Label
The Clerk Reports
Title
Declaring the intent to designate the building located at 19 S. Superior Street, Toledo, Ohio a historic landmark; and declaring an emergency.
Summary
SUMMARY & BACKGROUND:
The building at 19 S. Superior Street was constructed in 1900 as a saloon with boarding rooms above, a common building type in Toledo's early twentieth-century Tenderloin District. This district, so named after similar vice areas in other American cities, was located south of the central business district, roughly bounded by Washington Street, Swan Creek, and Michigan Street, with its densest concentration along the 400, 500, and 600 blocks of Lafayette Street.
The Tenderloin was Toledo's principal vice district, a neighborhood characterized by its saloons, gambling halls, dance halls, wine rooms, and boarding houses, the latter often functioning as brothels. Like comparable districts in other industrial cities, Toledo's Tenderloin developed organically in an area defined by transience and proximity to transportation infrastructure. The convergence of the Maumee River, Swan Creek, rail lines, and canal routes made the Warehouse District a natural hub for working-class laborers, sailors, railroad men, and travelers seeking inexpensive lodging and entertainment. This same accessibility also drew a wealthier clientele to the Tenderloin's more elaborate saloons and entertainment venues.
By 1904, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps documented as many as forty-three "female boarding" houses within the Tenderloin, revealing the scale of its local economy. The district sustained bartenders, musicians, cooks, cleaners, and tradesmen, creating a small but vibrant commercial ecosystem that revolved around nightlife and vice. City officials, seeking to contain these activities to a single area, assigned a select police force to maintain order within the Tenderloin. Among them was Detective Lewis B. Tracy, a figure remembered for his compassion and even-handedness. Known aff...
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