Barbary Coast, San Francisco

The Barbary Coast was a red-light district during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in San Francisco that featured dance halls, concert saloons, bars, jazz clubs, variety shows, and brothels.

[3] The Barbary Coast's century-long evolution passed through many substantial incarnations due to the city's rapid cultural development during the transition to the 20th century.

[7] In 1849, these thugs began to call themselves the Regulators as they harassed Mexicans and those of Spanish origin as well as extorted money from local businesses for protection services.

By the end of 1849, several ships from Australia brought former members of Great Britain's penal colony – including ex-convicts, ticket-of-leave men, and criminals – to San Francisco, where they became known as the Sydney Ducks.

[11] A newspaper of the day, the San Francisco Herald, states of Sydney Town: The upper part of Pacific Street, after dark, is crowded by thieves, gamblers, low women, drunken sailors, and similar characters... Unsuspecting sailors and miners are entrapped by the dexterous thieves and swindlers that are always on the lookout, into these dens, where they are filled with liquor – drugged if necessary, until insensibility coming upon them, they fall an easy victim to their tempters...When the habitues of this quarter have a reason to believe a man has money, they will follow him for days, and employ every device to get him into their clutches...These dance-groggeries are outrageous nuisances and nurseries of crime.

[14] Vigilantes, unauthorized individuals who use trials and lynchings to punish criminals, were not uncommon in the Old West, but San Francisco's Vigilance Committees were the largest and most organized of America's history.

[23] Now energized by wide public support, the Vigilance Committee set up shop in a large building near the wharf that included jail cells, court rooms, a surrounding wall to resist any military intervention; it was nicknamed Fort Gunnybags.

[26] Miners, sailors, and sojourners hungry for female companionship and bawdy entertainment continued to stream into San Francisco in the 1850s and 1860s, becoming the Barbary Coast's primary clientele.

During its early days, San Francisco had become a "wide" open city where police had little to no control in stopping the activities of gambling, drinking, drugs, and prostitution.

[27] The fact that San Francisco functioned as a port city meant that it was able to sustain large transient populations that were less likely to conform to social rules and regulations.

Dance-halls and concert-saloons, where blear-eyed men and faded women drink vile liquor, smoke offensive tobacco, engage in vulgar conduct, sing obscene songs and say and do everything to heap upon themselves more degradation, are numerous.

And Hell, yawning to receive the putrid mass, is there also.During this time, San Francisco went through much commercial growth and became an important shipping port, but matured to a level that forbade any more uprisings by vigilantes.

Initially the melodeons had mechanical reed organs that played music; however they quickly transformed into a kind of cabaret that had theatrical entertainment but no dance floor.

The deadfalls were the lowest of the establishments and had hard benches, damp sawdust on the floors, the bar was rough boards laid atop of barrels, had no entertainment, and their wine was often raw alcohol with an added coloring.

[39] The saloons hired women to exploit the men, instructed to pick customers' pockets, and then give half that money back to the management.

Small grog houses and deadfalls hired only handful of pretty waiter girls, but the larger dance halls and concert saloons employed up to 50 women.

[40] However, some of the concert saloons, like the Eureka and Bella Union, made an effort to have notable Barbary Coast performers appear in their shows and had attractive women for their pretty waiter girls.

However the city's financial boosters then saw an opportunity to clean the tone of the Barbary Coast, and transform it into an entertainment area that would be acceptable for every-day San Franciscans.

[44] Same-sex prostitution and entertainment that featured female impersonators briefly existed in a bar on the Barbary Coast as early as the spring of 1908 when The Dash opened on Pacific Street.

[48] Just before election time in September 1913, William Randolph Hearst's newspaper the Examiner, started a major crusade against the Barbary Coast and in a full page editorial suggested that it "should be wiped out.

[54] When Prohibition was adopted in 1920 and stopped the flow of alcohol to the bars, Terrific Street's block lost much excitement and its dance halls and concert saloons were replaced by offices, hotels, and warehouses.

[58] Some of Broadway's more famous clubs of that era included Basin Street West, Ann's nightclub, Mr. D's, El Matador, Sugar Hill, Keystone Korner, the hungry i, and the Jazz Workshop.

[59] At Ann's nightclub legendary shock comedian Lenny Bruce received his start in standup comedy and created a sensation which drew the attention of journalist Herb Caen and Beat poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

[60] Basin Street West started out as a jazz club but later hosted Otis Redding, Ike and Tina Turner, and Lenny Bruce.

[58] The hungry i club was a premier showcase of new talent and presented early performances of comedians Phyllis Diller and Woody Allen as well as vocalist Barbra Streisand when she was 19 years old.

[61] The El Matador club became popular by booking pricey acts like Oscar Peterson, and its audience occasionally included celebrities such as Clint Eastwood, Frank Sinatra, and Marilyn Monroe.

[63] Comedian Lenny Bruce made headlines and opened a national discussion on the First Amendment's freedom of speech rights when he was arrested at the Jazz Workshop for using profanity in his comedy act.

International Settlement's club acts, with their can-can dancers and old-fashioned chorus girls, were unable to compete with the incredible talent and excitement of the emerging Broadway scene, and by the early 1960s their popularity had fallen below a critical level.