naming of the tenderloingreenspun.com : LUSENET : San Francisco History : One Thread |
I was having dinner in the city during the lightning storm a week ago and one of the guests at the table asked me where the "Tenderloin" got its' name. I was embarassed because I knew once this answer, but no more. Any help?
-- Leslie Curry (funnyduk@earthlink.com), October 04, 2001
This is becoming a faq. See messageshttp://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006Utr
http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005vfG
from this board and messages
http://zpub.com/sf50/sf/m2001c.htm#752
http://zpub.com/sf50/sf/m2001j.htm#1138
from the san francisco history (zpub) archive
-- Bob Verbrugge (bob_verbrugge@compuserve.com), October 04, 2001.
Well, it was named perhaps innocently by a police officer in New York which he gave to the name of the old 29th precinct in 1887. The officer said that he was happy to work in that area because the extra money he could make from the graft would allow him to eat tenderloin instead of cheap chuck steak. There were swarms of prostitutes in the area and he would not see anything if he were paid a fee. The name was very appropriate for this area of prostitution. And so, many other areas of cities that have swarms of prostitutes are also called the Tenderloin. Note: remove stardash in email address for emailing.
-- Harry Murphy (harrymurphy@my-deja.com*), October 28, 2001.