At night, the Tenderloin was the city’s red-light district during the turn of the century, a center of sex and sin that blazed with light and put high-rolling millionaires in proximity to lower-class drinkers, gamblers, showgirls, and prostitutes.
During the day, with its veil lifted, the Tenderloin revealed its gritty despair. In “Sixth Avenue and Thirtieth Street,” John Sloan depicts a confused, distressed woman as others stare or pass her by with indifference.
Sloan seemed to have a fascination with the Tenderloin; the same year, he painted the neighborhood’s “loud and lurid” club, the Haymarket.
Tags: Haymarket, John Sloan, New York in 1907, Sixth Avenue and Thirtieth Street John Sloan, Tenderloin Sixth Avenue El Train
June 16, 2016 at 3:59 pm |
Today’s Tenderloin – http://www.pbase.com/keithbg/the_tenderloin&page=all
June 16, 2016 at 8:26 pm |
Great photos Keith. I particularly like the woman carrying the garbage bags and the old man sort of clutching his abdomen. There’s real distress in these faces.
June 16, 2016 at 8:18 pm |
Odds are good she’s soused and that’s a pail of beer she’s carrying. [Actually, now I see the Philly Museum of Art identifies it as such. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/59874.html ]
Back then, the beer pail (often lidded) was called a growler, but I think in NY “duck” was the favored term. To “rush the duck” was to go fetch the beer, an errand children were often sent on.
June 16, 2016 at 8:28 pm |
Ah, thanks for this. Confused…and three sheets to the wind. I have read references to a growler but I always pictured it as more of a jug-like container.
June 16, 2016 at 8:31 pm |
Thanks! For me, a lot of the old New York neighborhood names still exist. I hope the developers and gentrifiers don’t change them!