Tenderloin (1898 NY HERALD); Ancestry Plus

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ANCESTRY PLUS

   The NYPL gets "Ancestry Plus," and I just checked it out.  It does NOT have the historical newspapers that are available on the subscription service "ancestry.com."  The NYPL librarian in the local history division didn't know why the "Plus" has less in this area, but "Plus" supposedly has more genealogical information.
   One more reason to avoid the NYPL--which will be closed the next FOUR DAYS for the holiday.

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TENDERLOIN

   The "Tin Pan Alley" guy asked me about "Tenderloin."  I respond to NYC queries beginning with the letter "T."
   PUCK will be digitized within 60 days, and I expect that this weekly NYC humor periodical will have perhaps the earliest "Tenderloin" citation.
   The NYPL (microfilm area) has a hand-written index to the NEW YORK HERALD.


9 October 1898, NEW YORK HERALD, fifth section, pg. 8, col. 1:

_NEW YORK'S "TENDERLOIN"--THE PRIMROSE PATH OF FRAIL AND FRIVOLOUS YOUTH_
_"There is no doubt that a majority of the criminals of our prisons are recruited from the Tenderloin district of the city.  This is really an association of cause with effect.  It is a well known fact in criminology that drinking, gambling and other forms of exhausting dissipation, while they may be enticements for the novice, are necessities for the blackleg and thief."--Dr. George F. Shrady._

  _"THE PACE THAT KILLS."_
_IT LEAD THROUGH THE "TENDERLOIN."_
_Dr. George F. Shrady Analyzes Its Fascinating_
   _Wickedness and Direful Consequences--"A Great_
   _Hotbed of Vice Roaring and Bubbling in the_
   _Heart of the City."_
(...)
   When Alexander Williams was captain, the Tenderloin covered that part of the city lying between Fourth and Seventh avenues, extending up and down Broadway from Fourteenth to Forty-second street.
   Now the new Tenderloin reaches from Fourteenth to Sixty-fifth street, embracing all but the respectable residence and business blocks between Second and Tenth avenues on the east and west side.
      _Where Crime Sits Enthroned._
   In this area are the principal hotels, clubs, theatres, roof gardens, music halls, restaurants, the go as you please, over decorated apartment houses, the wine rooms, gambling parlors, and all those menacing boudoirs of pleasure so peculiar to a great city.  Here is the seat of New York's political power.  Wine, women and gamblers are made to pay crime's taxes to the Boss of the modern Babylon.
   When Captain Williams was made King of the Tenderloin not one in fifty citizens dreamed of the part it was made to play in swelling the blackmailing fund necessary to maintain control of the political machinery of the town.
   It was not until 1894, when Dr. Parkhurst and the Lexow investigation began forcing revelations, that the great system for extorting money from lawbreakers was adequately realized by the general public.
   Of course, Captain Williams, the inventor of the name "Tenderloin," denied that this great hotbed of vice, roaring and bubbling in the heart of the city, was a source of politcal revenue through blackmail to the corrupt bosses.
   Here are some of Captain Williams' famous answers to Councellor Goff when the screws were applied o his memory before the Lexow committee:--

   By Mr. Goff--By the way, Inspector, how did the name Tenderloin originate?  A.  Well, it came about in this way.  When I was transferred from the Fourth precinct to the Nineteenth I told a newspaper reporter that I had been eating rump steak down in the Fourth precinct and that I would have a chance now to eat some of the tenderloin.
   By Mr. Goff--What do you mean by eating rump steak?  And why should you have better living up in the Tenderloin?  A.  Well, there are better hotels and restaurants up there; that is all.
   By Mr. Goff--Don't you know that the reason you used the term tenderloin was that you knew that you could make more money in the Nineteenth than in the Fourth district?  A.  No; I know no such thing.


(That newspaper reporter was not from the NEW YORK TIMES.  He probably wasn't from the NEW YORK HERALD, or it would have been indicated.  The article probably also wasn't in the NEW YORK TRIBUNE, for which we also have an index.  My guess is THE WORLD, the SUN, the EVENING TELEGRAM, or the MAIL.  I've been begging the NEW YORK POST to digitize, but it remains behind the TIMES--ed.)