tenderloin district

Definition

tenderloin district rate

(Adult / Slang)

1. A city district largely devoted to vice. Synonym: 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 .'