Many of the girls roll their customers, mugg them or use knockout drops and then go through their pockets. But Washington’s prostitutes are not so hard-hearted as the street sirens in New York, where it is commonplace for one to be taken to a hotel-room and wake up doped and robbed, but never loved.
Many Washington nymphs conscientiously give value received.
In other cities the cops take stern measures against the untrustworthy whores. It is considered the lowest form of larceny to take advantage of a man with his pants down. New York police recently sent a young married woman to the penitentiary for five years for just such an outrage, but in Washington the appointed judges, many unrealistic and some downright dishonest, condone and encourage such unethical practices.
David L. Miller, 43, a resident of the Soldiers’ Home, picked up Alma Lee Dugent and took her to a 16th Street, NW, room. He said the 33-year-old woman robbed him of $2 in bills and a $30 wrist watch while he lay asleep. The woman pleaded guilty of petty theft.
“This man is as guilty as the woman,” thundered the judge. He ordered Miller to pay half of Mrs. Dugent’s $25 fine.
At this writing there are few really big madames operating in Washington. One of the last big operators was Carmen Beach, deported to Spain. But Nancy Pressler, who figured prominently in the conviction of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, international Mafia overlord now in Italy, when she turned state’s evidence against him in New York, is in business in the capital.
Though many of the girls work as independent contractors, except for the inevitable pimp, they are loosely organized for emergency purposes in the event of arrest, through bail-bond brokers and lawyers who specialize in underworld cases. The law staff of Charles Ford is frequently in court defending intercepted prostitutes, who usually get off with a small fine or a warning.
Many singed doves get their weekly check-ups from a physician in the 1700 block of K Street, who charges them $5 a visit. They learn about him through their community of interests.
We have studied commercial vice in most large cities. It is as a rule confined by public tolerance to certain streets or sections. When we wrote about New York and Chicago we were able to name these thoroughfares and state exactly what kind of merchandise was for sale in each. That is not so in Washington, where the city seems to be one huge red-light range, with tramps falling over themselves trying to grab unattached men.
We made a contact on the southeast corner of 14th and New York Avenue, NW, in front of the cigar store, with a young pedestrian who told us her name was Sue. She came originally from Florida and had been hustling in Washington for four years. We asked how to get in touch with her again and she said, “Just call the Astoria Hotel and ask the operator for Sue.” When we inquired her last name she said she was the only Sue there. The Astoria is a cheap hotel on 14th Street.
About two weeks later we were walking through the plush lobby of the new Statler Hotel and saw Sue ensconced in one of the comfortable armchairs. We stopped to watch. The slender blonde leaned over to a gent in another chair and asked for a light. In a couple of minutes they struck up a deal and walked into the elevator together. When she came down half an hour later we asked her how much she got.
“Ten bucks,” she exclaimed, “and the tight-wad stiffed me out of luck money.”
When we first came to Washington to work on this book almost everyone we spoke to, except cops who knew better, said we wouldn’t find any professional whores, because why should anyone pay when so many government girls are easy?
We took some of these friends--government officials, members of Congress, newspapermen and others, on our tours. And this is what we showed them:
We were solicited by two girls at Jack’s Grill, 3rd and G Sts. Three broads came up to us at 4th and G NW and asked us if we wanted company. We also saw girls bracing strange men at the Purity Lunch and Grill, 3rd and G NW, and at Mitchell Grill on the same corner. Mitchell’s is the hangout for precinct cops who saved its license after charges.
A white prostitute tried to date us at the Mai Fong restaurant, in Chinatown, and two other girls spoke to us at the China Clipper on 14th.
We could have made pick-ups--$10 asked, $5 bid--at the corner of 14th and R. We were approached by girls at the Casablanca Tavern, 421 11th St., NW, and the Covered Wagon, 14th and Rhode Island. The manager of an all-night diner back of the Statler offered to get us a bed companion for $15 if we bought a bottle of Seagrams for $8.50--cheap when you consider it was after hours and he didn’t have a license.
Few if any restaurants and bars employ B-girls. These are women who in Chicago circulate from table to table and hustle drinks on commission. They are illegal in the District, though quite common in Maryland, near the border and in Baltimore.
The femmes fatale who frequent Washington joints usually do so in free-handed reciprocity. The management steers lonesome men to the gals who hang around regularly. They, in turn, bring their customers in for drinks or tell them that’s where they can find them. A saloon which gets a reputation as the hangout for the best-looking dames finds its gross up.
When a girl closes a pitch, she usually has a place to take the guy, if he can’t or won’t bring her to his own room. Most Washington hotels, including the largest, are very broadminded about this, and if you don’t make noise they don’t make trouble. But this situation is changing as the hotels are getting more crowded and more independent.
Few small hotels, even if so inclined, properly police their guests. Some of the girls take their clients to the New Colonial and the Fox.
A former madame named Jackie is now running a rooming-house at 703 Mt. Vernon, where some of the girls steer their customers. You can usually find seven or eight girls hanging around Ivy House Inn, on New York Avenue.
Among the most active hookers are Kay Saunders and Peggy Proctor, both 29, who were once arrested while entertaining 15 male customers. At this writing they are still in business on the second floor of a house in the 2300 block, Lincoln Road, NE.
One of Washington’s most famous characters is a toothless old hag known only as Diane. She hangs around 14th and Florida. Diane reminds old New Yorkers of the fabulous Broadway Rose, who used to panhandle in front of Lindy’s until she was carted to the bug house.
But, unlike Rose, Diane is an out-and-out hustler. Once upon a time, they say, she was a good-looker. But her main trouble seemed to be that she liked her work too much to commercialize it.
We spoke to a man in his late 30’s who remembered her when he was a school boy. He said the kids used to pick her up because she would take “small change.” Now some of her old customers, matured and prosperous men of the world, occasionally drive by her corner to stake her to a hand-out.
All she can get now are colored men, “winos” and dregs. But she refuses to retire.
We picked up a girl by the name of Doris who had just been discharged from the Federal Hospital for narcotic addicts in Lexington, Kentucky. The story she told us illustrates how girls are recruited for prostitution in the District.
Doris said she lived in a small town in West Virginia. She and a girl high-school mate occasionally did a little free-lance whoring on Saturday nights, on call of a bell-boy in the local hotel. Once he sent them to a room occupied by two men. One, whose name was Grigsby, tried to sell the girls on coming to Washington. He said he’d put them in a swell house. The teenagers were afraid of the big city. Grigsby told them the landlady of the house was in the next room and called her in. She was a motherly sort. They consented to come with her.
They found themselves in the house of a madame named Billie Cooper, on 7th St., in the 1000 block. Doris told us she was an instantaneous success in the Cooper menage. She was only 17, fresh, buxom and bucolic. Madame Cooper’s clients were charmed. After she’d been in the house a few weeks, the madame asked Doris if she’d like to get a “kick.” She produced a hypodermic needle and gave the child a shot in the arm. Doris liked the sensation, wanted more. This went on for several weeks, Doris said, and every day Billie Cooper increased the frequency of the shots.
One day Doris woke up, nauseated and ill.
Billie Cooper exclaimed, “You’re hooked!”
She informed Doris she had become a dope fiend, that henceforth Doris must pay for the shots.
The girl went into debt, though she was taking in up to $50 a day and, no matter how much she made, the dope always cost more. She knew no one else who sold it. She was truly hooked, which was Billie Cooper’s original purpose, to keep the young girl in her joint and take her money away from her.
Billie Cooper’s clientele was mostly Chinese. When U. S. narcotics agents raided her establishment at 5 A.M., gaining entrance with a ladder borrowed from a fire-house, so two T-men would get into Billie’s bedroom before she had a chance to flush the narcotics down the drain, they found several Chinese customers in the place. While the search was still on, 15 more came to the door and were admitted; of these two were officials of the Chinese embassy.