Post by xaria on Feb 26, 2020 7:23:09 GMT -6
In the late 1950's Henry Broderick wrote of the neighborhood south of Yesler, "Perhaps never in all history, certainly not in America, has there ever existed such a massive collection of the demimonde grouped in a restricted area." There were "parlor houses" with marquees, celebrity madames—among them Lou Graham, Lila Young, and Raw McRoberts—and piano "professors".
Scrupulous in their dealings, the parlor houses were completely tolerated by the city at the time, but there were also the far more controversial "crib houses" such as the Midway, the Paris and Dreamland near the corner of Sixth Avenue South and King Street. Each had a hundred or more cubicles "cribs" and they were not known for any particular honesty in their dealings.
In modern nights Seattle was a tourist city and most of it was polished, well lit and frequently patrolled. But to its long term inhabitants there were places best avoided, unless you knew the right people, and even then there were no guarantees.
If asked, most of the frayed souls that drifted in and out of this less then wholesome community had no idea why it was sometimes called the "the Dead Line". There was nothing especially menacing about the East-West street immediately south of Pioneer Square. Yet, just beyond it, the rules were different. It wasn't the coppers that kept the law South of Yesler Way.
Once one crossed the line it didn't take more then a few steps for the atmosphere to make its shift. Arriving travelers found themselves presented with a veritable feast of debauchery and temptation, that manifested in harsh neon signs, narrow streets and shadowed entryways. Any of which could lead one to the dives, dumps, pawnshops, hash houses or dope parlors. It was the kind of place one could find practically anything, if they knew which door to knock on.
Perhaps the only safe haven in the neighborhood in the 1950's was a saloon called "Our House", which not only still stood, but was still in business. Ownership passed along again and again over the years to someone capable of enforcing the rule of neutral ground, set it was said, by the original owner.