Chicago's Murder Problem

When was Chicago Leave It To Beaver land? That poem we read in high school, "Chicago," didn't paint a picture of an upscale neighborhood? Those women under gas lamps luring farm boys. Why should one care about a city that never seemed to go beyond the 19th century in gentility?

I think those" ladies of the night" turned their "gas lamps" days into big money, when they decided to set up their ( trick) business on the SouthSide, where most of their patrons were well heeled men, who were sick of their sex-less wives.

Many of the "girls" were Polish Americans, others were mainly Irish-Americans. While their occupation may sound tasteless to us today, their sex business kept many of their homes in upscale neighborhoods and it also put their kids through college as well as Catholic seminaries.

It also saved them from a very dirty life in the StockYards" killing pits".

Have you ever heard of the Chicago term "Bucket of Blood"?

Trump, as the next President of the US might just be the person to move into Chicago and rid the City of the street gangs.

Never heard of the Chicago term for anything, other than Black Sox for the White Sox betting scandal in the earlier part of the 20th century.

Regardless, in NYC, in the early 20th century, the Polish women of the night were Polish Jews. Every block on the Lower East Side had a dance hall and a brothel. The expression amongst the girls were, "work on your back and die of syphilis, or work in a sweat shop and die of TB." There were virtually no Irish women in the sex trade, nor Italian. For all the anti-Semitism in NYC in the early 20th century, Jewish women were considered quite the rage. There was a call to the pimps in that era that Jewish redheads were a hot number. Girls bleached their hair red and went out west to meet the demand. Most of the pimps were Jewish males. In fact, 80% of the jail inmates in 1900 NYC were Jewish males. There's a large Jewish social service agency in Manhattan that started in that era to assist Jewish women and their children with husbands in jail. It was my mother's generation that ended that by telling sons continually, "You are going to college." As you might be aware, all big cities have their own cultural history; many quite different. For example, the Boston Irish are not like the NY Irish, by their own account.

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Boston Irish are not like the Chicago Irish. Boston Irish are unique due to the fact, that for a very long time ( even today), Boston Irish have fought against the Boston Brahmins.

In Chicago, we never had anything like the Boston Brahmins.

So, you read Studs Lonigan - The Trilogy?

Could be...

The Golden Age Of Chicago Prostitution:


http://freakonomics.com/2007/08/01/the-golden-age-of-chicago-prostitution-a-qa-with-karen-abbott/

Sunday 6/5/16: another major spread on Chicago crime appeared in the NYTimes.

Chimpago crime stats:
https://heyjackass.com/