tenderloin:
Or: tenderloin-district :1. A city area or district largely devoted to vice. Synonym: flesh-pot area (of a city); red-light-districk .
2. Historically, New York city's main vice district in the 1880-90s along Sixth Avenue and its side streets , generally between Fifth and Seventh avenues.
QUOTE: Charles Panati, Sexy Origins and Intimate Things (1998): ' Manhattan police officer, Alexander Williams, is thought to be responsible for the phrase "tenderloin district." As the story goes: In 1876, Williams was assigned to New York Citys old 29 th precinct, extending from 23 rd Street to 42 nd Street west of Broadway. The vice-ridden area was notorious for its graft and prostitution . Williams liberally helped himself to illegal cash and boasted that his new assignment allowed him to switch from eating cheap , tough chuck steak to expensive tenderloin cuts . Soon, among police, "tenderloin" meant any vice-filled neighborhood where easy cash could be picked up ; and, probably because "loin" has sexual connotations, the word "tenderloin-district " quickly came to mean an area filled with prostitutes .'
See Also: red-light districk, tenderloin, tenderloin district
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