List of San Francisco long-term brothels, 1937

Hank sez, "The San Francisco Examiner reported in March 1937 that private investigator Edwin Atherton, hired by the city to investigate police graft, delivered a list of 135 long-term brothels, called 'resorts,' to the Grand Jury investigation police corruption, finding bordellos in neighborhoods from South of Market to North Beach."

San Francisco Examiner lists 135 long-established house of prostitution (Thanks, Hank!)

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MORE: History • location location location • Old school • san francisco • Sex

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The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QN6WUG7WMBDAGUPFVSJ6HJAS2A Darth

I’d Google map the addresses, but most of them are probably now parking lots or parking garages.
- http://greggman.com greggman
  
  You must live in a different SF than me where I can never find a parking space and there are almost no lots or garages.
- http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis
  
  Not sure what the deal is with 917 Kearny, but 916 Kearny is still there, and it’s occupied by Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope production company. Nice building.
IamInnocent

Was this ‘product placement’ of the era ?
Halloween_Jack

Reminds me of the modern practice of posting mugshots of arrested prostitutes on the web, including where they were arrested.
- mongo
  
  Why, a smart operator would take that list and print a brochure to sell the tourists.
  
  Now, put it on a web site behind a pay wall.
  
  Oh. And “RESORTS?”
  - Greg Webster
    
    Perhaps like “last resort” for the desperate?
Mockiovelli

Like PT Barnum said, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Just_Ok

why are 977 McAllister and 52 McAllister the only two not in order? Sorry, and 331 and 301 1/2 Columbus
AlexG55

Both 1032 Kearny AND 1032 1/2 Kearny?
- Just_Ok
  
  for those that didn’t want to go all the way.
- http://twitter.com/forksofpower Patrick Jones
  
  They really couldn’t just press the “sort alphabetically” button in 1937 :P I’m sure mistakes were very common.
http://dreadpiraterobert.blogspot.com dreadpiraterobert

I think the property values of every house on that list just went up. Historical site! Heritage building! 75 years ago, the people living here had more sex than you’re having now!
Palomino

I need a massage…
http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

Wow, think of the stories some of those houses could tell… I’m sure most of them even have a happy ending.
Work_Watch_Buy_Repeat

For the enlightenment of those living in countries where the Protestant Church still dictates what two consenting adults may do behind closed doors: in many First World countries (e.g. Canada, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, etc), prostitution is legal.

The “OMG, look at this” framing of this post implies that the puritanical anti-prostitution laws of the US are some kind of universal norm among developed nations. Americans should understand that other advanced democracies have a very different take on the issue.
- Satan10005
  
  Blah blah blah. Whoring might be legal, but they still can’t figure out how not to get stuck with the bill when their currency crashes.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IH3CQ7VQW6OVWD2OW367WYETXU William
  
  Not implying that the United States is the norm. Highlighting how the United States does not respect personal freedom on this matter.
jon_anon

This is brilliant, look at some of the street names: Fillmore, Bush? And I guess the address on Turk street involved the rear entrance… and hey, the resort on Golden Gate probably included water sports!
adamnvillani

Clip ‘n’ save!
- morcheeba
  
  I was visiting a town for which I didn’t have a good map. I was reading the local newspaper and found a terrific map… with all the places to buy crack pipes marked.
Roy Trumbull

I knew an artist who had an apartment in a former brothel in North Beach. It was turned into cold water flats. She said that near the entrance there was a niche with a window that was the Madam’s office. No one got any further without paying up.
Sally Stanford was a well known madam. When she got out of the business she had a restaurant in Sausalito. She ran for mayor but had to use her real name which was Marsha Owen. Lost the first time but later won. Talk about business experience.
adamnvillani

527 Broadway is today an apartment building and 554 Broadway is today a hotel, both of them on the upper floors above strip clubs.
hankchapot

The real story is that San Francisco, troubled by the depression and still raw over the police shooting during the 1934 general strike, went after the rich, corrupt police department. The supervisors pledged $70,000 dollars and hired the private investigator Edwin Atherton and empaneled a grand jury with subpoena power. Dozens of cops lost their beat and some went underground, one killed himself and his family, and San Francisco’s greatest boss, bail bond king Pete McDonough, was brought down and legislated out of the business.

I’m flogging the recent publication of my ebook, “Bordello Politique,” the story of Dolly Fine, San Francisco’s most notorious madam, who got dragged into the scandal.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/106571
http://twitter.com/emarcroft Emarcroft

I cherry-picked about 10 addresses, and it seems from Google Street view that almost none of them are the same buildings from that time, sadly. But I bet there are some, particularly the ones in North Beach.
- adamnvillani
  
  I used Streetview to check the buildings on Broadway, and while 508 seems to be a parking lot, I think the rest are all still the original buildings. Not sure about a few. Some of the buildings don’t have readily visible address numbers, so it’s hard to tell exactly which ones would match which addresses. I spot-checked a few others… some buildings are still there, some aren’t.
Philip Bump

I took the liberty of mapping them, for easier brothel-spotting. http://p-bu.mp/fl4
- GawainLavers
  
  Aw, no streetview links?
http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir

And this was long before the CIA opened a brothel in San Francisco as part of Project MKULTRA’s “Operation Midnight Climax”
Mark

A similar establishment was around the corner from my previous employer. It called itself a ‘Spa’. The building had one tiny window, behind which was a neon sign: “Spa Open”. I don’t think I ever saw the sign turned off…
MadRat

Hookers in the bad part of town? I’m shocked. On street view most of these places are now either ethnic businesses, low rent hotels or been replaced by apartments and office buildings. Then there’s these:

527 Broadway: Garden of Eden (strip club)
554 Broadway: Roaring 20s (strip club)754 Golden Gate: was next to John Swett Elementary School (gone)
1054 Kearny: Heaven Mini Theatre (strip club, closed for prostitution)

Several are bars but it’s unclear if they’re strip clubs as well. Also, the Yelp pages for the strip clips are amusing, they’re popular with women.
RJ

So I guess Depression-era people used a lot of air-quotes when speaking. “Resorts,” indeed.

On the other hand, in the midst of the Great Depression, their version of a week on the Riviera probably was a BJ and a ham sandwich. So maybe “resort” was an appropriate term at the time.
Teller

Life is good when you can walk out of 371 Columbus and go next door to Molinari’s for a Renzo and a jar of Bruno’s Just Nippy.
C.J. Hayes

I’d like to be able to cross-reference where all the bars were at the time. Prohibition had ended by then, and with enough business for several brothels to exist on one block, I imagine the bars were doing pretty well too. Makes me wonder where there was room for any other business.
yeastbeast

That house on Sacramento St. is clearly for the devil’s business.
http://twitter.com/Tarpo Rob T

Looks like 666 Sacramento is a restaurant now.. I kinda hoped it would be a church or something.