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This 19th Century "Gentleman's Directory" Provided A Guide To NYC's Brothels
By
Ben Yakas
Published Dec 7, 2020
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Courtesy of the NYPL
By
Ben Yakas
Published Dec 7, 2020
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The New York Public Library's collection is filled with a sprawling variety of guidebooks spanning several centuries and countless different subjects, rare documents that tell the cumulative history of the city. But The Gentleman's Directory may truly be one-of-a-kind: this 1870 guidebook was a Zagat-like guide to the city's brothels at the time.
The palm-sized directory includes reviews of about 150 brothels around the city, and also includes advertisements for relevant wares like condoms (a.k.a., “French imported male safes”).
"The Gentleman's Directory never fails to delight me with its flowery descriptions," said Julie Golia, NYPL's Curator of History, Social Science, and Government Information. "At an establishment on West Houston Street—which in the 19th century was both a shopping destination and a well-known red light district—the anonymous guidebook author writes that, 'the bewitching smiles of the fairy-like creatures who devote themselves to the services of Cupid are unrivalled [sic] by any of the fine ladies who walk Broadway in silks and satins new.'"
The writers of the book go out of their way to cheekily deny that the guide is meant to help people find the brothels however—rather, as they write in the intro, it is to stop people from blindly stumbling into them.
“Not that we imagine the reader will ever desire to visit these houses. Certainly not," the book states. “We point out the location of these places in order that the reader may know how to avoid them, and that he may not select one of them for his boarding house when he comes to the city.” This book, they insist, will be a "warning voice to the unwary," like a buoy that “warns the inexperienced mariner to sheer off, lest he should be wrecked on a dangerous and unknown coast.”
A rare original edition of The Gentleman's Directory resides in the archives at the New-York Historical Society, but the NYPL's facsimile is freely accessible in the NYPL's general collections—and you can even flip through it online here, just to make sure you don't accidentally find yourself someplace where "the landlady and her servants are as sour as her wine."
The NYPL's facsimile of The Gentleman's Directory
Courtesy of the NYPL
As part of our month-long Dear NYC series, we're looking at New York City gems hidden away at the New York Public Library. The NYPL’s four research centers offer the public access to over 55 million items, including rare books, manuscripts, letters, diaries, photographs, prints, maps, ephemera, and more. Integral to these robust collections is the Library’s extensive material related to New York City, and as NY works to come together, cope, heal and recover from the 2020 pandemic, economic uncertainty, and the many issues that divide us, it is important to look at that history and remember: New York is resilient. New York is strong. New York has seen its share of hard times. And, as always, with Patience and Fortitude (the names given to the Library’s beloved lions in 1933 by Mayor LaGuardia for the virtues New Yorkers needed to get through the Great Depression) we will get through it, together.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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