Uploaded March 2009 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Filmed ca. June to September 1899, probably in West Orange, New Jersey.
Edison Manufacturing Co.
Production: James H. White
Let us take a trip from the 'Lights' to the 'Shadows,' and go 'slumming.' This bawdy crime vignette has all of the seedy charm of the 'Tenderloin' at night as a stranger enters a drinking house, let's call him ''Mark.'' He's heartily greeted by the other patrons, so he pulls out a gloating wad of cash and buys the house an impressive round. He quickly finds himself and his presidential pals the center of flirtatious attention. By way of diversion the flirty gal's man / beau / pimp, slips the guy a 'Mickey.' He drinks himself into a convenient stupor with each woman cleaning his pockets. One woman gives the audience a blue moment when she slips the cash in her shapely silk safe. The mark wakes up to find his gains gotten. Out numbered by the crooked locals, he finds himself ejected by the knowing proprietor and a conveniently available cop, leaving the house full of 'low lives' to celebrate their ill gotten gains. The babes burst into a brief can-can. More leg show! The victim returns with the law but the film ends as abruptly as the marks good time. -TR
The 'Tenderloin' is a district of Manhattan stretching from 23rd Street to 42nd Street between Fifth and Seventh Avenues. The area was a red light district, home to many of the city's Bordello's, gambling dens and drinking houses during the Gilded Age. Along with the rough and tumble Bowery, this is where one went if they were curious (and brave) enough to experience '''how the other half lives.'' The area, now known as Chelsea and the ''Garment District,'' was given the nickname ''Tenderloin'' by police inspector Alexander S. Williams (July 9, 1839-March 25, 1917). After years of working in districts with little action he received a transfer to the West 13th Street Station on September 30, 1876. When he was asked how he liked it he reportedly responded ''I like it fine. I have had chuck for a long time, and now I'm going to eat tenderloin.'' A tough no-nonsense cop with a liking for delivering a good beat down and accepting graft, he was infamously known as ''Clubber Williams.'' An investigation into corruption in 1894 by the Lexow Committee found that Williams was on the take, accepting money from many of the local dens of crime in exchange for looking the other way. He retired early with full pension. -TR
When the clock strikes two in the Tenderloin,
The wine and the wit are flowing high;
And every pretty girl that clinks a glass with you
Has a naughty little twinkle in her eye.
Your heart is as light as a butterfly,
Tho' your wife may be waiting up for you;
But you never borrow trouble in the tenderloin
In the morning when the clock strikes two.
(Chorus):
Lobsters! Rarebits! Plenty of Pilsener beer!
Plenty of girls to help you drink the best of cheer;
Dark girls, blonde girls, and never a one that's true;
You get them all in the Tenderloin when the clock strikes two.
"The main thoroughfare of the Tenderloin was Sixth Avenue. The flashiest of the dance halls, theaters and cafés prospered in the flare of gaslight along this sooty Rialto, shaken and begrimed as they were by the steam trains rumbling on the El overhead. The parlor houses, houses of assignation and hotels where no questions were asked and no luggage was required were shunted to the side streets bisecting Sixth Avenue. Sheltered mostly in brownstone houses, the bagnios were thickest on Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Thirty-first, Thirty-second, Thirty-fifth streets between Seventh and Fifth Avenues, thinning out as they approached the general respectability of Fifth."
-excerpts from 'Hell's Kitchen' / The Riotous Days of New York's West Side by Richard O'Connor
Recommended reading:
Low Life / Lures and Snares of Old New York - Luc Sante
All Around the Town / Murder, Scandal, Riot and Mayhem in Old New York - Herbert Asbury
Film from the Library of Congress
01/01/12 - 1,209
Filmed ca. June to September 1899, probably in West Orange, New Jersey.
Edison Manufacturing Co.
Production: James H. White
Let us take a trip from the 'Lights' to the 'Shadows,' and go 'slumming.' This bawdy crime vignette has all of the seedy charm of the 'Tenderloin' at night as a stranger enters a drinking house, let's call him ''Mark.'' He's heartily greeted by the other patrons, so he pulls out a gloating wad of cash and buys the house an impressive round. He quickly finds himself and his presidential pals the center of flirtatious attention. By way of diversion the flirty gal's man / beau / pimp, slips the guy a 'Mickey.' He drinks himself into a convenient stupor with each woman cleaning his pockets. One woman gives the audience a blue moment when she slips the cash in her shapely silk safe. The mark wakes up to find his gains gotten. Out numbered by the crooked locals, he finds himself ejected by the knowing proprietor and a conveniently available cop, leaving the house full of 'low lives' to celebrate their ill gotten gains. The babes burst into a brief can-can. More leg show! The victim returns with the law but the film ends as abruptly as the marks good time. -TR
The 'Tenderloin' is a district of Manhattan stretching from 23rd Street to 42nd Street between Fifth and Seventh Avenues. The area was a red light district, home to many of the city's Bordello's, gambling dens and drinking houses during the Gilded Age. Along with the rough and tumble Bowery, this is where one went if they were curious (and brave) enough to experience '''how the other half lives.'' The area, now known as Chelsea and the ''Garment District,'' was given the nickname ''Tenderloin'' by police inspector Alexander S. Williams (July 9, 1839-March 25, 1917). After years of working in districts with little action he received a transfer to the West 13th Street Station on September 30, 1876. When he was asked how he liked it he reportedly responded ''I like it fine. I have had chuck for a long time, and now I'm going to eat tenderloin.'' A tough no-nonsense cop with a liking for delivering a good beat down and accepting graft, he was infamously known as ''Clubber Williams.'' An investigation into corruption in 1894 by the Lexow Committee found that Williams was on the take, accepting money from many of the local dens of crime in exchange for looking the other way. He retired early with full pension. -TR
When the clock strikes two in the Tenderloin,
The wine and the wit are flowing high;
And every pretty girl that clinks a glass with you
Has a naughty little twinkle in her eye.
Your heart is as light as a butterfly,
Tho' your wife may be waiting up for you;
But you never borrow trouble in the tenderloin
In the morning when the clock strikes two.
(Chorus):
Lobsters! Rarebits! Plenty of Pilsener beer!
Plenty of girls to help you drink the best of cheer;
Dark girls, blonde girls, and never a one that's true;
You get them all in the Tenderloin when the clock strikes two.
"The main thoroughfare of the Tenderloin was Sixth Avenue. The flashiest of the dance halls, theaters and cafés prospered in the flare of gaslight along this sooty Rialto, shaken and begrimed as they were by the steam trains rumbling on the El overhead. The parlor houses, houses of assignation and hotels where no questions were asked and no luggage was required were shunted to the side streets bisecting Sixth Avenue. Sheltered mostly in brownstone houses, the bagnios were thickest on Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Thirty-first, Thirty-second, Thirty-fifth streets between Seventh and Fifth Avenues, thinning out as they approached the general respectability of Fifth."
-excerpts from 'Hell's Kitchen' / The Riotous Days of New York's West Side by Richard O'Connor
Recommended reading:
Low Life / Lures and Snares of Old New York - Luc Sante
All Around the Town / Murder, Scandal, Riot and Mayhem in Old New York - Herbert Asbury
Film from the Library of Congress
01/01/12 - 1,209
