
city, by one of its citizens, should ever be considered as a
crime, could only emanate from an individual suffering with
"swelled head." Theodore Summerland's threat to have Mr.
Knox decapitated has something to do with that motion, or
else the commissioner wishes to bask in the Tribune's
sunshine of cant. The organ of the military pretender, who
may be called an abortive general, since his lack of
confirmation by the State Senate, says that Mr. Knox voices
the opinion of the respectable part of the community (who are
old subscribers to the consumptive Tribune.) Why the
respectable part of the community should be more idiotic than
those who do not subscribe to that "newspaper," I fail to
gather from the editorial. Neither did I learn it from
another canting, mawkish and inane editorial published by the
same sheet a week ago, when it upbraided The Times for
publishing a petition from some property-owners who expressed
a willingness to harbor, comfort, rent to and draw rent from
all women of easy virtue who would take up their habitation
on their property, provided the Council would declare the
said property to be within the limits set apart for the
conduct of houses of prostitution. The proposition, if
adopted, would be an excellent way out of a great difficulty.
The Council may try to suppress the evil, but it cannot
eradicate it. It may imprison for a time women driven into
the street as night hawks and guilty of solicitation, but
these unfortunates must live, and as a consequence must
reenter the lists upon the end of their term of captivity.
Other communities have attempted extirpation, and have not
succeeded. There is a remedy, but there is no cure. The
remedy is the establishment of proper limits in which to
confine prostitution. Of course, if property-owners are not
consulted as to their willingness to allow their street to be
dedicated to these people they are bound to kick, and they
will kick so hard and strong that the City Council will be
unable to overcome the force of the argument. But here you
have a set of property-owners in a quiet, uninhabited street,
hardly ever used as a thoroughfare, willing to rent to these
people. This is the way out of the difficulty, and yet Mr.
Knox and the Tribune would not only prevent the Council from
acting upon it, but would imprison or fine the property-
owners who are willing to solve the problem,
In conclusion I would ask Mr. Knox:
First, is there any law preventing any one from signing
a petition? If not, could an ordinance prohibit such an act?
Second, is there any way he can devise by which he could
have a man arrested for signing a petition, except that the
words in it were obscene or indecent, or contained a
malicious defamation against some one?
Third, does he know what he wants, and if so, why does
he want to give the Constitution and Legislature a black eye,
and substitute the Council therefor?
Fourth, is it his last spasmodic effort as commissioner.
AH THERE.
Regulated prostitution continued past the turn of the century. By then the
once-prevalent position taken by "Ah There," that the "social evil" could only
be controlled but not eliminated, had given way to a puritanical effort to
regulate morals through so-called "blue laws" that prohibited such perceived
moral dangers as horse race betting, boxing, saloons and prostitution. In
addition, corruption of the police department and other city offices resulting
from graft associated with legalized prostitution influenced progressive-minded
citizens to ban prostitution in an effort to cleanse city government. After
Mayor Arthur Harper had been forced to resign in 1909 amid scandalous charges
of extortion in connection with the rental of houses to prostitutes in the
protected area, his reform successor and the council closed down the city's red
light district.