The Stingaree was a neighborhood in downtown San Diego from the boom of the 1880s until it was demolished during a vice eradication campaign of 1916.
[1] Because of this, and it's working class origins, it had a reputation as the home to the city's "undesirables", including prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers and gamblers.
Additionally, the neighborhood was home to many other working-class citizens, and was in the center of a wider blue-collar residential area encompassing much of the city south of Broadway.
[2] Though the name "Stingaree" (a colloquial pronunciation of "stingray") refers primarily to the period before 1916, the neighborhood's character as a red-light district lasted until its massive redevelopment in the 1980s.
The Health Department identified them as First and Fifth Avenues to the west and east, and Market and K Streets to the north and south.
[5] At the height of San Diego's real estate boom, Earp made up to $1,000 a night in profit.
[1] This, together with a decline in Chinese fishing due to the fear of being blocked readmission into the country from the waters, led to the creation of a thoroughly impoverished and ghettoized population.
[citation needed] When Emma Goldman came to speak in San Diego, she was driven out of town by vigilantes.
They acted against the recommendations San Diego police chief Keno Wilson, who believed that this would simply spread prostitution into other parts of the city.
Many of the neighborhood's residents—and modern red-light uses—were removed with eminent domain, tax increment financing and other strong-arm techniques.