Polly Adler was born in Russia in 1900 and immigrated to New York City when she was a teenager. But hers is no typical Ellis Island kind of story.
After toiling away in a Brooklyn corset factory, 24-year-old Adler found a more lucrative gig: supplying prostitutes, liquor, and an all-night party to top entertainers, politicians, and gangsters.
Adler created clubhouse-like brothels at different locations through the 1920s and 1930s. She ran a house of ill repute in the Majestic Apartments on Central Park West, as well as at other luxe addresses on the Upper East and Upper West Sides.
The famous and important of both sexes (Dorothy Parker was a regular) hung out and mingled. Mayor Jimmy Walker, Joe DiMaggio, and Dutch Schultz reportedly enjoyed the sexual services.
Adler was arrested more than a dozen times, exiting the madam business in the mid-1940s. She attended college, wrote her memoirs, and died in 1962 in Los Angeles.
Tags: Dorothy Parker, Dutch Schultz, Joe DiMaggio, madam of the Depression, Mayor Jimmy Walker, New York City brothels, New York City madams, New York in the 1920s, New York in the Depression, Polly Adler, Sex in New York City
Ephemeral New York 
December 27, 2009 at 1:47 pm |
My first serious girlfriend dragged me to see the Polly Adler movie, House Is Not A Home, that aired in 1964-65(?) and played at the Loew’s Sheridan in the Village (no longer there) right across from St Vincent’s Hospital. In the balcony I was surprised to see a few women sitting there alone and occasionally joined by a man who would sit next to them for a few moments, get all flustered, than quickly run away. I saw a few men sit next to the woman until I quietly pointed this out to my girlfriend, who shook her head and said, “Don’t you know anything? He’s getting a handjob from her….” I felt very dumb and foolish like I should have known that. But you know what? I made sure I went back a week later to see the film on my own and got the best handjob I ever had, for 50 cents I think, and all thanks to Polly Adler. What a madam she turned out to be! Thanks for bringing that memory back.