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MeatMan
12-09-06, 10:16
From Wikipedia.org

The "Combat Zone," in Boston, Massachusetts, was the name given to the adult entertainment district in downtown centered on Washington Street between Boylston Street and Kneeland Street. It extended up Stuart Street to Park Square. The name "Combat Zone" came from a series of exposé articles on the area published in the 1960s in the Boston Record-American newspaper.

The Combat Zone began to form in the early-1960s, when city officials razed the West End and former red light district at Scollay Square, near Faneuil Hall, to build the Government Center urban renewal project.

Lower Washington Street was already part of Boston's entertainment district with a number of movie theaters, bars, delicatessens and restaurants that catered to night life. It was located between the classic, studio-built movie palaces such as the RKO-Keith and Paramount theaters and the stage theatres such as the Coloniale on Tremont Street.

With the closing of the burlesque theaters in Scollay Square many of the bars began to feature Go-Go dancers and later nude dancers. During the 1970s when laws against obscenity were relaxed many of the smaller movie theaters that ran second-run films became adult movie theaters.

During the Combat Zone's heyday, some of the larger strip clubs were the "Teddy Bare Lounge", the "Intermission Lounge", the "Two O'Clock Club", "Club 66" and the "Naked I" which featured local celebrity Princess Cheyenne. Besides the strip clubs and X-rated movies theaters, numerous peep shows and adult bookstores lined most of Washington Street between Boylston Street and Kneeland Street. LaGrange Street, which runs between Washington Street and Tremont Street, was the gathering place for street walker prostitutes. Most congregated in front of, or near "Good Time Charlie's" at 25 LaGrange Street. All of these establishments are now gone and the buildings are being demolished.

The Combat Zone's demise can be attributed to a number of factors. Among them are the rising property values that made the downtown locations more attractive to real estate developers. In 1974, the Boston Redevelopment Authority began a containment policy by designating the existing businesses to be part of the official adult entertainment district known as Liberty Tree Park. In the 1980s the former Playboy Club and the strip clubs in Park Square were replaced by the building of the Four Seasons Hotel and State Transportation Building. A new Emerson College dormitory (and eventual relocation of the entire campus), Suffolk University administrative offices, a relocated branch of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, a new $300 million development which includes a Ritz-Carlton Hotel and a Loews cinema, and a renovated Boston Opera House all opened in the area in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A new luxury apartment tower is currently under construction at the corner of Washington and Beach streets.

The introduction of home video and the Internet made it possible to view adult movies and other erotica at home without going to a possibly dangerous red light district. Zoned out of the rest of Boston, the strip clubs have moved to the suburbs and become more up-scale.

Years of grassroots activism by neighboring Chinatown residents, aggressive police work and massive urban renewal projects instigated by the Boston Redevelopment Authority helped to stem crime and close most of the adult businesses.

All that remains of the former Combat Zone as of 2005 are two small strip clubs, Centerfolds and The Glass Slipper, along LaGrange Street and a few adult book and video stores on Washington and Kneeland streets. Prostitution and drug sales are still issues in nearby Chinatown, the Theatre District, Bay Village and Park Square.

Tomkat4848
12-09-06, 14:49
Meatman that was a great post on the old "Zone" which was pretty good when Kevin White was mayor and also during the tenure of Ray Flynn. There was the Hotel Touraine bar on the corner of Tremont and Boylston where you could hustle some nice ass and take them up to one of the rooms, which were fairly cheap and pretty nice. There were also a couple of dumpy hotels on Boylston near Washington (think they were called the Pilgrim and Puritan) that burned down one Saturday night/Sunday morning where a few people were killed. I never felt comfortable in those joints because I knew they were firetraps. But in those days there were plenty of drunken/willing chicks and you would grab the nearest available room. Also, there was no LEO problem.

Actually, the Diplomat Hotel on Berkeley St. just down the street across from Boston PD HQ was a great cathouse where the rooms cost $8 for a session and noone wore rubbers. Maybe it was luck or good judgement but I never caught a STD.

Phat Bastard
12-09-06, 19:08
Great idea MeatMan:)

Let me start the ball rolling with a picture, one that will bring back a lot of memories, most of them blurred with intoxication.

And what's my favorite memory of that very spot?

I was leaving there one night before joining the merry-go-round of hookers and mongers circling around the block and I stepped through the doors, stopped for a second to get my bearings, look left, then right and a quick double-take back to the left and there's a Zulu warrior wearing a loin cloth, hide buckler shield and a fucking spear coming right at me up the sidewalk.

I stood there for a second wondering if I'd seen Zulu too many times for my own good and then remebered it was right around Halloween.

I said something like "great fucking costume" and he smiled and said something I can't remember and just trotted on by.

http://*******.com/yz799c

Luke 777
12-10-06, 08:25
Great idea MeatMan:)

Let me start the ball rolling with a picture, one that will bring back a lot of memories, most of them blurred with intoxication.Featuring the Pussy Galore Stag Bar.

What ever happened to Princess Cheyenne? I know she was in hot water for practicing pyschology without a license -- did she beat that rap?

MeatMan
12-10-06, 08:54
PB

Cool Pic of the Naked I, if you guys have some classic clips of the ol Zone, share em!. I'm gonna get started right now! :D

Viejo
12-10-06, 10:05
in the old zone was a murder...this is from a post I made a while ago:

"The beginning of the end came when the Harvard football player, Andy Puopolo, was killed in a scuffle with a pimp. The pimp's hooker had relieved Puopolo of his wallet with the old 70's trick of putting one hand in a guy's crotch and the other in his pocket. At the end of his chase to retrieve the wallet, the pimp used a knife to end the scuffle - Puopolo was killed, and a friend wounded.

Kevin White, then the mayor of Boston, had declared the zone an adult entertainment area, and instructed his police commissioner, DeGrazia, to take a laissez-faire stance on the area. As a result the place was full of roving, young hookers who doubled as pickpockets. The real streetwalkers and bar-girls who worked Good Time Charlie's and The 663 hated the hordes of street thieves...club owners talked about banding together to do something about the problem, but could not agree on just what they could do.

Shortly after the Puopolo incident, DeGrazia left Boston and a new commissioner was installed, with instructions to clean things up. It didn't take long for the streets to get pretty barren. That lasted for a while, until the early 80's, when things began to get somewhat back to the original state - but never back to the craziness that marked the early and mid-seventies."

The second major incident was the murder of Robin Benedict. She was a dancer/provider who worked in the zone, mostly at Good Time Charlie's. She hooked a professor from Tufts who became obsessed to the extent that he put her on his payroll, giving her tens of thousands of dollars of his grant money. It was a rocky relationship and he got caught embezzelling. When he finally realized that he'd been taken all along and he snapped, killing her in his home. He got rid of her corpse and did so well enough that it was never found...but there was sufficient physical evidence to convict him and put him away. He's out of the slammer now, as is the pimp who did Andy Puopolo.

PsyberZombie
12-10-06, 10:23
The second major incident was the murder of Robin Benedict. She was a dancer/provider who worked in the zone, mostly at Good Time Charlie's. She hooked a professor from Tufts who became obsessed to the extent that he put her on his payroll, giving her tens of thousands of dollars of his grant money. It was a rocky relationship and he got caught embezzelling. When he finally realized that he'd been taken all along and he snapped, killing her in his home. He got rid of her corpse and did so well enough that it was never found...but there was sufficient physical evidence to convict him and put him away. He's out of the slammer now, as is the pimp who did Andy Puopolo.

Ever hear the old Joke about Robin Benedict ?? ==>

http://www.usasexguide.info/forum/showpost.php?p=419372&postcount=112


The Link there no longer works ; it was to a lengthy article on the case

MeatMan
12-10-06, 15:14
Despite all the stuff we read and hear - during it's heyday, the Combat Zone was no more dangerous than it is now. When it really became dangerous is in the late 80s when the city pushed the busineeses out. Then the city was left with blocks of boarded up desolated blocks of nothing. This is when the crackheads and prositiutes became a major problem. The city could have done a lot more to patrol it and clean it up, but they didn't.

The people that worked in and owned the strip joints, bars, book stores, and other places were mostly old guys and girls just living day to day

This puritanical backwards city of Boston will always be a minor league city. No adult entertainment, no convention business, no nothing! This is why so many are moving out from Boston. But I digress....Still looking for some vintage pictures of the Zone

Double Nickle
12-10-06, 16:58
The second major incident was the murder of Robin Benedict. She was a dancer/provider who worked in the zone, mostly at Good Time Charlie's. She hooked a professor from Tufts who became obsessed to the extent that he put her on his payroll, giving her tens of thousands of dollars of his grant money. It was a rocky relationship and he got caught embezzelling. When he finally realized that he'd been taken all along and he snapped, killing her in his home. He got rid of her corpse and did so well enough that it was never found...but there was sufficient physical evidence to convict him and put him away. He's out of the slammer now, as is the pimp who did Andy Puopolo.I read the book about this case (and others) long ago. Below is an excerpt from the NEW YORK TIMES review:

June 1, 1986
WHEN THE MIDDLE CLASS SNAPS
By JONATHAN COLEMAN; JONATHAN COLEMAN, THE AUTHOR OF ''AT MOTHER'S REQUEST: A TRUE STORY OF MONEY, MURDER AND BETRAYAL,'' WILL BE TEACHING NONFICTION WRITING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA THIS FALL.
THE PROFESSOR AND THE PROSTITUTE And Other True Tales of Murder and Madness. By Linda Wolfe. Illustrated. 228 pp. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $16.95. IN a rather curious, autobiographical introduction to the nine true stories in ''The Professor and the Prostitute,'' Linda Wolfe informs the reader that she is a ''psychological'' writer whose interest is in ''people who inhabit the middle class . . . people I, and many others like me, might know, entertain, work beside.'' She had hoped to become a novelist, but, concluding that her imagination was ''impoverished,'' decided to ''try using fictional techniques to fuel nonfiction'' -as she seems to see it, to go slumming with style.

In the title story, Miss Wolfe's reminder that such writers as Heinrich Mann, Dostoyevsky, Somerset Maugham and Zola all demonstrated an interest in ''the love of reputable males for reprobate females'' is unnecessary. The story of how and why William Henry James Douglas, a professor of anatomy and cellular biology at Tufts University's School of Medicine in Boston, became obsessed with, and later murdered, a comely prostitute named Robin Benedict in 1983 is fascinating on its own terms.

It is the longest and the best story in the book, and apparently the author agrees. In her introduction, she asserts that ''it comes closest to what I had in mind when I first dreamed about making real events read like invented tales.'' She portrays the two major characters well, but one of the main problems with this story - and several others - is Miss Wolfe's technique. She often switches to the first person, and this detracts from the effect of her narratives. One example: ''Douglas, I felt certain, . . . had been in love just that one time.''

Such questions and answers as ''What kind of man falls in love with a prostitute today, when sexual companionship is relatively easy to come by? The answer is, of course, a repressed man, a lonely, insecure man'' seem both flip and condescendingly simplistic. Cliches - ''feeling that life had passed him by,'' ''being in love is never a simple matter'' - and awkward language -''he would seek sexual surcease'' - are too frequent. By contrast, such lines as ''Douglas had killed, not someone he loved, but someone he had loved having invented'' infuse the story with a poignancy that eventually makes it succeed.

Viejo
12-10-06, 18:46
Despite all the stuff we read and hear - during it's heyday, the Combat Zone was no more dangerous than it is now.
...back when it was just beginning to take hold, in the early sixties. Back then there was still a major military presence in Boston, at the Charlestown Navy Yard and the Boston Army base. Every night there were loads of servicemen in town, and three or four Shore Patrol or MP paddy wagons. It was during this period that it won the name "Combat Zone" as servicemen experienced brawls in various establishments. Your greatest risk was to get caught up in a big beef. Other than that, MM is correct. The zone was always actually the safest place in the city.

The first joint I ever walked into in the zone was a place called, if my memory serves, "The Palace Bar." Located on the corner of Beach and Washington, before Charlie S's Pussycat Lounge occupied that spot, it was known far and wide as a real bucket of blood type place. I was only 19, but looked older...but the bartender who came up to me as I bellied up to his bar looked me up and down and said "You ain't 21. Lemme see some ID." As I groped for my fake ID, he said, "Aw, fuck it. If you've got the balls to come in here, you've got enough balls to get a beer. What'll you have?"

My next stop was Izzy Ort's Golden Nugget - now that was quite the place - a combination hooker bar and soul music joint. I happened to walk in on a night that had a performance by a guy who perfectly mimicked James Brown...can't remember his name - it was "Little Somethingorother" - great performance, and he had a sax player working with him who was incredible. It was here that I made my first connection with a lady of the night.

By the way, in an earlier post, which for some reason the edit option is no longer available, I refferred to Johnny M's bar as the 666 - that was a typographical error...it was the 663 Lounge. I spent many joyous hours there, until Johnny got set up by a vice cop who lied his ass off to give him a violation that eventually cost him the license...but that's another story.

Phat Bastard
12-10-06, 19:10
Despite all the stuff we read and hear - during it's heyday, the Combat Zone was no more dangerous than it is now. When it really became dangerous is in the late 80s when the city pushed the busineeses out. Then the city was left with blocks of boarded up desolated blocks of nothing. This is when the crackheads and prositiutes became a major problem. The city could have done a lot more to patrol it and clean it up, but they didn't.

The people that worked in and owned the strip joints, bars, book stores, and other places were mostly old guys and girls just living day to day

This puritanical backwards city of Boston will always be a minor league city. No adult entertainment, no convention business, no nothing! This is why so many are moving out from Boston. But I digress....Still looking for some vintage pictures of the Zone

Meatman, you're so right.

I've had a lot more problems mongering Brockton than I've had in The Zone.

Before they started closing the businesses (pre-crack and pre-AIDS) the place was wild but it was a good wild. After they started driving out the bars, strip clubs and peep-shows the place went downhill even though streetwalking was still going strong.

And backwards is right.
What kind of an asshole mayor builds an $800 million dollar convention center in a city virtually without adult entertainment?

Good job Mumbles.


Convention center article:
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/top/features/documents/01228210.htm

Phat Bastard
12-10-06, 19:45
...back when it was just beginning to take hold, in the early sixties. Back then there was still a major military presence in Boston, at the Charlestown Navy Yard and the Boston Army base. Every night there were loads of servicemen in town, and three or four Shore Patrol or MP paddy wagons. It was during this period that it won the name "Combat Zone" as servicemen experienced brawls in various establishments. Your greatest risk was to get caught up in a big beef. Other than that, MM is correct. The zone was always actually the safest place in the city.

The first joint I ever walked into in the zone was a place called, if my memory serves, "The Palace Bar." Located on the corner of Beach and Washington, before Charlie S's Pussycat Lounge occupied that spot, it was known far and wide as a real bucket of blood type place. I was only 19, but looked older...but the bartender who came up to me as I bellied up to his bar looked me up and down and said "You ain't 21. Lemme see some ID." As I groped for my fake ID, he said, "Aw, fuck it. If you've got the balls to come in here, you've got enough balls to get a beer. What'll you have?"

Viejo, I'm jealous man, you remember The Zone in it's real heyday.

How's this for coincidence, The Pussycat Lounge is the first place I saw a stripper and got served....though it took two tries.
I went in there one hot summer night with a bunch of friends when I was in my mid-teens and the drinking age had gone down from 21 to 18 before going up to 20 then 21 again. The door at the corner was propped open and we just strolled in and stood along the wall near the bar ogling the dancer with our jaws hanging open. The bartender came over, asked us what we were having and like the kids who had never ordered a drink that we were, said "beer please" and he looked at us like the idiots we were and said "what flavor?"

Easy Going
12-10-06, 20:20
One evening, around 1986, I drove towards the Zone from a bar in Southie. I drank very, very heavily in those days. I was blind. I came out of a blackout, driving in the Zone. A couple of hours had passed, but I have no idea what transpired. There was a piece of cardboard passing around the car with coke on it. It turns out I had two lesbian hookers in the back seat. How they got there, I'll never know.

I vaguely remember them getting out of the car when the lines were gone. I went into some strip bar in the Zone. I spent the rest of the night there, drinking more. One dancer was lactating and she constantly sprayed her milk all over me (and others) as she was dancing. I mean, she was shooting streams and gobs of breast milk all over the freaking place. For some drunken reason, I was loving it. At that time, for me, I lived for the kink.

In the midst of this drunken haze, I somehow managed to pick up another dancer. She must have been way messed up to deal with me. I vaguely remember driving back to Somerville, Davis Square, to my apartment. Which I shared with my fiancee, who was out of town for a couple of days. I somehow banged this dancer (no fee), came to in the morning, and just left and went to work.

Yup, I left a passed out dancer in my bed, my fiancee's bed too. Just took off.

I came home from work that night and she obviously had taken a shower, but amazingly nothing looked out of place. Oh, I freaked out and searched the apartment over and over for anything that was missing; or anything that did not belong. But it was clean!

I wonder what she remembers ...

Gansett
12-11-06, 09:18
This thread brought back some good memories and few chuckles. My dad had glaucoma and was involved in some medical trials in the early 80's, I think it was thru Tufts. I'd drive him up every month for his checkup and no trip was complete without a trip thru the zone. The stuff he got away. He'd tell the girls he "could see with his fingers" and he'd have his hands all over them with no objections. Dad was pretty cool.
He had a reaction to meds one time and they put him in the hospital overnight for observation. My plan when I left the hospital was to get a few drinks, go back and sleep in the car. Went to the bar we always went too, wish I could remember the name but when they heard he was hospitalized one dancer took pity on me. Ended up with her taking me back to her place for the night.
While the girls back then, like now were in it for the $$$ it seemed they cared a bit more.

MeatMan
12-11-06, 10:02
I'm not sure if you guys were livng in Boston at the time, but I remember riding the Elevated orange line going into Downtown Boston and let me tell ya it-was-fast!. It scared me to the point where I thought one day the train was going to fall off the tracks!

It would get you there pretty quick!, more so less than 10-15 minutes. Where I lived it was Egelston Sq. I would hop on the train and onward to, Dudley, Northhampton, Dover, then Essex(Chinatown T). I was 18 at the time, and every Saturday night around 11pm or so, I would see several hookers riding the train. I knew exactly where they were heading. I got off several times at Essex station and I used to stroll CT religiously. Hookers from everywhere!. New York, Chicago, Small town USA. you name it!

Also, if you guys remember, the lower end hookers used to work Washington St/Worcester Sq back in the early/mid 80's. That was one of my favorite spots!. $10 hookers by the boat load! they didn't look all that great in the face, but boy-oh-boy, they made it up for big fat asses!

Damn........ memories!

MeatMan
12-11-06, 10:10
Meatman that was a great post on the old "Zone" which was pretty good when Kevin White was mayor and also during the tenure of Ray Flynn. There was the Hotel Touraine bar on the corner of Tremont and Boylston where you could hustle some nice ass and take them up to one of the rooms, which were fairly cheap and pretty nice. There were also a couple of dumpy hotels on Boylston near Washington (think they were called the Pilgrim and Puritan) that burned down one Saturday night/Sunday morning where a few people were killed. I never felt comfortable in those joints because I knew they were firetraps. But in those days there were plenty of drunken/willing chicks and you would grab the nearest available room. Also, there was no LEO problem.

Actually, the Diplomat Hotel on Berkeley St. just down the street across from Boston PD HQ was a great cathouse where the rooms cost $8 for a session and noone wore rubbers. Maybe it was luck or good judgement but I never caught a STD.

Nice story!...I kinda wish I were an 18 year old back in the 70's. I missed out on sooo much! :(

Boston Monger
12-11-06, 10:44
ary so friggin' hazy I can barely focuss. I never thought it would end, but it did. Sort of like Nantasket, I always thought it would be there.

Viejo
12-11-06, 11:23
...I kinda wish I were an 18 year old back in the 70's. I missed out on sooo much! :(
Imagine being able to stroll along Washington, Tremont or Columbus, from deep in the south end up into the Zone, out Boylston into the back bay, along Newbury, Marlborough, Commonwealth and Beacon, down Mass Av into the area around Symphony Hall and beyond, along Huntington and the side streets - and all of this without failing to see one or more SW's for more than a few minutes! The action started all over the city beginning mid-evening in the more active areas, and by 2am the all the strolls were going strong.

Not only was the action plentiful, the quality was pretty good...if you drove along Tremont, Columbus or Washington, you would hear the voices of the SW's offering "Ten and Two!" That was ten for the action, and two bucks for the room - and only a guy who was foolish and/or stupid would park his car and go into one of those rooms. Car dates were done right on the main drags, with LE driving by apparently with blinders on.

Some of the women working the Back Bay were among the best looking and performing SW's in Boston...they congregated at "The Bulkie" on Boylston Street, a deli style restaurant that was on the lower level - you had to go downstairs from the street level to walk in. In the early morning hours, most of their business was from SW's and mongers. You didn't even have to drive around...if you could find a parking spot close to the entrance, you could just sit there and take your pick as the girls arrived and left. It was the same at Jack and Marion's on Harvard Street, where SW's who wanted to get a bit away from the strolls would go.

One night, cops were rousting girls as they arrived and left. There was a particularly good looking SW in the Bulkie, and I was getting a coffee to go. We were both ready to go at the same time, so I told her to take my arm rather than run the gauntlet - she looked good enough to pass as any guys date/girlfriend - and we walked out like we owned the place. The cops didn't even look at us. From that night on, she figured she owed me, so I got lots of discounted action from her.

MM, for you it would have been like being a chocahaulic in a chocolate factory...

Cruiser D
12-12-06, 09:07
The good old days is generally dependant on when your youth teens-twenties was. But of course in this case anyone who took looking for SWs in Boston after 2001 was/is screwed.

I used to hit the Oak - Tyler - Washington - Harrison loop during the early to mid 90's strictly as a tourist - after the clubs let out at 1am they rolled the sidewalks up in Boston. Now, you have a few more choices if you don't want to pack it in. I cruised the loop a few times and was absolutely amazed by the talent and dress of some of the girls. I took up things as an active participent around 97 or 98, I can't remember which. I got a couple of good years in but you could see things starting to wind down as the new buildings went up - I think the new Ritz was the offical unoffical start of the war on the Zone. Things really hit the skids when the BPD started barricading Tyler off. I don't think that actually did anything, it was just around the time things started to dry up. Cortes and Isabella picked up the slack - along with the PA. But it only lasted for a season or two.

MeatMan
12-12-06, 10:06
Viejo,

I envy you guys who lived back then. 10 and 2? I am actually banging my head on my pc!. I do have a question, When the Boston Strangler came around?...I bet there was panic amongst the girls that there was a crazed lunatic killing women in Boston. I bet the action came to a immediate halt. I would love to know what it was like then.

MeatMan
12-12-06, 11:25
In this pic you can see Northampton Station. Look for the bus. Just a couple of blocks down from where the bus is headed, That's excatly where the $10 girls were.

http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/showpix?bmxpbmU9MTEyfDIyMHw0fDIwfHxQPS91cy9ib3N0b24vb3JhbmdlLmh0bWx8bnN0YQ==

Acaryu
12-12-06, 11:33
One can get a BJ in the strip clubs then fo 20 plain view of the club patrons. Some of the street girls were gorgeous. Pickup a nice looking Russian girl in Chinatown and she was nice. Adult bookstores everywhere on Tremont Street. Nice stripclubs in the combat zone. Massage and Photo studios everywhere. There have nice looking slim white girls.

WebDog
12-12-06, 18:51
In this pic you can see Northampton Station. Look for the bus. Just a couple of blocks down from where the bus is headed, That's excatly where the $10 girls were.

http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/showpix?bmxpbmU9MTEyfDIyMHw0fDIwfHxQPS91cy9ib3N0b24vb3JhbmdlLmh0bWx8bnN0YQ==
After seeing that website I feel better about *this* hobby. Glad to see there are people lower on the food chain!

But those photos are indeed interesting. The one you posted must be late-1970s, huh? When did they tear down the "L"?

It seems like everywhere there is an elevated train, prostitution is found under it. But must have been a "trip" cruising around above Boston rather than below?? I would take the ****** and the L over what we have today in a heartbeat!

Phat Bastard
12-12-06, 19:36
Here's a little something to tweak your memories.
Judging by the cruiser and the fact that Club 66 is still open, I'd say this was taken around 80-82.


Notice the lettering on the Pilgrim Marqee;

3 First Run

Adult Films

Open All Night


That had to be there for around 20 years.

edit:the picture didn't seem to upload so here'a link to it.
http://www.glowfoto.com/viewimage.php?img=12-153525L&y=2006&m=12&t=jpg&rand=8395&srv=img3

I'll try to upload it again later.

Phat Bastard
12-12-06, 19:56
In this pic you can see Northampton Station. Look for the bus. Just a couple of blocks down from where the bus is headed, That's excatly where the $10 girls were.

http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/showpix?bmxpbmU9MTEyfDIyMHw0fDIwfHxQPS91cy9ib3N0b24vb3JhbmdlLmh0bWx8bnN0YQ==

Meat, here are some great pics from your link.
It's the elevated train running down Washington at the corner of Herald and Washington where it goes over the Masspike with Marginal on the other side. It used to run right over that intersection of Marginal and Washington at the Josiah Quincy school where there was great nighttime and morning action.

I think it was torn down around 84-86 but I'm not sure.

http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?30474


And here it is running the other way with The Herald visible in the background. That was a fun corner for a long, long time.

http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?32718

Note that it says Boston Herald American.

It says they were taken on 7/30/79 and 7/31/79



And even though it's not Zone related, this pulls my heartstrings too. It's The Garden, circa 1975 when Orr was still a Bruin and the Bruins were still a real hockey team.
http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?37151

Tomkat4848
12-12-06, 20:43
Viejo,

I envy you guys who lived back then. 10 and 2? I am actually banging my head on my pc!. I do have a question, When the Boston Strangler came around?...I bet there was panic amongst the girls that there was a crazed lunatic killing women in Boston. I bet the action came to a immediate halt. I would love to know what it was like then.Meatman,

The Boston Strangler was very active in the early 1960's. I think about 20 women were stangled and women living in downtown Boston and the outer sections of the city were scared shit. Some of those killings may have been copycats but they finally got Albert DiSalvo to admit to the murders. I think Albert liked the limelight but I am not sure he was the "Strangler" because they never conclusively proved who did them. Albert wound up in Bridgewater for a while and then I think he went to Walpole where someone knifed him. Anyway the stranglings ended and the panic in the city disappeared.

I don't think the panic was bad enough to halt the action at least not as far as I could see. I think the overall effect on Boston nightlife was minimal. And I don't remember that he targeted hookers. There were plenty of women who wanted to party and they did. Everyone got laid in the 60's. It was a good time to be around and Boston was a good city then, not like now.

WebDog
12-13-06, 00:20
Here's a little something to tweak your memories.
PB,

That is an awesome picture! I would love to have that framed! What is the origin?

Viejo
12-13-06, 00:42
Viejo,

..... I do have a question, When the Boston Strangler came around?...I bet there was panic amongst the girls that there was a crazed lunatic killing women in Boston. I bet the action came to a immediate halt. I would love to know what it was like then.
...there was little effect on the street action. Women all over town were cowering behind closed and locked doors, but because DeSalvo's MO was to talk his way into an apartment and do his dirty deeds, the SW's weren't too worried about him. I don't really think there was a significant drop in the action - at least I don't remember having any greater difficulty finding the action during the two years he terrorized the city. (62-64) It took more than a few serial killings to halt the pay to play industry juggernaut.

By the way, if you are at all into economic trivia, think about this: if a halfnhalf was 30 bucks in 1963, and can be had in today's economy for 60-80 bucks with some effective negotiation, what does that tell you about the marginal productivity of the average hooker? Compare the value of the 1963 dollar to the 2006 dollar - the purchasing power of the 60's buck was almost 10 times what it is today!!

Phat Bastard
12-13-06, 07:52
PB,

That is an awesome picture! I would love to have that framed! What is the origin?

I don't remember exactly where I got it but I think it was a header for an article.

I spent hours looking for Zone pics and I only found about six including that one and all of them are undersized.

It's actually even smaller than how I posted it and I had to blow it up a bit.

Here's the original if you want it.

http://www.glowfoto.com/viewimage.php?img=13-034705L&y=2006&m=12&t=jpg&rand=4394&srv=img3

MeatMan
12-13-06, 14:21
By the way, if you are at all into economic trivia, think about this: if a halfnhalf was 30 bucks in 1963, and can be had in today's economy for 60-80 bucks with some effective negotiation, what does that tell you about the marginal productivity of the average hooker? Compare the value of the 1963 dollar to the 2006 dollar - the purchasing power of the 60's buck was almost 10 times what it is today!!


Yeah I could see that back then...Damnit I envy you guys!. None the less and not to take the Combat Zone history off-topic? I was in Thailand for 9 weeks amd let me tell ya. 10USD can go veeeeery far in Pattaya, but I won't go there!:D

Virile Vito
12-13-06, 22:51
This is really a fascinating thread - its really interesting to hear about what the area was like in its heyday. Thanks to MeatMan for creating the thread so the discussion could continue w/o guys feeling they were cluttering the regular board.

The reports brought back memories of a few trips to the Glass Slipper and the peep show places near, back when my p4p career was in its infancy and, apparently, the CZ was endangered but not yet extinct.

I remember in particular one time at one of the peep shows, one hand was feeding money into the slot to continuing viewing and the other hand was holding my cock when the broad (who was sick or fucked up) just walked right out, leaving me staring at nothing but not wanting to go out and complain w/ a big bulge in my jeans. One of several learning experiences in the CZ, such as it was.

Best of luck to all,

Vito

Viejo
12-14-06, 01:55
Yeah I could see that back then...Damnit I envy you guys!. None the less and not to take the Combat Zone history off-topic? I was in Thailand for 9 weeks amd let me tell ya. 10USD can go veeeeery far in Pattaya, but I won't go there!:D
...350 baht nowadays. 10 bucks US went a long way back around 1968, but the exchange rate was a bit different then!!!

Little Tony II
12-14-06, 02:14
Well guys, You again have managed to stir some old memories of the Pussycat, Picadelly, Mardi-Gras, 76, Teddy Bear, Good Time Charlie’s, not to mention the “book stores with video booths and girls that would entertain you in those booths. You could score (get molested) without trying.

Don't forget the hot dog stand on the corner! Many an evening that was dinner and breakfast.

I remember going to the Playboy club, but can not say I repeated.

Holly shit. I remember it taking 30 minuets to drive one block through CT, because of the line of SW fighting over and climbing in the open windows of the cruising cars. Kneeland, Beach, LaGrange, etc. Even in the middle of winter!

Oh well, That is the past. Now it is a different story. Providence, and escorts are now more my speed. I occasionally look to the streets now. It is too much work, not reliable, BUT STILL ENJOYABLE.

Remember… every one has a different taste of strange.

Have fun!

Tony

MeatMan
12-14-06, 08:49
Hey guys,

Do any of you remember the pizza shop right in the middle of the Zone? It was right on the corner where now the new high-rise building stands? What was the name of that place?. A loooooooooooot of hungry hookers where in there like clockwork especially on Saturday nights. Not to mention the pizza wasn't half bad.

I actually picked up a BSW there on my way out for $30. We went off into one of the alleys of off Beach street and back then guys were scared to walk down dark alleys..and for good reason.

I want the zone back!!...Anyone wanna vote Mumbles out? the "family friendly" bastid!. What about us adults!?

Viejo
12-14-06, 09:21
....Don't forget the hot dog stand on the corner! Many an evening that was dinner and breakfast.1````````

I remember going to the Playboy club, but can not say I repeated.....


I too remember both...two Boston night spots at opposite ends of the spectrum. On the corner, the dogs were pretty good, and I drank a lot of their coffee.

As for the Playboy - I remember one evening being in the Living Room when Don Rickles was performing. The stage was sort of an oval, and I was seated at one of the far corners...I had my foot up on the edge of the stage. When Rickles got over to our end of the stage, he looked down at my foot, placed his arms akimbo and yelled at me "Get your goddam foot off my stage! What, do you think you're in showbusiness?" I looked back up at him and quipped loudly, "No, are you?" That stopped him cold, and he emitted one of his characteristic little chuckles, then frowned, pointed at me and said "I do the jokes here." and walked to center stage. After his set was done, he came over to our table and said "You bastard...you left me nowhere to go!" He bought us a round of drinks and sat and talked for a bit.

Yep...Boston just ain't what it used to be...

Phat Bastard
12-14-06, 21:36
Hey guys,

Do any of you remember the pizza shop right in the middle of the Zone? It was right on the corner where now the new high-rise building stands? What was the name of that place?. A loooooooooooot of hungry hookers where in there like clockwork especially on Saturday nights. Not to mention the pizza wasn't half bad.

I actually picked up a BSW there on my way out for $30. We went off into one of the alleys of off Beach street and back then guys were scared to walk down dark alleys..and for good reason.

I want the zone back!!...Anyone wanna vote Mumbles out? the "family friendly" bastid!. What about us adults!?


I was saving this for just the right monent.


Ask and ye shall receive....

http://www.glowfoto.com/viewimage.php?img=14-173152L&y=2006&m=12&t=jpg&rand=3188&srv=img3

Before and after to show what it was and what it has become.

Cheap food and cheap women....can't go wrong with that.


If anyone can upload that pic to their post please do so, they're just not uploading for me.

MeatMan
12-14-06, 22:18
I was saving this for just the right monent.


Ask and ye shall receive....

http://www.glowfoto.com/viewimage.php?img=14-173152L&y=2006&m=12&t=jpg&rand=3188&srv=img3

Before and after to show what it was and what it has become.

Cheap food and cheap women....can't go wrong with that.


If anyone can upload that pic to their post please do so, they're just not uploading for me.

PB, you are the fucking man!...wow, look at that!. so long ago too. :D

Phat Bastard
12-14-06, 22:53
PB, you are the fucking man!...wow, look at that!. so long ago too. :D

It takes you back doesn't it?


I can almost feel the excitement again of turning the corner, seeing all of the flashing, blinking lights, seeing the people and wondering where to start....
....do I want to drink and watch strippers, or maybe get blown in that peep show place next to The Pilgrim or do I want to join the merry-go-round circling around and cruise the area looking for the girl with the roundest ass, hugest tits, prettiest face or whatever I was in the mood for.


If I had a time machine, my first trip wouldn't be to save JFK or MLK or Jesus or even shoot Hitler.

It would be to the Zone to do some drinking, some window shopping and enjoy the good old days for a while....oh, and take some decent pictures.

Fluff
12-15-06, 09:28
So who were your favorites in those days too long gone by? I remember this hot blonde, Tammy - last time I saw her, she was walking down Shawmut Ave, with a short plaid skirt blowing in the breeze, showing her almost perfect bottom. But before Tammy, there was Squid, whose name derived from her oral talents. Anyone remember these two SWs?

MeatMan
12-15-06, 20:35
Just looking at that picture PB brings me back to a time when I was a security guard for State Street Bank in the early 90's. I used to work the 4-12 shift and as soon as my relief came in, I was out the door in a flash!. This was during the summer. I would head down to the ATM nearby financal Ctr. and take out at least 50 bucks for fun. Of course this was on weekends mind you had I'd been going there regularly, I'd be one broke fool!.

Anyway, when I got to the zone, I would often times pop into Club 66 or the Naked I. When I was done there, I would go looking for a good girl on the prowl, now, if some of you guys remember, some the girls would never pick up black guys! Why to this day I still don't know. My money was just as good as anyone elses, but I was persistent. I've gotten some lays in the Zone! :)

MeatMan
12-15-06, 20:41
Guys,

What was the name of the place where they used to show 3MM 1st run peep shows where now CVS sits. I LOVED that place. They also had the carousel girls too. Was it Liberty Book Shop 1? The place was well kept. They also had seperate films for gay and straight on the second floor. Quite a few women used to pop in there from time to time as well!

Phat Bastard
12-15-06, 22:02
Guys,

What was the name of the place where they used to show 3MM 1st run peep shows where now CVS sits. I LOVED that place. They also had the carousel girls too. Was it Liberty Book Shop 1? The place was well kept. They also had seperate films for gay and straight on the second floor. Quite a few women used to pop in there from time to time as well!

That was the original Liberty Book alright. It was on the left on the next block up from the one with the Naked I and Pilgrim with a parking lot just past it. At the back of the parking lot was some gay or sex oriented club named Eros or Aquarius or some shit. I think it had the symbols for man and woman, you know the two circles, as part of the sign.

I came out of the Liberty one night and headed over to my truck in the lot and the trendy little clubgoers were just all over it, sitting on the hood, leaning against it and shit and I didn't say a word but just walked up to it, slowly climbed in, started it and just casually drove off like they weren't even there while they went rolling off and crashing to the ground......man it was hilarious......but heck, nowadays you go to jail for doing shit like that.

But The Liberty....you walk in and there were stairs for the upstairs theaters then the book store with the counter on the left and the door for the rear section at the back of the room. Then you go through that door and it was peep booths, then the counter where you got tokens, then the carousel on the right and a line of rap-booths with phones along the hallway on the left.
That carousel could be pretty traumatic if you made the mistake of looking at anything but the girl. Look across and you'd see some dirty old mans face pressed against the window of his booth as he spanked it....or worse....

Phat Bastard
12-15-06, 22:24
Just looking at that picture PB brings me back to a time when I was a security guard for State Street Bank in the early 90's. I used to work the 4-12 shift and as soon as my relief came in, I was out the door in a flash!. This was during the summer. I would head down to the ATM nearby financal Ctr. and take out at least 50 bucks for fun. Of course this was on weekends mind you had I'd been going there regularly, I'd be one broke fool!.

Anyway, when I got to the zone, I would often times pop into Club 66 or the Naked I. When I was done there, I would go looking for a good girl on the prowl, now, if some of you guys remember, some the girls would never pick up black guys! Why to this day I still don't know. My money was just as good as anyone elses, but I was persistent. I've gotten some lays in the Zone! :)


Yeah, that was nice, those warm summer nights with all that fun to choose from.:)


About the hookers and black guys thing, you aint lying. More than a few girls mentioned that to me in conversation and not just back then. I know a girl who's worked the streets in the past few years and she won't go with black guys even though her boyfriend is black.

I know why and I tried writing it a few times but when I read it back it looked more like I was saying it so I edited it down, but it wasn't just blatant racism, it was the actions of a few, ruining it for the many, kind of thing and also because some of them were pimps posing as johns which led to all kinds of trouble.:(

Cruiser D
12-17-06, 11:08
Anyone else notice the new hole in Chinatown across from Centerfolds where a building use to be - I think that occured within the last week. Imagine being part of the demo team that has to clean the insides of the buildings out before demo - puke.

Black pimp - white ho - black john

Regardless of what you guys might think or what is told to you 90% of the girls working the streets have a pimp. 85% of the time that pimp happens to be black. I've had more then a few girls tell me their black pimp didn't want them dating blacks or for the matter hispanics - seemed like johnny white bread from the burbs was the customer of choice. Reasons, money and to a lesser extent the rival pimp thing.

MeatMan
12-17-06, 13:45
I hate stereotyping.

MeatMan
12-17-06, 16:33
Is that supposed to be a Joke ??

If not , you must hate yourself , because you stereo·type people like black cab drivers who won't pick up a pair of 'ghetto dressed' young black males because the cab driver doesn't want to get robbed & killed

You want some 'stereo·typing' ??

Try THIS ('http://*******.com/y5lk2j')

Any·one who can find enough footage of white·on·black crime to create a ten minute film is welcome
to compile it and post a Link to it here . Sixty year old lynching footage doesn't count

I'm black!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:

Stay on subject!.. Combat Zone Stories only!

Benchseats Rock
12-17-06, 17:13
Any·one who can find enough footage of white·on·black crime to create a ten minute film is welcome
to compile it and post a Link to it here . Sixty year old lynching footage doesn't count

Why bother watching video tape? Come to Baltimore for the weekend and see it for yourself. It sucks, it's ugly, but it's the plain and simple truth.

Phat Bastard
12-17-06, 17:32
I'm black!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:

Stay on subject!.. Combat Zone Stories only!


Meat's right, let's can the racial discussion.

Anyone else recognize this place?



I've been there but believe it or not, don't have any interesting or even semi-interesting stories to tell.

MeatMan
12-17-06, 18:19
Meat's right, let's can the racial discussion.

Anyone else recognize this place?



I've been there but believe it or not, don't have any interesting or even semi-interesting stories to tell.

PB how in the hell do you do it?! you must be working overtime!.:D

I've been to that place a few times and the action was great and often times subpar. I chatted with a couple of the strippers there in light-hearted conversation. Sone were drop dead delicious, but then it started to die down. If I recall the last time I was there (circa 1987), they had a woman on stage...and let's just say more guys were concentraiting on there drinks. She said something to the effect: "You guys aren't throwing any money on stage? WTF guys!? "

Overall, I've had decent times there, but nothing out of the ordinary to write about.

Great pic... Awesome!:)

Phat Bastard
12-17-06, 20:59
PB how in the hell do you do it?! you must be working overtime!.:D

I've been to that place a few times and the action was great and often times subpar. I chatted with a couple of the strippers there in light-hearted conversation. Sone were drop dead delicious, but then it started to die down. If I recall the last time I was there (circa 1987), they had a woman on stage...and let's just say more guys were concentraiting on there drinks. She said something to the effect: "You guys aren't throwing any money on stage? WTF guys!? "

Overall, I've had decent times there, but nothing out of the ordinary to write about.

Great pic... Awesome!:)

No matter how hard I search, I can't find any more than the few I have left to post and they're not even good ones:(

Like The Combat Zone itself, the pics too are at an end.
What I need is access to The Heralds or The Globes picture archives....there are great pics in there I'm sure.

Or video.

I'd love to get some of the news reports they used to run about prostitution. I used to love seeing girls I knew on the news:)

Viejo
12-17-06, 22:44
I wish I had a photo of the Intermission's interior...but let me try to paint a picture with words...

Just as it is at Cheaters in Providence, the old Intermission didn't try to be anything other than what it was - the sleaziest strip joint in town. Most of us thought that was a good thing.

When you walked in the door you entered to the left side of the main room. The air had an almost indescribable odor - obviously resulting from the combined odors of perfume, sweat, spilled beer, dirty ashtrays and...well, you can guess the rest.

The stage was surrounded by the main bar, and there were two raised bars that were served by waitresses, one to the rear, and one to the right of the main bar. The stools that surrounded the redish-orange bars were in varying stages of decay, with their plastic covers cracked and partially missing. On the bar were those large metal ashtrays that looked like flying saucers. There were usually two bartenders working at night, and they were, like most strip club bartenders, not overly interested in ceremony or courtesy. Each dancer did three song sets, selecting her music from a jukebox.

The dancers made their way around the bars, hitting on customers for drinks, most often with a little grope to provide incentive. The best seats for hanky-panky were along the two raised bars...there you could buy cheaper drinks, and tip well for services rendered, which amounted to extended groping.

If you were well heeled and had a particular favorite, you could opt for the dark corner that was on the opposite the main entrance on the front wall. If you were sitting anywhere else in the club, you could see absolutely no detail in that corner, unless someone lit a cigarette. All it took to get into the corner was a large drink...the lowest cost that would get you there was 40 bucks. In the corner, you could buy whatever you wanted.

One night there was a power failure, and the emergency lights came up to full bright, revealing a dancer and customer in flagrante delicto - he was leaning back, an ecstatic expression on his face, and her head was buried in his lap. Most all of us couldn't keep from laughing as they tried to restore the level of decorum appropriate for that much light.

Almost each night the Boston Vice guys would walk in, and of course, all the dancers sitting with customers made sure that their arms were above the bar, and they assumed innocent, angelic poses.

It was a fun place....

WebDog
12-18-06, 10:56
Viejo's post is a hard act to follow. I wouldn't even want to try to top that.

Much more prosaic is the attached pics of the old Glass Slipper and the Liberty -- both of these found online (I take no credit for them).

The girl in the Liberty II shot I believe is the person who put it online, not a dancer. She found irony in the juxtaposition of "Girls" with the other words in the shot.

Boston Monger
12-18-06, 11:25
I was in my 20's in the 1980's, which was beginning of the end. Most of you guys posting stories are just a wee bit older than me, and probably were done with the clubs and bars. My encounters were probably more like drive by's. Not to go off topic, but Boston had so many places to pick up women (the Channel, Narcisses, The Rat, etc.) that the Zone was basically the last resort for someone young, dumb and full of cum. I ventured into a few establishments, but I more remember staggering around looking for SW's with not a care in the world. They were everywhere. I usually dropped $50 which in hindsight was too much. Now that I am in my 40'S, I wish I had the options that were there in the Zone.

Cruiser D
12-18-06, 19:27
I miss Narcisses too, and my youth..;) I think the old building is a furniture store or some lame ass shit like that.

Remember when all the clubs in Boston were either controlled by Patrick Lyons or Seth Green-something.

Heck, I also miss Tower Records and bumping into Amiee Mann there - anyone else remember when she worked at Newbury Comics - back when there was a 'bad' end of Newbury Street.

Web - the old GS is just a hole in the ground now. To be replaced by a gleamy new something in a year or so.

WebDog
12-18-06, 21:11
I miss Narcisses too, and my youth..;)
I miss both of those (Narcisses and *my* youth) -- Narcisses was one of last real clubs. Went to Axis the other night -- ruined.

BTW -- I think that Glass Slipper pic is fairly recent, but look at the sign to the right, looks like it says "Mini Peep Booths." WTF is that?

Viejo
12-18-06, 22:21
BTW -- I think that Glass Slipper pic is fairly recent, but look at the sign to the right, looks like it says "Mini Peep Booths." WTF is that?
That picture was likely taken just before the building that used to house the 76 club and the peep shows upstairs was taken over by the Chinese clothing store. They took down the peep show sign as part of the building's renovation.

I'll never forget the night that they had a fire in the original building...the 663 bar had to shut down while the fire department extinguished the blaze. Johnny M. - owner of the 663 - after clearing out all the customers, asked me to stay. He grabbed a paper bag and dumped the paper content of both registers into it, then handed me the bag. "Stick that in your coat." Then we walked across the street to the little restaurant that used to be next to the 66 (not the pizza place) and sat there watching the festivities. After the fire was out, we went back into the bar...there was no water damage, and only a little smoke odor, so Johnny re-opened! Within an hour or so, all the working girls were back...business as usual.

Nothing stops us from satisfying our primal urges, and where there is demand, there is always supply...

Little Tony II
12-19-06, 00:00
I miss both of those (Narcisses and *my* youth) -- Narcisses was one of last real clubs. Went to Axis the other night -- ruined.

BTW -- I think that Glass Slipper pic is fairly recent, but look at the sign to the right, looks like it says "Mini Peep Booths." WTF is that?


Do I remember that "Paul's Mall", "The Jazz Workshop", & "K-K-K-Katies" were in the building before "Narcisses", right??

Viejo
12-19-06, 00:28
Do I remember that "Paul's Mall", "The Jazz Workshop", & "K-K-K-Katies" were in the building before "Narcisses", right??
Pall's Mall and the Jazz Workshop were over on Boylston, just a few doors down from the Bulkie. Here's an interesting link:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sawyer/bbseq.html

Phat Bastard
12-19-06, 07:29
That picture was likely taken just before the building that used to house the 76 club and the peep shows upstairs was taken over by the Chinese clothing store. They took down the peep show sign as part of the building's renovation.

I'll never forget the night that they had a fire in the original building...the 663 bar had to shut down while the fire department extinguished the blaze. Johnny M. - owner of the 663 - after clearing out all the customers, asked me to stay. He grabbed a paper bag and dumped the paper content of both registers into it, then handed me the bag. "Stick that in your coat." Then we walked across the street to the little restaurant that used to be next to the 66 (not the pizza place) and sat there watching the festivities. After the fire was out, we went back into the bar...there was no water damage, and only a little smoke odor, so Johnny re-opened! Within an hour or so, all the working girls were back...business as usual.

Nothing stops us from satisfying our primal urges, and where there is demand, there is always supply...


So I noticed you didn't mention giving the bag back;)



Just a little factoid for anyone reading these posts but wasn't there, many of the businesses had 66 as part of their names because the addresses along that strip were in the 660's with The Naked I being 666 Washington st.

Viejo
12-19-06, 23:10
So I noticed you didn't mention giving the bag back;)

Considering that Johnny M's name ended in a vowel and he had many friends in the North End, it never occurred to me not to return the bag. Besides, he was a good friend!!

Phat Bastard
12-20-06, 07:41
Considering that Johnny M's name ended in a vowel and he had many friends in the North End, it never occurred to me not to return the bag. Besides, he was a good friend!!


The Johnny M that ends in O???

http://www.thebrothersbulger.com/images/john%20martorano.jpg

I'm surprised you didn't have pay the Vig when you returned the bag;)

Viejo
12-20-06, 07:57
The Johnny M that ends in O???

Not O - it was an A.

MeatMan
12-20-06, 08:41
A thought just occured to me...What was the name of the club between Kneeland and Beach Street? Anyone know? It was one of the oddest places to put a strip club. In a dark alley? Thanks

Viejo
12-20-06, 13:36
A thought just occured to me...What was the name of the club between Kneeland and Beach Street? Anyone know? It was one of the oddest places to put a strip club. In a dark alley? Thanks
...the Mardi Gras. It was the last place opened by Charlie S. He was the day shift bartender at Izzy Ort's Golden Nugget. When that closed, he bought a couple of cabs. Then he resurfaced when he opened up Good Time Charlie's, and started acquiring and opening new clubs. At one point, he owned the Picadilly, The Pussy Cat Lounge, Good Time Charlie's and the Mardi Gras, which was his last entrepreneurial excursion. It started as a strip club, but was just as much a hooker bar as was Good Time Charlie's.

Here's a little anecdote...Charlie was well known for sampling the offerings of various ladies of the night...he would take them into his office downstairs for a little BJ. Over at the Mardi Gras, there was a liquor storage room that he used for that purpose. One afternoon he took a girl in there, and was rudely interrupted by the police - turned out she was under-age...it cost him a shit-load of cash to get out of that one!

WebDog
12-20-06, 21:37
Someone a while back mentioned Bernie's

Sounded like a dive-bar holdover from the old CZ (in fact I think it was specifically described that way).

Where is this place? What is the story there?

Mr Spanky
12-21-06, 02:49
...the Mardi Gras. It was the last place opened by Charlie S. He was the day shift bartender at Izzy Ort's Golden Nugget. When that closed, he bought a couple of cabs. Then he resurfaced when he opened up Good Time Charlie's, and started acquiring and opening new clubs. At one point, he owned the Picadilly, The Pussy Cat Lounge, Good Time Charlie's and the Mardi Gras, which was his last entrepreneurial excursion. It started as a strip club, but was just as much a hooker bar as was Good Time Charlie's.Oh, the memories are flooding back reading this stuff.

I remember vividly the first time I walked into Charlie's - must've been 1980. Wall to wall hookers and a stripper dancing on the stage - if you could call it a stage - or dancing for that matter. I was there long enough to order a beer, and was approached almost immediately by a good looking, well dressed working girl who offered her services with those of her girlfriend for a mere .6. Sold, I said, swilled down the brew and met them at "her apartment" in the Back Bay someplace. The whole thing from beer to nuts popping took maybe an hour. Negotiate? Nah. Little head in complete control.

The other thing about these places was that the cost of a drink was reasonable. Not strip joint prices. If you couldn't find someone you liked, you could get toasted reasonably. Many a night I'd go from place to place until the litte head proclaimed: "Her!!".

Phat Bastard
12-21-06, 08:07
Someone a while back mentioned Bernie's

Sounded like a dive-bar holdover from the old CZ (in fact I think it was specifically described that way).

Where is this place? What is the story there?

Bernies Pub it's called.

It's on Harrison on the left (it's a one-way) a little more than halfway between Essex and Beach. There was a Pimp shootout in there in the summer of 99 (give or take a year). I saw the last Pimp standing come running out after I heard the shots and hop into his car and take off. The other Pimp was shot in the stomach and slithered into the bathroom until emergency services arrived.

Bernies is best recognized by the alley next door where, during the active days of the Zone, you'd be crawling along in traffic and you'd see some guy, who was so drunk he thought he was invisible, standing in the alley getting blown with his back to the traffic.

WebDog
12-21-06, 09:41
Bernies Pub it's called.

It's on Harrison on the left (it's a one-way) a little more than halfway between Essex and Beach. There was a Pimp shootout in there in the summer of 99 (give or take a year). I saw the last Pimp standing come running out after I heard the shots and hop into his car and take off. The other Pimp was shot in the stomach and slithered into the bathroom until emergency services arrived.

Bernies is best recognized by the alley next door where, during the active days of the Zone, you'd be crawling along in traffic and you'd see some guy, who was so drunk he thought he was invisible, standing in the alley getting blown with his back to the traffic.

Thanks man! Appreciate the G2. I love to find the seediest dive bar in any town. Figured in Boston at that was left was place where the no longer hablo english or otherwise I would stick out too much. But sounds like Bernies may be worth a try.

Phat Bastard
12-21-06, 23:44
Thanks man! Appreciate the G2. I love to find the seediest dive bar in any town. Figured in Boston at that was left was place where the no longer hablo english or otherwise I would stick out too much. But sounds like Bernies may be worth a try.


You're welcome for the info:)
G2's awesome isn't it!


But I don't think I'd bother going there. Maybe as little as a few years ago it was worth a try, back when the SW's would hop in for a drink (or whatever else) in between dates but nowadays I have absolutely no idea what kind of crowd goes in there.

Phat Bastard
12-21-06, 23:48
Many a night I'd go from place to place until the litte head proclaimed: "Her!!".


You know that's probably what I miss the most, being able to window shop until you saw someone you just absolutely had to have.:(



And then of course going over and having her:)

Mr Spanky
12-22-06, 02:11
You know that's probably what I miss the most, being able to window shop until you saw someone you just absolutely had to haveInteresting thing about those places back then was the variety and quantity of girls available at nearly any given time, day or night. Some of the women were moonlighting, likely looking for sugar daddies at these places - and they tended to be the best looking by far. I met a school teacher at Charlie's (or she told me she was - I believed her) and she was gorgeous and just incredibly sexual. Another was getting her MBA, ironically at the same place where my now ex-wife was getting hers, at the same time.

I remember the Robin Benedict thing clearly. I'd seen her in Charlie's on many occaisions. I remember the girls were all spooked until it was learned that her sugar daddy did her in. It didn't seem to thin out the population of working girls any, though.

Ah, the good days! And in my book, Kevin White should be annointed a member of the mongerer's Hall of Fame for creating the Zone!!

Viejo
12-23-06, 17:31
The title of Mr. Spanky's post reminded me of something about the 663 Lounge...it was a small place, a narrow, long bar with maybe 35 stools. It was all wood paneled, which when it was newer may have had a classy look - but the type of business being conducted there and the nature of its clientele had long removed any resemblance to an upscale bar.

In the early days, Johnny M. had his brother Mike working the bar with him. John was a portly guy who was quick to say "Fuck you, get the fuck outta my bar!" if you sufficiently pissed him off. Mike was an easy-going sort, but God help you if he lost his temper-if he lost it, he'd grab a copper ashtray off the bar, lean across and whack you on the head with it, and then follow that with a quick right hand to the face. It was a rare for him to lose it, and most of the time he was funny as hell. He worked the rear end of the bar. Right next to the men's room entrance was the trapdoor that provided access to the bar...one night as I was walking back to take a leak, I noted that Mike had an awfully happy look on his face as he leaned over the trapdoor. Then I noted that there was a girl under the trap, and that she was the reason he looked so happy.

The bar had a small alcove at the front, where a window allowed you to watch the action on Washington Street. There were a few stools there, and that area was sort of reserved for John's friends. If there was someone there who was not in that select group, and one of us walked in, John would buy the outsider a drink and ask him to move down the bar...only a few people ever objected, because John had such a winning personality. If someone said he did not want to make the move, John would say "I asked you nice to make some room - if you don't wanna do that for me, I'll ask you nice to get the fuck outta my bar!" He was a real diplomat.

From that window, you could observe an incredible scene...in the early combat zone days, Washington Street was full of people both sampling and providing the zone's unique and varied entertainments. Soldiers, sailors, SP's and MP's, civilians, young guys gawking, hookers, pimps and their highly stylized rides constantly orbited the block formed by Washington, Essex, Harrison and Beach. We used to sit in that window and laugh our asses off at the antics of people on the street in the zone.

As we sat there, some of the regular working girls would come up to the alcove and flirt with us, and once in a while one of us would lose his resolve to be a good boy for the night and accept an offer. Once that happened, the woman would leave by herself, and her "date" would leave a few minutes later to meet her at a pre-arranged rendezvous point.

I'd bet that if a place like that were to resurface, we'd all think we had died and gone to heaven...

MeatMan
12-24-06, 23:57
Gentlemen,

Mabybe I missed the boat, but The Glass Slipper is no more(Torn Down) and the Adult Video Store with the purple shading is no more(Closed it's doors). The End. R.I.P.

Viejo
12-25-06, 01:09
Gentlemen,

Mabybe I missed the boat, but The Glass Slipper is no more(Torn Down) and the Adult Video Store with the purple shading is no more(Closed it's doors). The End. R.I.P.
I was told by one of the owners that the Slipper would re-open across the street. Here's a link to a post about it being there, earlier in this thread.

http://www.usasexguide.info/forum/showthread.php?p=484539&highlight=slipper#post484539

Mr Spanky
12-25-06, 01:19
Gentlemen,

Mabybe I missed the boat, but The Glass Slipper is no more(Torn Down) and the Adult Video Store with the purple shading is no more(Closed it's doors). The End. R.I.P.It was inevitable, really. The Zone has been more CT than the Zone for a long while now.

In it's hey-day, it was the place to go for the pleasures of the skin.

MeatMan
12-25-06, 11:35
I was told by one of the owners that the Slipper would re-open across the street. Here's a link to a post about it being there, earlier in this thread.

http://www.usasexguide.info/forum/showthread.php?p=484539&highlight=slipper#post484539

That part I missed, thanks for the link and just to re-assure myself, I'll check later tonight after I'm done with the Christmas celebrations.

Fluff
12-28-06, 18:16
Back in those days of old, I was stopped twice with a SW in my vehicle, but the considerate boys in blue let me go each time. Anyone know if there is a record of those stops in existence somewhere? Anyone know how I can find out if there are any such records regarding me?

WebDog
12-28-06, 18:58
Back in those days of old, I was stopped twice with a SW in my vehicle, but the considerate boys in blue let me go each time. Anyone know if there is a record of those stops in existence somewhere? Anyone know how I can find out if there are any such records regarding me?

There are a number of online services which offer to dig up your police record, but I have tried a couple and don't have that much confidence in them.

If you really needed to know, I would find a criminal attorney who you trust and have them pull the records.

But consider why you need or want to know. There is a good chance that the process of confirming will bring to light something that would otherwise stay hidden.

Mr Spanky
12-30-06, 14:58
Back in those days of old, I was stopped twice with a SW in my vehicle, but the considerate boys in blue let me go each time. Anyone know if there is a record of those stops in existence somewhere? Anyone know how I can find out if there are any such records regarding me?Unless they arrested you, there's no record of you, personally, being stopped. If they arrested you, there's a paper trail and a court appearance, which you'd surely remember.

MeatMan
01-04-07, 21:09
Just a quick note...

Downtown Books has moved next door to the China Trade Center on Essex Street if my memory serves me correctly, but watch out!. Ya gotta avoid all the crackheads and druggies lingering about. I stepped into the place yesterday expecting something new and different. No go, same layout as when they moved. Unimpressed so I just left as quick as I came in.

Night Cruiser
01-05-07, 02:12
A few years back I needed a copy of my police record and I got one from the state itself. I just don't remember where I got it from but I did not go through any lawyer. I would start by calling your local LE department.

stay safe. NC.


Back in those days of old, I was stopped twice with a SW in my vehicle, but the considerate boys in blue let me go each time. Anyone know if there is a record of those stops in existence somewhere? Anyone know how I can find out if there are any such records regarding me?

Viejo
01-05-07, 02:22
I might be mistaken, but I believe that a formal "Police Report" is only generated when an arrest is made. As for stops/interrogations by patrol cars, many departments require officers to complete a "shift log" or "shift activity report." Those logs might or might not include references to specific stops that generated no further activity, depending on just how much an officer adheres to policy, doing everything "by the book." The bottom line is that even if log entries were made about stops and warnings issued to a monger, the odds are that they are buried so deep that you can consider them inaccessible. If they are really old, then they've probably been dumped.

In today's world of surveillance technology it's possible that a police unit might be equipped with video/audio recording capability that would make a permanent record of everything done, including the license plates of any car stopped, because now they simply enter the plate number into their online terminal to get all your info - and that query is logged.

It's well after 1984 - and Big Brother has been watching for a while now...

Black Treechas
01-05-07, 04:01
In the late 60's and early 70's there was a bar on Essex between Washington and Harrison. It was a bar that i got first got served at 18 or 19. It was on the south side of the street...as you walked from washington to harrison, it would be on your right. It did not have the volume of the 663, but it always had a few SW's inside. I would drink a bottle of pabst blue ribbon beer, and get a big jolley when I got propositioned with "want to go out?" I did not partake in pay-to-play at that age, but just talking to them was a big thrill for this very green teen ager.
I don't remember the day bartender's name, but he was a pretty nice guy. He had a brother or cousin in Chicago, that is where he went when he took a vacation. Anyone remember the name of the place?
About 1970 they began to have a band in there on Friday or Saturday night..with a sign out front that showed off their intellect with the words "Be 21 or begone."
By 72 or 73, it had become a strip bar...first place I saw pussy in such an establishment...this was when XXX movies began after the supreme court had ruled pornography could not be defined, per the "Deep Throat" case. Oh to be young again, sitting in that place with my Pabst.
Does anyone remember the Gypsies that hung out on Essex? They had a little storefront and would rap on the window as you walked by, motioning you to come in. One would take you in the back room, bless a 5-spot or a ten that you might have, and asked you to put it down the front of her dress. Anyone else get that proposition? Most of my money was hard-earned at the time, and i could never part with it for a feel...but i did enjoy the view a few times looking down there.
There were also gypsies on the second floor of buildings on Treamont Street, looking over Boston common...you could look up at them right from the Park Street subway station at the corner of Tremont and Boyleston. I never went up there.
Off the subject, anyone remember the great ice cream cones you could get on Tremont? I don;t remember the name of the place...was it a Brighams???
I saw how much the zone developed in 1977...full blown with the conservation booths, etc...wow. My next visit was in 2005. Two strip bars and a few dirty book stores, and no hookers...i remmber when there would be 40 to 50 SWs on Lagrange. Wow, where did it all go????

Viejo
01-05-07, 04:53
In the late 60's and early 70's there was a bar on Essex between Washington and Harrison. It was a bar that i got first got served at 18 or 19. It was on the south side of the street...as you walked from washington to harrison, it would be on your right.
There were two bars - Izzy Ort's Golden Nugget, where the daytime bartender was Charlie - who later opened Good Time Charlie's and later the Pussycat, Picadilly and the Mardi Gras. That place eventually became The Palomino strip club. There was another small bar that had both an upstairs and a downstairs, right next to a liquor store, just down Essex from the Essex Deli which was on the corner of Essex and Washington. I don't remember the name of that place. It sounds like you might be talking about Ort's...they had entertainment on the weekends - usually soul groups. One of them (I finally remembered his name when James Brown passed) was "Little Royal - The Real Brother of James Brown." He performed regularly there, and did an amazing Brown imitation.

As for the gypsies...yep - remember them well. I only went in once, and when it became obvious that there was no good reason to return, I made it my policy not to do so. There was another gypsy place only a couple of doors down from Jacob Wirth's - same deal.

Ahhhh yes...memories...

MeatMan
01-05-07, 12:05
Gypsies? ok you guys are talking about something I have no idea about. What was the deal?. Were they rip-off places? love to know!

WebDog
01-05-07, 12:20
I too would like to hear more about this. We are talking about Roma gypsies that do fortune telling, etc? I have personal interest in that and would love to hear more about the role of Roma in history of the CZ and Boston Underground. No need for a huge tangent or a new thread on gypsies (god forbid!) but would be curious to know if they did more than fortune telling booths.

Viejo
01-05-07, 13:56
Gypsies? ok you guys are talking about something I have no idea about. What was the deal?. Were they rip-off places? love to know!
...but I guess it would depend on what you consider a rip-off. What would you say about this scenario: Consider a doorway with a gypsy woman sitting behind the glass, tapping and motioning you to enter if you give her your attention. She sits before a curtain that veils what is behind her. You walk in, give the woman a five dollar bill, after which she mumbles some mumbo-jumbo that is supposed to be your fortune, while moving her hands about your torso, then down to the area of your fly, with a light tapping motion.

That's it. Maybe a much bigger offering would have produced more, but I never bothered to try and find out. My instincts, even as a young fool, were all screaming scam.

Phat Bastard
01-05-07, 21:48
In the late 60's and early 70's there was a bar on Essex between Washington and Harrison. It was a bar that i got first got served at 18 or 19. It was on the south side of the street...as you walked from washington to harrison, it would be on your right. It did not have the volume of the 663, but it always had a few SW's inside. I would drink a bottle of pabst blue ribbon beer, and get a big jolley when I got propositioned with "want to go out?" I did not partake in pay-to-play at that age, but just talking to them was a big thrill for this very green teen ager.


Off the subject, anyone remember the great ice cream cones you could get on Tremont? I don;t remember the name of the place...was it a Brighams???
I saw how much the zone developed in 1977...full blown with the conservation booths, etc...wow. My next visit was in 2005. Two strip bars and a few dirty book stores, and no hookers...i remmber when there would be 40 to 50 SWs on Lagrange. Wow, where did it all go????


I know, I know, and that was just Lagrange nevermind all the other streets:(

Those days are gone my friend, long gone by over a decade but you can still get a cold, delicious, frosty Pabst any time you like;)

Viejo
01-05-07, 22:59
Do you remember, Johhny Martins on Hanover street, next to the strip club?
I met Blaze Starr there, a real hot red head.
...I have to confess that my memory of that area is fuzzy...Johnny M who owned the 663 had a vowel as the last letter of his last name. I don't think I was ever in the place you mention, but I did have dinner with Princess Cheyenne at the old Durgin Park one night, right around the corner from there.

Black Treechas
01-05-07, 23:22
The gypsies were definitly a very tiny part of the zone experience. A lot of mongers probably never even saw them. A one armed man could count them on all his fingers. They were found in their storefront on Essex, and we talked to them once out on the street, on Harrison, I think. But oh, were they beautiful and mysterious...always attired in their native dress, complete with head scarf, jet black hair, medium brown skin, excellent figures, perfect boosoms, sultry deep voices.....great wet dream material for a 18 year old.
My guess is that they were never full service....they just wanted to give a teen age kid a quick thrill for as many dollars as they could get out of him.

Yellow Fever
01-06-07, 19:08
The name of the place was Baileys.

Ugly4385
01-23-07, 14:00
I remember going to the Naked I in the early 90's. It was my first time going to a strip joint.(I am from the burbs, sheltered ect..) Man was that an education in the art of T&A!! I still remember the first "piece" I ever "touched"(I was a late bloomer). Her name was Mahoney, her sister worked there too.

As for you lucky bastards who experienced the CZ in the 70's, keep the stories coming!

Thanks!

MeatMan
03-22-07, 11:41
Does anyone remember the Adult theather in North Station?..I do recall it was called the Pussycat something or other...can anyone comfirm this?

VilunyaChert
03-22-07, 17:22
Does anyone remember the Adult theather in North Station?..I do recall it was called the Pussycat something or other...can anyone comfirm this?

Yes, indeed, it was the Pussycat Cinema. I think there were other branches but that was the original.

WebDog
03-22-07, 18:53
Yes, indeed, it was the Pussycat Cinema. I think there were other branches but that was the original.
was that the "West End Pussycat"?? The Stuart Theater on Washington turned into the "Pussycat Cinema" which turned into McDonalds.

Member #4196
03-23-07, 12:50
So who were your favorites in those days too long gone by? I remember this hot blonde, Tammy - last time I saw her, she was walking down Shawmut Ave, with a short plaid skirt blowing in the breeze, showing her almost perfect bottom. But before Tammy, there was Squid, whose name derived from her oral talents. Anyone remember these two SWs?

Geezzz, I had some time on my hands and did some reading of past posts and Meat's post on the Combat Zone dislodged some great memories. After reading Fluff's post, I can't remember her name but there was a blonde who was hot who hung outside one of the video and book store and accompanied you into a video booth, got on her knees and gave great head and swallowed. Funny thing about the habits of today and the habits of the 60's and early 70's. She wanted money for her cigs and next can of beer in the brown bag. All that for ten bucks. Ah, those were the days.

Meat, thanks for dislodging those memories.

Member #4196
03-23-07, 12:54
Gypsies? ok you guys are talking about something I have no idea about. What was the deal?. Were they rip-off places? love to know!

Meat, again great thread here. Hit the gypsy circuit in Beantown, NYC and Cleveland and all I did was leave with a woody and less money in my pocket. Why did I always go there when I had a few too many, I don't know. I do know that I went zero for three in three different cities. Two were hot and did a lot of suggestive teasing and another fin would get you nothing but more teasing. Sort of like the lingerie modeling places of today.

Cruiser D
03-23-07, 18:46
It's hard enough to get the right facts from scholars. Nevermind Hollywood.

Rito1
03-23-07, 22:45
Geezzz, I had some time on my hands and did some reading of past posts and Meat's post on the Combat Zone dislodged some great memories. After reading Fluff's post, I can't remember her name but there was a blonde who was hot who hung outside one of the video and book store and accompanied you into a video booth, got on her knees and gave great head and swallowed. Funny thing about the habits of today and the habits of the 60's and early 70's. She wanted money for her cigs and next can of beer in the brown bag. All that for ten bucks. Ah, those were the days.

Meat, thanks for dislodging those memories.By the time I was old enough to go dt they started closing everything. I wish I could have done half of the stuff I read you guys did.

Sashimi
04-14-07, 17:05
Hell Meatman,

I remember the Old Howard in Scully Square.

Yellow Fever
04-18-07, 15:35
I used to go to the Zone in the 70's but my father told me about the Howard theater and Scully Sq back in the 40's and 50's.

Boston Monger
04-19-07, 10:02
Does anyone remember the Adult theather in North Station?..I do recall it was called the Pussycat something or other...can anyone comfirm this?
I f you look for it on Causeway, you will see the marque.

Tomkat4848
04-19-07, 10:34
Hotel Imperial, Crawford House was a bar/strip joint, forget name of joint across the street.

Joe & Nemo hotdogs, 10 cents...2 for 15 cents

24 Hour movie theatre in the square

Hanover street went from scollay sq. to the noth end, before the big tear down and the expressway was built.

Great live Jazz music played in all the strip joints.

A port town loaded with sailors.

U.S. NAVY/ COAST GUARD

Charlestown had a few good joints, Shamrock strip/bar

Blue Moon

You could walk the streets at night and never worry about some animal jumping you.

The 24 Hour movie theatre was called the Rialto. They had some great movies but the place was also filled with weirdos. One night 5 of us were
watching a flick and this little guy with a big nose sat in our row, a few
seats over. He pulled out this monster dick and started whacking off. Finally someone yelled "get that queer" and we went after him but he ran like hell out of the place.
The Crawford House was good but they had a lady (dyke) bouncer built like a fullback, who would sometimes check ID's and wouldn't let us in because we were under 21 at the time.

WebDog
04-20-07, 15:24
I have been promising for months to upload scans from the book I have on the old CZ -- "... a kind of life. Conversations in the Combat Zone." by a photographer named Roswell Angier.

Well I hit the motherload on a gallery site sell his original photos for $1,000s -- here are a the ones from the CZ.

If you liked you could buy these at:

http://www.gittermangallery.com/html/artistresults.asp?artist=1596

This guy is a Harvard/Berkeley grad from the 1960s -- albeit the dialogs in the book are good but not great. Frankly, you're better off just enjoying the pix here.

BTW - that creepy picture of the 'couple' is entitled "Mr. and Mrs. Steve Mills, Pilgrim Theater, 1973"

Some old-timers must know who Steve Mills was -- seems like he was an institution. And his wife was a stripper named Suzannah Lee. There is also pix (not in this group -- in the book) of some dark looking clown named "Silky Sivers." I am too young to know of strip clubs where you had clowns and comedians out between girls. Freaking weird to me, man.

WebDog
04-20-07, 15:25
Here are the rest.

The blond is Lorraine Gail who is on the cover of the book. She looks like she was quite something -- she was reportedly murdered a few weeks after these pictures where taken.

The book has about 4x as many photos as I have posted here (I just pulled these down from the gallery site -- still promising to scan the rest some day.)

The chick with the boa is named "Devil's Delight"

Another one featured prominently in the book is Coty Lee -- anyone know her??

Also, one of these pix is a dude who used to strip and wore a pubic hair wig. Anyone remember that?? I just can't imagine.

Viejo
04-20-07, 21:01
...Great live Jazz music played in all the strip joints....

In the 60's you could still find live Jazz - the Caribe, the New Showbar, the Downtown Lounge, etc. One of the musicians who played at the Caribe, a horn player named Willie Moses, became Charlie's manager at Good Time Charlie's. It was a shame to see the jukebox take over...

The strip-clubs were all seedy, sleazy and tacky clip-joints, but they were fun as long as you were smart and/or sober enough not to get too badly ripped off.


...A port town loaded with sailors....U.S. NAVY/ COAST GUARD...

There were a lot of Army guys too - the Boston Army Base dumped 24 hour pass-holders onto the streets to share the forbidden delights of the CZ with the sailors on liberty. Every Friday and Saturday night, MP and Shore Patrol vehicles were lined up along Washington and Essex Streets. Some of the more enthusiastic altercations that occurred there generated the name "Combat Zone."


You could walk the streets at night and never worry about some animal jumping you.
This is absolutely true - the primary area of the Zone was the safest area in Boston where street crime was concerned. You might get hit in the head by a flying beer bottle if things got exciting, but you weren't gonna get mugged there.

One of the most visually amusing scenes was the view of all the pimp-mobiles on Washington Street from the front window of the 663 Lounge. Classic early 1960's Lincolns and Cadillacs with outrageous Continental Kits, mirrors and color combinations made the Washington, Essex, Harrison and Beach Streets loop all night long.

All that, and the fact that the rest of the city was a giant open-air whorehouse, made almost unlimited enjoyment and pleasure the norm. Thinking about what it's like now makes you wanna cry...

Phat Bastard
04-21-07, 01:11
I have been promising for months to upload scans from the book I have on the old CZ -- "... a kind of life. Conversations in the Combat Zone." by a photographer named Roswell Angier.

Well I hit the motherload on a gallery site sell his original photos for $1,000s -- here are a the ones from the CZ.

If you liked you could buy these at:

http://www.gittermangallery.com/html/artistresults.asp?artist=1596

This guy is a Harvard/Berkeley grad from the 1960s -- albeit the dialogs in the book are good but not great. Frankly, you're better off just enjoying the pix here.

BTW - that creepy picture of the 'couple' is entitled "Mr. and Mrs. Steve Mills, Pilgrim Theater, 1973"

Some old-timers must know who Steve Mills was -- seems like he was an institution. And his wife was a stripper named Suzannah Lee. There is also pix (not in this group -- in the book) of some dark looking clown named "Silky Sivers." I am too young to know of strip clubs where you had clowns and comedians out between girls. Freaking weird to me, man.


Outstanding pics WebDog, outstanding:)

That "Sonny King Of Pizza" picture is just so gritty and real.
Fom his brylcream hair to his sleazy magicians beard, to the bad suit, filthy hands, dirty fingernails, filthy band-aid, ashtray and comb on the table next to his coffee, the man is a sleazy sign of the times. I just wish I could tell what it says on what he's holding.



Those outdoor shots in particular are like looking into a wayback machine.


Those Goombahs at the doorway to the Two O'Clock look like any one of my uncles did back then. Especially the guy on the left with his sleeves pushed up. I can almost hear him holding up his hand and (half-jokingly) threatening to give me a smack in the head for being a wise ass.

"Ya wanna smack in tha head?" "huh?" "huh wiseguy?"


I don't even remember the Naked I being "Jeromes" Naked I like it is in the black and white pic. I remember it as having the neon legs that open and closed like here.

Viejo
04-21-07, 04:29
...I was not certain that I could identify the alley that's in one of the pics Webdog posted, so I did a little photo processing to bring up the wall at the end of the alley - now, how many of you can identify its location?

Fluff
04-21-07, 08:37
Oh, what memories,

How many remember the all night breakfast joint in Haymarket sq.

The hole in the wall?

Another joint was after hours joint, walk up in Haymarket sq.

Forget the name

I was under age but never had a problem getting into any of the joints.

Yes, great breakfast 24/7, and what a crowd it would attract at 3:00 a.m.

Phat Bastard
04-21-07, 10:47
...I was not certain that I could identify the alley that's in one of the pics Webdog posted, so I did a little photo processing to bring up the wall at the end of the alley - now, how many of you can identify its location?


My guess is that it's taken from Boylston st facing south into the alley towards the building that was across Washington from the Two O'clock Lounge.

WebDog
04-21-07, 13:21
That "Sonny King Of Pizza" picture is just so gritty and real.
Fom his brylcream hair to his sleazy magicians beard, to the bad suit, filthy hands, dirty fingernails, filthy band-aid, ashtray and comb on the table next to his coffee, the man is a sleazy sign of the times. I just wish I could tell what it says on what he's holding.

There is no reference to what it is in the book -- the picture is a bit out context. But the story talks about him collecting canceled checks and other info in the financial district.

That pic of the Naked i (yours not mine) is how I remember it. I was trying to picture it from the B&W but couldn't -- the color brought back the memories, with the red plexiglass. I know the CZ from '89 on so I missed the heyday.

The book refers to what we now know as the "Naked i" as "Jerome's Lounge" -- perhaps someone with more history knows the story there, but it appears it was previously known by that name.

BTW - the alleyway pic is taken of Boylston St

Viejo
04-21-07, 13:40
...I just wish I could tell what it says on what he's holding.

I did some more photo processing to get a better look...I'm not sure, but it looks to me like he might have been holding his wallet, showing some of his identification - on the left it looks like a driver's license and auto registration. Why he would have been doing that is, of course, a whole separate line of conjecture.

WebDog
04-21-07, 13:59
I am always looking on eBay for nostalgia from the old CZ -- which is how I found that book. Here is a random item I would have loved to buy but missed out. I now recall but had forgot that the address was "666"

Also, that phone number hasn't been re-assigned -- would have thought it would rollover to Centerfolds.

Daty Man
04-21-07, 17:41
I was *in* the Naked I a couple of times -- it was a real clip joint with no mileage at all, but because i was so young I have these memories of the place. It had to be in the early '70s; the girls would get you to buy these $20 - $30 grape juice drinks for them to sit there with you. Thanks for showing these photos from the old Combat Zone days.

Viejo
04-21-07, 19:22
I was *in* the Naked I a couple of times -- it was a real clip joint with no mileage at all...
Clip joint extraordinaire...but there was "mileage" available. If you sat in the back bar with the right dancer, on the day shift, and spent enough money you could walk out fully relieved. Expensive - oh yes! But there was a full range of activity available, and if you wanted to experience something that was just not possible in a little booth because of the requirement for at least some discretion, OTC was easily arranged with a large number of dancers. And if you wanted to experience the maximum available festivities, you just walked diagonally across the street to the Intermission Lounge. Click here for a description of the Intermission if you never experienced its pleasures...

When you walked into the I, you went to the right or the left of a barrier that hid what was going on to anyone peering into the open doorway. The main stage was a long runway, surrounded by the bar that ran the length of the main room. If you went left upon entry, you sat at the bar, back to the wall, in an area that required you to walk all the way around the bar to get to the mens room at the back. If you went right, you could sit at the bar or in a small booth along the wall - but if you sat there, a waitress would soon broom you out of the booth because that was where she served whales buying champagne etc for dancers...that is, unless you were a regular. If you kept going, past the front bar, past the men's room on the left, you came to 2 steps that took you down into the back bar-"The Pussy Galore Room."

As you stepped down into the back bar, there was a small stage to your left, a low and a high booth to your immediate right, and 4 wooden booths on the wall opposite. The small bar, with about 6 stools was to the left of the 4 booths, and further to the left, at the end of the bar was the booth where the most action happened.

For many years the daytime bartender was a guy named Lucifer - he played a role similar to that of an air traffic controller. Instead of collision avoidance, his mission was directing customers and dancers into close proximity, promoting an encounter that would result in the greatest possible cash flow. His favorite waitress was Nancy-a tiny, pretty woman who had great technique in generating revenue.

Mileage? You bet...more than enough to empty your tank. It was a good place to hang out if you kept your head straight and your wallet in your pocket. A sage regular could make out very well there...

Daty Man
04-22-07, 02:28
Thanks for the description. I was anything but "sage" or a regular and wouldn't have known how to get mileage in those days or had the money. Massachusetts wasn't a great mongering place except for a couple of years when there were spas up and down Route 1 on the North Shore.

Phat Bastard
04-22-07, 05:06
In 1960, the Trans-Lux became the first Washington Street theatre to show sex films.

Two girls who worked the clubs, late 60's early 70's.


Last night your posts weren't between Viejo's and Daty Man's even though they have a time stamp from yesterday afternoon but now they are. You're a senior member, your posts shouldn't get delayed before showing up on the forum.


You should probably talk to Jackson about that and get it fixed.

Phat Bastard
04-22-07, 06:00
Clip joint extraordinaire...but there was "mileage" available. If you sat in the back bar with the right dancer, on the day shift, and spent enough money you could walk out fully relieved. Expensive - oh yes! But there was a full range of activity available, and if you wanted to experience something that was just not possible in a little booth because of the requirement for at least some discretion, OTC was easily arranged with a large number of dancers. And if you wanted to experience the maximum available festivities, you just walked diagonally across the street to the Intermission Lounge. Click here for a description of the Intermission if you never experienced its pleasures...

When you walked into the I, you went to the right or the left of a barrier that hid what was going on to anyone peering into the open doorway. The main stage was a long runway, surrounded by the bar that ran the length of the main room. If you went left upon entry, you sat at the bar, back to the wall, in an area that required you to walk all the way around the bar to get to the mens room at the back. If you went right, you could sit at the bar or in a small booth along the wall - but if you sat there, a waitress would soon broom you out of the booth because that was where she served whales buying champagne etc for dancers...that is, unless you were a regular. If you kept going, past the front bar, past the men's room on the left, you came to 2 steps that took you down into the back bar-"The Pussy Galore Room."

As you stepped down into the back bar, there was a small stage to your left, a low and a high booth to your immediate right, and 4 wooden booths on the wall opposite. The small bar, with about 6 stools was to the left of the 4 booths, and further to the left, at the end of the bar was the booth where the most action happened.

For many years the daytime bartender was a guy named Lucifer - he played a role similar to that of an air traffic controller. Instead of collision avoidance, his mission was directing customers and dancers into close proximity, promoting an encounter that would result in the greatest possible cash flow. His favorite waitress was Nancy-a tiny, pretty woman who had great technique in generating revenue.

Mileage? You bet...more than enough to empty your tank. It was a good place to hang out if you kept your head straight and your wallet in your pocket. A sage regular could make out very well there...


Your description of the place is dead-on.

Do you remember who the announcer was on the P.A.?

That voice is still in my head to this day: "Next in our Pussy Galore Stag Bar, the love-ly Jas-mine".
Sometimes, depending on whose name was called for which stage, there would be a mass-migration of customers going from stage to stage.


There was a short while many moons ago when I was unemployed and spending money in strip joints was off my list so I used to go the the liquor store on Essex right around the corner from Washington, buy a single bottle of beer, walk toward the Naked I and duck into a doorway on the way, put the beer in my sock under my pant leg, then walk in the "I", past the front bar and into the bathroom. Then pop into a stall, take out the beer and open it, flush the cap, then walk out of the bathroom and into the Pussy Galore with it like I'd bought it out front.

Then I'd turn and climb into those seats on the right where I could see the girls on stage but didn't have to tip. The waitresses would be on me right away but see that I'd have a full one and leave me alone....for at least a few minutes.

Since there was no cover then, I'd stretch two dollars and change into an hour or so at a strip joint.

Phat Bastard
04-22-07, 06:11
I now recall but had forgot that the address was "666"





Someone here mentioned it a few months ago;

I wonder who that was?;)


http://www.usasexguide.info/forum/showpost.php?p=487929&postcount=62

Viejo
04-22-07, 09:43
...Do you remember who the announcer was on the P.A.?

That voice is still in my head to this day: "Next in our Pussy Galore Stag Bar, the love-ly Jas-mine"...
I've been racking my memory for that name and so far have failed to bring it back - I am assuming you are talking about the older woman who used to do burlesque in Boston. She had a gravely voice, and before she did the announcing at the I she worked at both the Pink Pussycat and Boston Bunnies.

She used to say "And now for your viewing pleasure, here's Calamity Jane, direct from her engagement in Las Vegas!" - or direct from any one of several well known flesh pots around the world. And, of course, everyone who knew anything was aware that the girl was from Chelsea, and had never set foot outside the Commonwealth.

In your quote you used the name "Jas-mine" - I knew a woman who used that name at the 66, Picadilly, the I and then at the Glass Slipper - she was in the business for 17 years...a real hustler, and one of the sexiest looking dancers in the zone. It hit me that you might have been familiar with her - she did work at the I during the time frame you're referring to.

By the way - that old trick with the beer is now done with bottled water in lots of clubs. It can be really funny when some fool gets the wrong bottle size - one not carried by the club - and gets tossed because of his inattention to detail.

PB, it sounds a bit like we might have rubbed elbows one one or more occasions...

WebDog
04-22-07, 14:24
In 1960, the Trans-Lux became the first Washington Street theatre to show sex films.
Was poking around on the Internet looking for pics of the combat zone and found a picture of the Trans-Lux from 1947 (although marquee shows "Give Me a Sailor" playing, which was released in 1938, so it could be an older pic, or movies had much longer runs back then.)

Apparently the Trans-Lux was previously "Minsky's Burlesque" which was one of the early stripclubs. I also found a review of a "Swedish erotica" flick shown at the Trans-Lux circa 1957, but minus the double-penetration closeups now der rigeur. Actually, I prefer it that way -- today's porn has taken all the titillation out of tits and ass.

The pic is too big to post so you have to link to it here
http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/003487.jpg


And P.B. you are the master of Boston sex industry lore. I had forgotten your post from last year, but I never cease to be amazed by your command of such matters.

The only time I was clipped at the Naked i was *outside* the club. I was a 20-year-old college student with a fake I.D. and thought that if I hid cash in my front pocket, outside my wallet, it would still be there when I left the club. Then this horribly skanky BSW comes up and does the "old let me feel your juicy dick" and obviously cleaned me out during the misdirection. I didn't know it was gone until I got into the club. Those women had such talent -- I story about them cleaning out guys who were just waiting at the stop sign is totally believable. If you had money anywhere on you -- they'd find it. Would love to see the TSA hire them as airport screeners.

Viejo
04-22-07, 20:43
...Then this horribly skanky BSW comes up and does the "old let me feel your juicy dick" and obviously cleaned me out during the misdirection. I didn't know it was gone until I got into the club. Those women had such talent -- I story about them cleaning out guys who were just waiting at the stop sign is totally believable. If you had money anywhere on you -- they'd find it. Would love to see the TSA hire them as airport screeners.
It was an incident like yours that triggered one of the most significant events in the Zone...Andy Puopolo, the Harvard football player, was chasing one of those talented street hookers with his buddy. When she led them to her pimp, a scuffle ensued. Puopolo died of a stab wound, his buddy was wounded. That event caused a major policy change by the city concerning the management of the adult entertainment district that Mayor White had created.

Phat Bastard
04-23-07, 01:27
Was poking around on the Internet looking for pics of the combat zone and found a picture of the Trans-Lux from 1947 (although marquee shows "Give Me a Sailor" playing, which was released in 1938, so it could be an older pic, or movies had much longer runs back then.)

Apparently the Trans-Lux was previously "Minsky's Burlesque" which was one of the early stripclubs. I also found a review of a "Swedish erotica" flick shown at the Trans-Lux circa 1957, but minus the double-penetration closeups now der rigeur. Actually, I prefer it that way -- today's porn has taken all the titillation out of tits and ass.

The pic is too big to post so you have to link to it here
http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/003487.jpg


And P.B. you are the master of Boston sex industry lore. I had forgotten your post from last year, but I never cease to be amazed by your command of such matters.

The only time I was clipped at the Naked i was *outside* the club. I was a 20-year-old college student with a fake I.D. and thought that if I hid cash in my front pocket, outside my wallet, it would still be there when I left the club. Then this horribly skanky BSW comes up and does the "old let me feel your juicy dick" and obviously cleaned me out during the misdirection. I didn't know it was gone until I got into the club. Those women had such talent -- I story about them cleaning out guys who were just waiting at the stop sign is totally believable. If you had money anywhere on you -- they'd find it. Would love to see the TSA hire them as airport screeners.


Thanks for the compliment but I'm far from that knowledgable, I just throw in a little info every now and then. Guys like Viejo are the masters. He was enjoying the place long before I ever brightened it with my shadow.


But I do have to throw something else in: That pic you posted has the Hotel Avery in the background (zoom in to the black sign above the "Y" in society) which I remember but I read recently that Joe Perry of Aerosmith has a huge sign from it that he's for some reason really proud of.


"An enormous hippopotamus skull is on display in a hallway. Billie Perry bought it from an antique store in neighboring Kingston as a Christmas gift for her husband. A huge sign from the Hotel Avery, which Joe Perry describes as an architectural artifact from Boston's Combat Zone, hangs on a wall."

http://everythingaerosmith.bluehosting.com.br/english/

Phat Bastard
04-23-07, 06:27
It was an incident like yours that triggered one of the most significant events in the Zone...Andy Puopolo, the Harvard football player, was chasing one of those talented street hookers with his buddy. When she led them to her pimp, a scuffle ensued. Puopolo died of a stab wound, his buddy was wounded. That event caused a major policy change by the city concerning the management of the adult entertainment district that Mayor White had created.


One stabbing....One....And it leads to the beginning of the end of the Zone.



Now there's roughly a shooting a day in the city and it barely rates a mention in a newspaper and that's only if the person dies or is a sympathetic figure.

I guess the city thought it was okay to legislate Pimps out of existence but doesn't feel the same way about Pimpz.

Viejo
04-24-07, 06:13
One stabbing....One....And it leads to the beginning of the end of the Zone.
While all of us who knew the old CZ well, feel the same way you do, the stabbing was really just the final straw. It was so bad that parties walking down Tremont St. going to the theater district were getting accosted by the hopickpockets - we called 'em HPP's - every evening. Guys walking down the street with their wives would get the hand in the crotch while the other groped for a wallet, along with "Hey honey, can I suck your dick?"

Club owners were talking about hiring private security firms to keep Washington, Beach, Essex, La Grange and lower Tremont clear, but they just could not agree on how to do it, and the BPD wasn't supportive. If they had been able to do something, the Zone might be alive today.

The pressure to do something was building rapidly, and when the Puopolo incident occurred, it was a short time before DiGrazia, the police commissioner, who had been in charge during the whole Deadwood phase of the CZ, was shuffled out and a new guy brought in. I think DiGrazia went to Baltimore, and the new guy put TPF members on every street corner in the Zone, and it was over on the streets. It took years for the action to return to what a lot of you remember in the 80's and 90's.

The clubs and bars weren't hit bad right away - business actually got better for them as guys realized they did not have to run the gauntlet to get to the clubs. However, pressure on the hooker bars from the vice squad gradually increased.

It was funny to see Washington Street barren...and the change happened over a couple of days!

Phat Bastard
04-24-07, 07:28
While all of us who knew the old CZ well, feel the same way you do, the stabbing was really just the final straw.


I agree, that's what I meant by "beginning of the end". And coincidentally I literally sent this as part of a PM last night when talking about other murders:


"Many more and not just the ones that we know about but many others too. But we both seem to agree, his was the straw that broke the camels back."

Viejo
04-24-07, 09:38
I agree, that's what I meant by "beginning of the end". .....
It was really lousy policy formulation and execution by the mayor and the police commissioner. The whole "laisez-faire" attitude taken by police with respect to what was going on guaranteed that sooner or later something serious would happen. Also, that people coming into the area were being terrorized by the HPP's was building serious pressure from all kinds of sources. Having the PD ignore what was happening was actually incredible - unless you were there to see the marauding groups of HPP's doing their thing right in front of the cops it's hard to appreciate just how bad it was.

After about 11:00 PM you could from almost any point see at least 3 pairings or groups of 3 to 4 HPP's. It actually got scary in the Zone.

Boston Monger
04-24-07, 11:38
After the 70's, America took a very conservative turn. Add on real estate going through the roof, AID's, crime, war on drugs, etc. The Zone never had a chance. But it wasn't just Boston. I was stationed in DC during the early 80's and DC had it's own "Zone" (I can't at this time remember it's name). They had model agencies, strip clubs, etc. Same deal. I went back in the 90's, all gone. Look at NYC. Yep, America cleaned up and forced us on the internet. To what end? Is it a good thing? For those who have the cash, things are still good. But to Joe Six Pack, he is now forced to discover new avenues to relieve his urges. I truelly feel that some men are so weak, morally and mentally, that they go rest areas, become predators, etc. Just like the war on drugs, the war on prostitution isn't quite working the way the government thinks.

That all said, I feel deprived I missed the heyday, but as I said before, the club scene for a single 20ish guy in Boston was unbelievable back then. The Zone was for the married, older or just "not wanting to make the effort" guy. I could should use it now.

Phat Bastard
04-24-07, 20:34
It was really lousy policy formulation and execution by the mayor and the police commissioner. The whole "laisez-faire" attitude taken by police with respect to what was going on guaranteed that sooner or later something serious would happen. Also, that people coming into the area were being terrorized by the HPP's was building serious pressure from all kinds of sources. Having the PD ignore what was happening was actually incredible - unless you were there to see the marauding groups of HPP's doing their thing right in front of the cops it's hard to appreciate just how bad it was.

After about 11:00 PM you could from almost any point see at least 3 pairings or groups of 3 to 4 HPP's. It actually got scary in the Zone.

I remember the HPP's all to well but none of them ever got too close when I was on foot. They used to do their thing to me over on Harrison, on the downhill part from Essex to Beach st. Damn, I remember having no a/c and having to keep the windows down during hot summer nights and they used to pounce on me like wolves doing the crotch/wallet thing and also reaching in the passenger window, unlocking the door and hopping in. Finally I had to unscrew the knobs for the doorlocks so they couldn't unlock them.

Phat Bastard
04-24-07, 20:55
That all said, I feel deprived I missed the heyday, but as I said before, the club scene for a single 20ish guy in Boston was unbelievable back then. The Zone was for the married, older or just "not wanting to make the effort" guy. I could should use it now.

Ouch!!!!;)

Viejo
04-24-07, 22:47
I remember the HPP's all to well but none of them ever got too close when I was on foot. They used to do their thing to me over on Harrison, on the downhill part from Essex to Beach st. Damn...
Yep...that was right in the middle of the free fire zone. It was a target rich environment for the HPP's in that area almost every night. It might not have been so bad if LE confined them to that area, but when they started rifling the crotch and pockets of middle-class gentry taking their ladies out on the town for dinner and a show on Tremont, Stuart and in Park Square, that was a bit too much.

I remember one night, walking in towards the zone, encountering an HPP who had a victim accompanied by presumably his wife. As she was groping and grabbing, she was saying "Wassamatta, honey, you liked how I sucked your dick last week!" The expression that came over the wife's face was priceless...

Soshoreman
04-26-07, 18:23
Featuring the Pussy Galore Stag Bar.

What ever happened to Princess Cheyenne? I know she was in hot water for practicing pyschology without a license -- did she beat that rap?Here's the latest chapter:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/04/former_celeb_st.html

Phat Bastard
04-29-07, 21:24
I was flipping through channels earlier and on one of the Military/History channels, the movie "The Last Detail" was on. Without going into it too much, Jack Nicholson and his shore patrol partner decide to show their prisoner, Randy Quaid, a good time on their way to Portsmouth N.H. and pass through Boston on the way, including an all too short segment in the Combat Zone, circa 1973, which I think I missed most of. Of course they made the mistake of leaving the Zone to get him laid for some reason.

Anyway, I don't think it's a long enough segment to rent the movie for but it was nice to see it.

Does anyone know of any other movies or TV shows (other than Spenser For Hire and it's rare gratuitous shots of his Mustang in front of The Naked I) that had the Zone in it?

Cruiser D
05-02-07, 18:31
Why The Departed a couple of years ago. I remember going for a cruise doing the Oak - Tyler loop when I made the left on Tyler and was confronted by a mini version of the Sun at 3am. It was about 80' in the air on a lift. It was as bright as day. They shot the CT cinema that night then edited all the brightness out of it. Never did see Leo or Jack but I think I caught a quality date or two that night. ;)

Phat Bastard
05-02-07, 22:25
Why The Departed a couple of years ago. I remember going for a cruise doing the Oak - Tyler loop when I made the left on Tyler and was confronted by a mini version of the Sun at 3am. It was about 80' in the air on a lift. It was as bright as day. They shot the CT cinema that night then edited all the brightness out of it. Never did see Leo or Jack but I think I caught a quality date or two that night. ;)

So that's the corner they shot in the scene where he watches it later on the security camera. I had tried to figure it out but couldn't.

BikeZappa
06-01-07, 10:38
Remember the side door to the Naked I. It let you into the pussy room, bang you were there. And if you sat at the dark end of the stage you could see into the women's dressing room.

Does anyone know more information about Lucy Wightman or Princess Cheyenne? She was the best stripper in Boston. She could completely control the guys. Her daugther died in an bad car accident and she was convicted of pretending to be a therapist. Good times Bad times.

Amp Explorer
07-18-07, 17:34
I know some people that work in mental health circles this adult performer was also a very competent therapist that had some education.

I beleived she worked in the south shore area before her legal problems she had no issues of profesional mis conduct.

She got 5 yrs probation.

You can google the story.

Amp Explorer
07-21-07, 21:39
I was walking throught the zone with my friends towards china town and I could nt help laughing intensely when I was waiting to cross the street and commented on the perfect name for a pizza place in the fading redlight district of Boston.

Bostonsailor
07-22-07, 09:44
I seem to remember a bar on La'Grange street by the name of Good Time Charlies, though i never went in there ( HAHA) there was rumored to be at least 25 - 30 girls working there on a regular basis, some of them used apartments above the Pizza shop on Tremont. My intro to this game was in that area. I remember the SW's that walked Beech St in nothing more than a thong bikini in the middle of winter, they were happy to be picked up and didn't rush things, ( wanted to warm up ), I felt bad dropping them off back at the corner. I long for the "Combat Zone of old".
Stay Safe
BS

Acaryu
07-22-07, 13:43
In the sixties I lived in Boston and I used to cruise the old combat zone. It was where I went to the first strip club in my life. The club was called 2 o'clock and it was nude. They had women who circulated to give people BJ's in the dark booths. The dancers were gorgeous. They also had dancers who took your money and promised to come to your hotel, but they will never showed up. When you are late teens and your hormones working, you fell for this type of things. They had beautiful streetwalkers in the old Chinatown. I one time took a beautiful russian girl home to have great sex for $20. No rush, great services and all positions. Unfortunately my roomate came home and saw me leaving with her. Since then, my reputation was down in the drain. There used to have also a lot of street hookers in the Tremont Park. They tend to be younger and only came out around 12. There were also a lot of bookstores and peep shows. Some peep shows were just like brothels. They gave you a camera just to meet a legal requirement. They did not even work. The girls there were very young and very thin, must had been druggies. In Mass Ave, I picked up two nice looking black hookers and they blew me in my car. After they left, they took my wallet with them. That was the first time I picked up a hooker.

There goes the good old days.

D8811
07-23-07, 09:28
I remember it well. I was in my senior year of high school. We went to a small place called the Caribe Lounge. It was dark and it had this "odor" in the air.

It was like yesterday. I sat down at the bar and ordered a drink. I took my first sip and gorgeous young woman walked over to me. She introdiced herself as Gloria. She suggested that we sit on the "other side of the bar. " We moved seats, she sat down next to me and ordered a $10 drink. She took a sip and turned to me, spread her legs and took my shaking hand and put it between her legs. Then she unzipped my pants, took out a moist Mr. Happy and proceeded to make him really happy.

She gently stroked him then bent down and made him very wet with her mouth and very quickly stroked to conclusion. She walked away, I took a sip of my beer and as I put it down on the bar, I put it onto the padding at the edge by mistake and spilled it all over me.

As I got up and walked out, I noticed action all around the bar. For years, I went back there just watching the bar action. Strippers were good, but that bar action. WOW!

Looking16
07-24-07, 18:08
Bring back memory's of the mid 60's and my days in the Coast Guard at 427 Commercial St.

I especially remember the then famous Jerome's and across the street the "King of Pizza".

http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/combat_zone_the.html

Amp Explorer
07-24-07, 20:05
You got high rise high end condo / hotels.

The Ritz "Roche DuBois" high end metro furniture

I m standing at the cross walk, I m standing next too. Lets just say a "business man" of color, He was yelling at some "his employees" who perhaps were taking an unscheduled work break across the street? The "business man" yells "Hey bitches get back over here I got pimping to be done and you got ho-ing to be done! " It was pretty clear to me he wasnt talking about farming.

Black Treechas
08-22-07, 01:59
At one time, Playboy decided to do a series about the sex scene in american cities...I believe the first article was about boston.

When?? Hmmmm..I'm guessing in the 70's, possibly the early 80's.

I read it. There was a lot of fiction or at least exaggerated truths in it. But they said how Boston more or less "condoned" the zone, keeping it contained in that area...just short of legalizing it. I wonder if that brought enough negative attention to the zone that it caused the city fathers to start to dismantle it.

Playboy showed a map of the zone, and other places, and had some streets labeled "Prostitution available". They did the same for similar articles about other cities...then all of a sudden, the Prostitution Available label was gone from all further articles...maybe the Playboy lawyers did not think it was a good idea to provide that information.\

I remember when the harvard football player was stabbed. I don;t remember it having any negative effects on the zone...at least not right away.

My last visit there while it was still going strong was 1978 I believe. The converasation booths were new. Some were located in an old movie theater. You went into a glass-windowed booth (no, not the whole booth, just one wall) and could jack off while looking at a lady spread for you. My next visit was 2004...I could not believe it was gone.

When the supreme court ruled in 1973 that Deep Throat was out of their hands (no pun intended...remember the quote "I know what pornography is, I just can't define it") there was an explosion in the zone of XXX movies instead of just X, and the pasties and g-strings all dissappeared. It seems the number of street walkers decreased. I guess they could not compete with what guys were seeing on the big screen for the first time? (penetration, cum shots, etc).
Anyone else notice that?

Bill Holdem
09-15-07, 08:26
I used to be very much a regular at the Pilgrim Theater during the 5 years prior to it closing. Anyone who went there on the weekends with any regularity to either get in on, or watch the couples action would definitely either know me or recognize me.

Now I'm married 2 years and have been faithful. I crave other women but haven't been able to bring myself to do anything. I don't have the time or energy to look for a 'girlfriend' and constantly fantasize about picking up SW's (sometimes cruise looking at them) surf craigs daily and fiddle with it, and read here regularly.

I was so conditoned to the 'group scene' I think it's hard for me to go to a place by myself for service and am too scared to pull my car over for a SW b/c of the small risk (even though I know how to be very careful) that LE could be watching or pick up my trail, or on a fluke turn the corner at just the wrong time when they were not in the area patrolling before.

I have heard of a place in Boston from a couple different people. They called it 'The Spot'. Both were black guys and from what I gathered mostly all the customers were black guys. Something like private parties arranged monthly or so with dancers/working girls who do stripping in the main area and other suff in the back rooms or whatever. I was actually invited by one dude that works at a courthouse in the greater boston area but he didn't keep asking or invite me on a set date and I didn't follow up. Arggg!

Have any mongers ever done anything in small groups or pairs? Trust me I am totally straight but I'm scared to get started. Anyone who met me and talked to me (and heard the any number of dozens of stories of freak fests I have been involved in) could tell I'm no cop. I'm just throwing this out there cuz I feel like I need some hand holding to get started. Don't know if that's against board policy (if it is, sorry please delete) or possible but I've been on the fence for a year or more now and it's driving me crazy.

BikeZappa
10-11-07, 21:38
Some photos of Princese Chyanne.

Viejo
11-01-07, 08:31
In the days of the Zone and real Pimps, it was at least sometimes for the girl.

He'd take the basic rate and she'd hide the rest so that she at least got something for her efforts.
...of the 60's in the Zone - when the nightly pimp parade of pimpmobiles with ridiculous continental kit customization were as thick as taxicabs on Washington Street, making the Washington, Essex, Harrison, Stuart, Washington loop all night. The pimps were decked out in traditional pimp attire, such as camel hair coats/hats, sequined suits/hats and the like.

Their "stables" were working the streets all over town - Back Bay, The South End, The Zone, East Boston, even Beacon Hill. In addition, there were five really good "hooker bars."

Yep...it was monger heaven.

But there are still "real pimps" - now they drive Audi's, BMW's, Mercedes and their uniform of the day is an expensive running suit and shoes, with a baseball cap. "Real pimps" now have their stables on the information highway rather than the back streets of town, but their numbers have been shrunken by the ease with which a woman can work independently on the internet.

The game is much the same, the venues have changed.

Ain't technology wonderful?

Buggie100
03-03-08, 03:31
"Good evening, gentlemen, and welcome to the Naked I Cabaret, located at 666 Washington Street, in the heart of Boston's Adult Entertainment District. We're open from 10 AM to 2 AM, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And now please welcome to our front stage, the enchanting Inga. And dancing for you on our back stage, in our Pussy Galore Stag Bar, you'll be entertained by Charli. That's Inga, and Charli. "

Leggeddog
03-08-08, 21:44
What about the World Famous Two O'Oclock Lounge on Washington Street. LOL, The Mouse Trap, Livingroom, in the Park Square section. Good ole days.

Night Cruiser
03-15-08, 04:20
"Good evening, gentlemen, and welcome to the Naked I Cabaret, located at 666 Washington Street, in the heart of Boston's Adult Entertainment District. We're open from 10 AM to 2 AM, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And now please welcome to our front stage, the enchanting Inga. And dancing for you on our back stage, in our Pussy Galore Stag Bar, you'll be entertained by Charli. That's Inga, and Charli. "

That was one great place. I started going there when I was 16. I was never carded and was able to stay as long as I bought alcohol. If you didn't drink, you got your ass tossed out. The girls were really pushy. Around the Zone there were dozens of SWs .. They used to come there from all the towns and cities around MA....... NC

Phat Bastard
03-15-08, 10:28
Here's a trivia question for guys who cruised the Zone and when I say "Zone" I really mean the whole are of the Zone, Chinatown, Park Square, Bay Village and Theater District.

If you drove around for hour after endless happy hour of window shopping then picking up the best that you saw, then you saw this in front of you many times over the course of an evening.

DAS _ _ _

Leggeddog
03-17-08, 08:17
What am I suppose to see here?


Here's a trivia question for guys who cruised the Zone and when I say "Zone" I really mean the whole are of the Zone, Chinatown, Park Square, Bay Village and Theater District.

If you drove around for hour after endless happy hour of window shopping then picking up the best that you saw, then you saw this in front of you many times over the course of an evening.

DAS _ _ _

Phat Bastard
03-17-08, 08:24
What am I suppose to see here?

It's a trivia question for people who used to do laps of the Zone. It's a vanity plate that I'd had in front of me in traffic night after night for years. I saw it so often and remember it so well that I figured others remembered it too.

Fill in the blanks for the second half.

Wiseass
03-17-08, 12:13
Here's a trivia question for guys who cruised the Zone and when I say "Zone" I really mean the whole are of the Zone, Chinatown, Park Square, Bay Village and Theater District.

If you drove around for hour after endless happy hour of window shopping then picking up the best that you saw, then you saw this in front of you many times over the course of an evening.

DAS _ _ _Speaking from experience, as one who cruised the "Zone" frequently, I must say that I did see this in front of me all the time!

The answer is: It's the first 3 letters of YOUR License Plate!

LOL LOL LOL

Phat Bastard
03-17-08, 19:18
Speaking from experience, as one who cruised the "Zone" frequently, I must say that I did see this in front of me all the time!

The answer is: It's the first 3 letters of YOUR License Plate!

LOL LOL LOL

Lol, but no, that's not it. It's not a trick question at all.

Someone who was out there will remember it sooner or later.

Wiseass
03-18-08, 01:24
It's a trivia question for people who used to do laps of the Zone. It's a vanity plate that I'd had in front of me in traffic night after night for years. I saw it so often and remember it so well that I figured others remembered it too.

Fill in the blanks for the second half.Well didn't see this post when I posted my answer! I was correct that it was a vanity plate, but for the life of me I can't remember. Put a lot of miles cruising this area and just can't remember! It's really bugging the hell out of me!!!

GOD is this what happens when you get old?

Wiseass
03-18-08, 01:59
Hey Phat Bastard,

Heres some Trivia for you. Some of the girls (At least the ones I picked up) in Good Time Charlies (Hope I spelled it right never looked at the sign), used to use an apartment building on Tremont St. It was a like a 30 second walk from Charlies (Down the street and around the corner). Doorway was access to apartments above street level.

What was the number above the doorway (3 numbers)?

Phat Bastard
03-18-08, 06:36
Hey Phat Bastard,

Heres some Trivia for you. Some of the girls (At least the ones I picked up) in Good Time Charlies (Hope I spelled it right never looked at the sign), used to use an apartment building on Tremont St. It was a like a 30 second walk from Charlies (Down the street and around the corner). Doorway was access to apartments above street level.

What was the number above the doorway (3 numbers)?


This is minutia which you can easily make up (as long as it's around 200-220), mine is something that those who did laps in their cars in the 80's and possibly into the early 90's saw night after night for years.

Wiseass
03-18-08, 11:34
This is minutia which you can easily make up (as long as it's around 200-220), mine is something that those who did laps in their cars in the 80's and possibly into the early 90's saw night after night for years.After looking up the word "minutia", Yes, you are correct it is a small detail, but it is not made up, just my personal experience (And I'm sure others).

What's killing me is the 80's, early 90's, is when I was cruising the "Zone", and I can't for the life of me figure out the answer to your trivia question. I've been racking my brain for days.
I guess I wasn't as much of a "Zone Rat" as I thought I was!

P.S. Answer to mine is 222. This was my own little irony because at that time there was this show on TV "Room 222" with Karen Valentine as a teacher. Always entered the doorway at 222 Tremont wondering what I would learn.

Leggeddog
03-18-08, 16:49
224 next to the NY Pizza, been up the small stairwell to several apartments up there.

Viejo
03-18-08, 19:50
...here's one for you: What was the name of the only strip club that was downstairs from street level on Washington Street? And another one: what was the fate of the 2 O'clock Lounge?

Dan Wesson
03-18-08, 21:07
Anyone remember the Picadilly Lounge, diagonally across the street from the Naked I. It was downstairs from street level.
They had a low horshoe shaped bar with low seats. It was one bizarre place.

Phat Bastard
03-18-08, 21:54
After looking up the word "minutia", Yes, you are correct it is a small detail, but it is not made up, just my personal experience (And I'm sure others).

What's killing me is the 80's, early 90's, is when I was cruising the "Zone", and I can't for the life of me figure out the answer to your trivia question. I've been racking my brain for days.
I guess I wasn't as much of a "Zone Rat" as I thought I was!

P.S. Answer to mine is 222. This was my own little irony because at that time there was this show on TV "Room 222" with Karen Valentine as a teacher. Always entered the doorway at 222 Tremont wondering what I would learn.

Karen Valentine, now there's a sweet memory unto itself that I'd long forgotten.


Hint: DAS means "THE".

Viejo
03-18-08, 22:33
Anyone remember the Picadilly Lounge, diagonally across the street from the Naked I. It was downstairs from street level.
They had a low horshoe shaped bar with low seats. It was one bizarre place.
The Pic was the only place that was down from street level. And you remember it well - it was bizarre. It had one of the darkest corners in the Zone, used for all sorts of clandestine kinky activities. It was rivaled for lack of light only by the dark corner in the Intermission.

Anyone know who owned the Picadilly?

Phat Bastard
03-18-08, 22:52
...here's one for you: What was the name of the only strip club that was downstairs from street level on Washington Street? And another one: what was the fate of the 2 O'clock Lounge?

I don't know why they closed (maybe it can be googled?) but I know that afterwards at least part of the building became peep shows.

Nice skeevy ones where they had removable plexiglass:)


Viejo, this a friend of yours in the video?:)

http://openvault.wgbh.org/ntw/MLA000091/index.html

D8811
03-18-08, 23:08
I had my first CZ experience in the Caribe in 1972. The bar had this big thick pad at the edge.

I was so dazed that I put my beer down on the pad instead of the bar and spilled it all over me. Then. A young lady named Gloria came over and kindly helped me wipe my pants. I was young. Very excited. And well. The beer on my pants was nothing compared to the mess inside. She was so proud of herself!

I was hooked!

Wiseass
03-19-08, 01:41
Karen Valentine, now there's a sweet memory unto itself that I'd long forgotten.

Hint: DAS means "THE".I know DAS means "THE". Its German! So if we take the logical path, Zone in German is "Gebiet". No thats not it!

Dan Wesson
03-19-08, 06:25
The Pic was the only place that was down from street level. And you remember it well - it was bizarre. It had one of the darkest corners in the Zone, used for all sorts of clandestine kinky activities. It was rivaled for lack of light only by the dark corner in the Intermission.

Anyone know who owned the Picadilly?
The Pic was always the last stop of the evening with the crew I hung with. It was probably the last stop for all the other liquored up CZ'ers as well.

It was obviously a protected operation as I saw the girls do things right around the bar and out in the open that you don't see in a dark corner now. In fact, I think there was a better show to be found somewhere around the bar than the stage.

Boris1069
03-19-08, 15:49
This place was the best.In between Washington and Harrison ave.
Live bands and tons of working girls

Dan Wesson
03-19-08, 18:59
Karen Valentine, now there's a sweet memory unto itself that I'd long forgotten.
I think I am getting to know the ages of this group now! Karen Valentine was one of my wet dreams. I like thin women with nice racks! Strange her character was Alice Johnson.

Dan Wesson
03-19-08, 19:02
What the hell was the name of the place that had the private booths where you put in coins and the screen went up and there was some naked chick dancing in there and you could put tips through a slot?

Rito1
03-20-08, 00:47
What the hell was the name of the place that had the private booths where you put in coins and the screen went up and there was some naked chick dancing in there and you could put tips through a slot?
That was liberty book shop. They closed for a couple of years then opened back up where the rmv is as liberty book 2. The 1st one was better because they did not have tip slots. The girls just kept dancing. At lb2 no one would do anything unless you put $$ through the slot.-------------------------------------still the good ole days.

Viejo
03-20-08, 01:45
This place was the best.In between Washington and Harrison ave.
Live bands and tons of working girls
...and one of the czars of the 70's and 80's zone got his start here - the day bartender, Charlie, submerged after Ort's closed, then re-surfaced as the owner of Good Time Charlies on LaGrange. After that, he acquired the Picadilly, opened the Pussycat Lounge and The Mardi Gras (in the alley where the White Tower was). Two of the most colorful characters in the zone worked for him at Goodtime - Willy Moses and the bouncer, Moe. And Robin Benedict worked Goodtime Charlies - she was a hottie, albeit a bit greedy.

Wiseass
03-21-08, 01:34
Here's a trivia question for guys who cruised the Zone and when I say "Zone" I really mean the whole are of the Zone, Chinatown, Park Square, Bay Village and Theater District.

If you drove around for hour after endless happy hour of window shopping then picking up the best that you saw, then you saw this in front of you many times over the course of an evening.

DAS _ _ _Enough dents in the wall from my head, I Give Up!

Phat Bastard
03-21-08, 08:31
Enough dents in the wall from my head, I Give Up!

Sorry Tony but the question remains unanswered until someone remembers or until months or years go by, so I'll re-ask it for someone else to answer (so please don't respond or bury the post).

Vanity plate, 80's and into the 90's on a car that cruised the zone area, hours after hour, day after day and year after year.

DAS _ _ _

"DAS" means "THE"

Rito1
04-15-08, 22:19
The last one I think is the zone (it's a little old for me) Let me know.

Rito1
04-15-08, 22:30
The last photo did not load, it was to big. Here is a link.
http://www.stevereeves.com/images/Hercules%20opening%20in%20New%20England.jpg

Phat Bastard
04-16-08, 10:58
the last one i think is the zone (it's a little old for me) let me know.


holy shit, that second pic is a great find. any chance you could post or pm a link to where you found it? that place was the one i mentioned before that had the removable plexiglass and i haven't laid eyes on it since the 80's. judging by the the oldsmobuick in the street, that must have been taken not long before or after it closed. isn't that the pussycat on the corner next to the chinese theater?

my first pay for play bj was through that door right under where it says "nudes" when i was about 15. i didn't even have my learners permit yet and we'd all piled into the car of an older friend who had his license. this was before it became so sleazy that a group of **** teens would have been eaten alive. today, they'd say i was molested and that it warped me for life. i'd say they're wrong about the molested part anyway.

Viejo
04-16-08, 12:50
The last one I think is the zone (it's a little old for me) Let me know.
that the last one, with the T globe, is Essex street. The window to the right is the last pane of the old Essex Deli site, then the T entrance, then the little package store that was patronized by all the zone denizens.

Viejo
04-16-08, 12:58
... Isn't that the Pussycat on the corner next to the chinese theater?

that is the Pussy Cat - brand new at the time. I did a little enlargement and enhancement, and you can tell that the refurbishment that turned the Palace into the Pussy Cat is recent in that photo. That picture was taken shortly after Charlie opened the club.

Phat Bastard
04-16-08, 22:17
that is the Pussy Cat - brand new at the time. I did a little enlargement and enhancement, and you can tell that the refurbishment that turned the Palace into the Pussy Cat is recent in that photo. That picture was taken shortly after Charlie opened the club.

You're right, it's Pussy Cat not Pussycat. Even though the sign can't be read in the pic, you can tell it's two words. Who's Charlie, the guy from the Two O'Clock or the Intermission or elsewhere?

Viejo
04-16-08, 23:47
...Who's Charlie, the guy from the Two O'Clock or the Intermission or elsewhere?
was Charlie Sicusa (I can't remember if that is the correct spelling, it's been so long) who started in the zone as daytime bartender at Izzy Ort's Golden Nugget. After the Nugget closed, Charlie ran a small taxicab outfit, then showed up as the owner of Goodtime Charlie's. Subsequently he opened the Picadilly, The Pussy Cat and the Mardi Gras. At one point he was the strip club mogul of Boston's Combat Zone.

By the way - in my post about Essex Street, I forgot to mention that the Palomino strip club was just beyond the little package store, and the building just beyond that had been the Golden Nugget.

Rito1
04-17-08, 17:00
Holy shit, that second pic is a great find. Any chance you could post or PM a link to where you found it?
I am really not sure where I found it. I was playing around on google and some how found it. If I come across it again I will send you a link.

Boris1069
04-18-08, 16:52
He also ran a little bar across from the Naked I
I think it was called the six's
It was a great place to find a hooker for a reasonable price.
Nothing else in the bar

Viejo
04-20-08, 01:28
He also ran a little bar across from the Naked I
I think it was called the six's
It was a great place to find a hooker for a reasonable price.
Nothing else in the bar
It was Johnny Magaletta who owned the 663 Lounge. He lost his license when the vice sandbagged him with the help of a judge in a court case - the cops and the prosecuter got him to plead guilty, with the promise of a small fine. The licensing board, which had no sense of humor and felt no obligation to honor the deal, scoffed his license. Later he opened at the Park Square Pub, and operated a few years there, until that whole block was leveled. He then moved down to the corner of Essex Street and Harrison Av, at Harry's. Johnny had the longest running hooker bar setup in the city in those 3 locations.

Boris1069
04-22-08, 10:31
Your right of course Viejo my memory is not what it once was .

Now I remember his name was John.

That was a great little bar.

Is there anything like that in Boston today?

Phat Bastard
04-23-08, 00:39
Your right of course Meatman my memory is not what it once was.

Now I remember his name was John.

That was a great little bar.

Is there anything like that in Boston today?Meatman? I don't think he's posted in here in months.

Unfortunately no, the days of (hooker) bars like that in Mass are gone, long gone.

In Providence however, Cheaters is essentially a brothel.:)

Bosbl
07-01-08, 04:02
What a great thread. Even though I'm in my early forties, I remember it all very well. Went to high school on the edge of the CZ and my old man was in the nightclub business when I was very little in the late '60s into the '70s. I'll share some of my memories another time. Oh hell, here's one now. When the Celtics won the title in 1981, I went to the rally at City Hall Plaza. I heard Larry Legend say "Moses eats s#%! " and then walked down Tremont towards the CZ. Got propostioned by the cutest brunette in front of the pizza place and Tyson tickets. Went upstairs to the legendary apartments and got a half and half for. 4 I had no idea wheter that was a good deal at the time or not, but she was really cute. Ready for this? I had no idea what a half and half was and I was too nervous to ask. So naturally, during the CBJ I popped. She said to me "Now why did you do that? " She actually was sad. LOL! I'd thought she'd be happy that she only had to do the quick CBJ. Who knew that she actually wanted the other half? After that day, I would stop and say Hi to her on the street when I was going to school later that fall. She remembered me. My first love, LOL.

Fabulous thread. Thanks to everyone who has posted so far and the pictures got me a little misty.

Strike2
12-18-08, 07:16
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/66527-combat-zone/?rel=inf

Great Thread

Michaelzxc
12-19-08, 05:53
What was the club?

It was a music club not a strip club.

It was for rockabilly winos.

Harmen
12-19-08, 17:50
My guess is you're referring to the Hillbilly Ranch, which was on the property that is now 10 Park Plaza.

Strike2
12-19-08, 18:15
Are you thinking of Cantones or Mavericks?


What was the club?

It was a music club not a strip club.

It was for rockabilly winos.

Rito1
01-30-09, 23:52
I found a couple of pics that I do not think is posted. If they are I'am sorry.
I had 3 pics but 1 was to big.

Phat Bastard
02-02-09, 08:01
I found a couple of pics that I do not think is posted. If they are I'am sorry.
I had 3 pics but 1 was to big.

Awesome pics Rito.

I never had the "pleasure" of visiting the Playland Cafe but I staggered in and out of Essex Liquors next door more times than I can remember.

A John
02-02-09, 08:07
Not sure if you're interested? Jackson's lead on the free photo resizing web site is really easy to use.
http://www.imageresizer.com/


I found a couple of pics that I do not think is posted. If they are I'am sorry.
I had 3 pics but 1 was to big.

MeatMan
02-02-09, 10:35
Awesome pics Rito.

I never had the "pleasure" of visiting the Playland Cafe but I staggered in and out of Essex Liquors next door more times than I can remember.

I remembered going there my first time. I walked in, looked around and saw beautiful women wearing see throughs. Tits, pussy and ass all over the place. Then a black girl with short blond hair who was a bartender watched me the whole time gave me a look as if I didn't belong there. I walked out with my tail between my legs. I got my cheap thrill though!...Heh!

Rito1
02-02-09, 21:03
Awesome pics Rito.

I never had the "pleasure" of visiting the Playland Cafe but I staggered in and out of Essex Liquors next door more times than I can remember.
You might be gald you never did.lol

Rito1
02-02-09, 21:13
I found a couple of pics that I do not think is posted. If they are I'am sorry.
I had 3 pics but 1 was to big.
Here is the other one.

Leggeddog
02-03-09, 20:18
What was the club?

It was a music club not a strip club.

It was for rockabilly winos.


Hillbilly ranch behind the trailways Bus Terminal I believe it was on Carver St.

MeatMan
03-06-09, 17:26
Take an almost 7 minute trip down memory lane fellas. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhKI8y1r_EQ

Rito1
03-06-09, 22:32
Take an almost 7 minute trip down memory lane fellas. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhKI8y1r_EQ
Good find! But where are the girls?

MeatMan
03-06-09, 23:02
Good find! But where are the girls?

I tried to find em but, came up dry. I'll keep on trying.

Rito1
03-20-09, 21:07
I found a few more pics of the zone. Even 1 with a girl in it. Also the last pic is Candy. Does anyone remember her from back in the day. I was never with her as she is way to big for me, but 1 day she put her huge tits in my face. Oh my god they smelled terrible. She used to put her vodka (or what ever she was drinking) bottle under her tit so she would not have to hold it.

Tomkat4848
03-20-09, 22:47
The picture in 198 is definitely the Silver Dollar on Washington St. The other pictures in 203 look like a couple of places on Washington St. a strip joint and peep show and the picture with the hooker looks like LaGrange St that runs from Washington to Tremont. Save those photos as they may be worth $$$$ some day.

Leggeddog
03-22-09, 23:22
The pic of the hooker is on Lagrange St , that's Charlie's on the left. The other pic of Candy, well Candy has since passed away and she was always a trip. Lots of memories.

Rito1
04-30-09, 18:38
I know it's not in the zone but I bet a few of you drove by here looking for those sw's.

Leggeddog
05-01-09, 14:00
I know it's not in the zone but I bet a few of you drove by here looking for those sw's.


never did pick up anything there but many chicken hawks did.

MeatMan
05-02-09, 11:55
I know it's not in the zone but I bet a few of you drove by here looking for those sw's.

Wow. Last time I saw that place was back in the early 90's!. Took a bus from there too Alabama.

Rito1
05-02-09, 20:10
Then & now. Here & there. Hey, remember the hot dog stand. (yum)

Rito1
01-29-10, 13:42
I read this on line. If anyone want to reflect on old memories.

Boston’s Combat Zone
Mark your calendars for the coolest photography exhibit of 2010! BOSTON: COMBAT ZONE 1969 - 1978 will open with artist reception (open to the public!) February 12 and run through March 16 at the Howard Yezerski Gallery, 400 Harrison Avenue Boston.

For the first time ever, John Goodman will exhibit multiple pieces from his series The Combat Zone. His intimate portraits are a contemporary anthropology of the 1970s Boston district then home to prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, strip clubs, and adult movie theatres.

John Goodman’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and hangs in The Met, SFMOMA, and Boston Museum of Fine Arts. THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA and THE SEX AND THE CITY movies also featured several of his pictures.

Photographers Roswell Angier and Jerry Berndt, who also shot the Combat Zone in the 1970s will have work in the exhibit.

Rito1
02-18-10, 21:59
I read this on line. If anyone want to reflect on old memories.

Boston’s Combat Zone
Mark your calendars for the coolest photography exhibit of 2010! BOSTON: COMBAT ZONE 1969 - 1978 will open with artist reception (open to the public!) February 12 and run through March 16 at the Howard Yezerski Gallery, 400 Harrison Avenue Boston.

For the first time ever, John Goodman will exhibit multiple pieces from his series The Combat Zone. His intimate portraits are a contemporary anthropology of the 1970s Boston district then home to prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, strip clubs, and adult movie theatres.

John Goodman’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and hangs in The Met, SFMOMA, and Boston Museum of Fine Arts. THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA and THE SEX AND THE CITY movies also featured several of his pictures.

Photographers Roswell Angier and Jerry Berndt, who also shot the Combat Zone in the 1970s will have work in the exhibit.
A story in the phoenix with pics.

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/arts/97125-walk-on-the-wild-side/

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/arts/97395-slideshow-bostons-combat-zone-and-burlesque-nsf/

Veroguy
03-12-10, 19:40
Then & now. Here & there. Hey, remember the hot dog stand. (yum)


I miss those days so much I am crying!!! Really!!!!!! Damn! Hot dog stand? Conor of Lagrange and Washington? Damn, I spent Easter ther many moons ago. There was a hooker in Charlies, Sarah?, She worked out of the Essex Hotel, we were chashed by the mgr. all night. Fuc#, I miss those days!


Vero

Miss Beantown too!!

Hank The Dwarf
03-12-10, 20:10
That stand on the corner, access on both sides, was Dirty John's, 3 dogs for 25 cents, and when you walked up to the window or counter, he would say "How many", over and over, his back to you, turning and moving the dogs around the grill, until you told him.

I am afraid to see the exhibit, cuz I know I might be in one or more fotos.


I miss those days so much I am crying!!! Really!!!!!! Damn! Hot dog stand? Conor of Lagrange and Washington? Damn, I spent Easter ther many moons ago. There was a hooker in Charlies, Sarah?, She worked out of the Essex Hotel, we were chashed by the mgr. all night. Fuc#, I miss those days!

Vero

Miss Beantown too!!

Hank The Dwarf
03-15-10, 16:45
I was working my way thru college in the early sixties and money was tight. I would walk a very long way distance for such a value, although there was a sub street level Newbury street food establishment closer by that was rumored to be "connected" that had a super sized, thick foot long dog for a buck, which I could only afford on rare occasions, what with car and college costs, but next door to Dirty John's was a dirty book store, but you couldn't by the kind or porn available today.

Anyway, one day I had to take a wee, John said next door.

I walked thru the long and narrow dirty book store to the door at the far end, opened the door, and was in a strip joint!

Passed buy some dancers and customers with my head down low, did what I had to do, and that was the only time i have ever been in a strip joint in my life.

Didn't even go to the book stores that had peeps so I have no idea what those costs were, just know the costs of hot dogs.

Not that this is connected, but I also saw the Patriots play a few games at Fenway Park, and saw the Beatles several times at the Garden, including the night they got arrested in RI and were hours late, and when they finally got on stage, maybe 11:45 ish, they only played like 4 songs, but that was cool, because they never bothered us for smoking pot like crazy.

There was so much smoke in the air, can't believe we were able to see anything but smoke.

Thems were the days.

Fun Usnow
06-14-10, 16:26
God I spent a lot of great nights in the Zone. Met some outrageous ladies, spent a bunch of money but had an incredible time. I really miss the places. My favorite lady was Pumpkin, she was gorgeous and actually a very nice person. Wish I could find a place like the Zone again.

Smoke Screen
06-16-10, 07:09
God I spent a lot of great nights in the Zone. Met some outrageous ladies, spent a bunch of money but had an incredible time. I really miss the places. My favorite lady was Pumpkin, she was gorgeous and actually a very nice person. Wish I could find a place like the Zone again.Anyone remember the Vagabond? I'm not sure where it was, but somewhere near Essex St. They had the best looking girls of all the strip joints I've been to. All tall thin black girls with great racks.

Good time Charlies was also a good place to hook up with some ladies of the night.

Anyone remember Angel at the intermission? Bought her quite a few overpriced drinks.

Fun Usnow
06-28-10, 16:24
I'm not sure but I met a dancer named Angel at the Caribe and then she moved the the 2 o'clock. I bumped into her at Jacob Wirths and she told me she got busted in the back room of the 2 by an undecover cop. She was pretty panicked because she didn't want to do time. Never saw her after that.

Met a dancer named Wanda there and she worked the GS. She had a 'magic pussy' that was unbelievable. She would just slide down on you and not move but inside she was moving and she knew how to hold you off until you couldn't stand it. She was gorgeous, sweet, and I really liked her.

Hank The Dwarf
08-27-10, 05:55
I have known 2 Pumkins, only fotos of one.
This one had cigarette burns all over.



God I spent a lot of great nights in the Zone. Met some outrageous ladies, spent a bunch of money but had an incredible time. I really miss the places. My favorite lady was Pumpkin, she was gorgeous and actually a very nice person. Wish I could find a place like the Zone again.

MeatMan
08-28-10, 08:52
I have known 2 Pumkins, only fotos of one.
This one had cigarette burns all over.

Jesus. Just one look at that and I get the feeling she's been tortured or forced into the lifestyle. What's the story on her?

Hank The Dwarf
09-01-10, 05:08
Sorry to say I have no back ground story, but I think you a right on.

Found file of that second Pumkin.

Will post some of them on the Boston Streetwalker Forum, but she is not the girl you wrote about.






Jesus. Just one look at that and I get the feeling she's been tortured or forced into the lifestyle. What's the story on her?

Rito1
10-25-11, 17:39
I found some pics that I do not think were posted before. If they were, sorry.

Mobil2
10-26-11, 04:06
I found some pics that I do not think were posted before. If they were, sorry.The old greyhound station brings back memorys, remember taking the bus home from prep school as a kid and all the hookers and trannys and shit. Really learned how to grow up fast. Had a lot of fun, LOL.

Yellowfever023
10-26-11, 23:14
The old greyhound station brings back memorys, remember taking the bus home from prep school as a kid and all the hookers and trannys and shit. Really learned how to grow up fast. Had a lot of fun, LOL.I think it was in the early 80's a bunch of us went to the orpheum to see zappa, we took some acid for the show. After the concert we walk over to the zone and there were to fat twins who were the doormen at playland, they took on look at us tripping our brains out and pulled the door closed and locked us out. LOL probaly best for all parties I guess.

Rito1
10-27-11, 14:04
I think it was in the early 80's a bunch of us went to the orpheum to see zappa, we took some acid for the show. After the concert we walk over to the zone and there were to fat twins who were the doormen at playland, they took on look at us tripping our brains out and pulled the door closed and locked us out. LOL probaly best for all parties I guess.All for the best. If they let you in who knows what you might have ended up doing. (If you know what I mean.)

MeatMan
10-31-12, 14:27
I found some pics that I do not think were posted before. If they were, sorry.The Playland Cafe. Wasn't that place a haven for men who lived "alternative lifestlyes" and even dressed the part. I might be getting old.

Rito1
11-02-12, 10:05
The Playland Cafe. Wasn't that place a haven for men who lived "alternative lifestlyes" and even dressed the part. I might be getting old.Yes, That why I said he was better being locked out.

Black Treechas
07-22-13, 03:18
Although not in the Zone, does anyone remember the term Black Bottom, for the area down around Columbus / Mass Ave? Anyone ever cruise that area?

Smoke Screen
07-22-13, 05:37
Although not in the Zone, does anyone remember the term Black Bottom, for the area down around Columbus / Mass Ave? Anyone ever cruise that area?I used to cruise Mass Ave. That was the place for SWs, had lots of luck & no problems but I don't do SWs anymore, moved on to better things.

MeatMan
08-07-14, 19:56
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDm73AgwjkE

MeatMan
01-02-17, 11:54
I know this will probably be a long shot but, are there any members here when Scollay Square was around?. What was it like?. The clientele, girls, etc. I would LOVE to hear about it!.

Fuhgetaboudit
01-02-17, 19:26
Meatman, You really are pulling out the way-back machine with this inquiry. I'm a bit too young, would have to be well into my 70's at least to have good stories about the old Scollay Square. I believe we have at least one monger old enough to reply. I saw a guy in his 70's doing a (mouth) deep throat with one of the of the hot young girls at a rub place maybe a month ago. I would be interested in if whoever, remembers the old Howard and the scuttlebut about the cops busting a woman for doing the burlesque that was in the Square. I have only ever heard about it anecdotally, not by anyone who actually knew something.


I know this will probably be a long shot but, are there any members here when Scollay Square was around?. What was it like?. The clientele, girls, etc. I would LOVE to hear about it!.

MeatMan
06-02-18, 14:26
Since the Combat Zone subject has come up again, can anyone tell me the quality of girls working at the lounge / bar that was adjacent to Kneeland and Dunkin Donuts?. This was circa 1980's. From conversations, I hear it was mob owned and the girls were on the menu. I was obviously too young to enter but, The place piqued my interest.

MeatMan
06-10-18, 10:21
Let's talk about it. I'm more than sure there's a ton of odd and fucked up stories.

Michaelzxc
11-03-18, 12:54
There was a club that played country music. Mostly patronized by winos. Does anyone remember it?

PeterBoris
11-04-18, 05:32
I remember it but never went in. Didn't seem the place for any action.

My favorite was Ort's Golden Nugget.

Great live entertainment and plenty of ladies to choose from.

Physcosid
11-23-18, 21:26
I worked as a doorman in the 90's at the glass slipper, that was the last club in the zone for a long time.

Fuhgetaboudit
11-23-18, 22:23
M, I remember the Hillbilly well. Glad that no one on this site has brought up the Playland which was on Essex I think, right at the fringe of the Zone. That place played to only the gender benders. I can remember some of the guys in drag and makeup and long gowns, used to leave Playland to hang at the bar at the Slipper to get free drinks. Several of them were very convincing with their looks, and some Slipper patrons (including 2 friends of mine) could not tell the difference and would try to pick them up thinking they were female. The guy Physcosid who posted that he was a doorman at the Slipper, I think would have doormanned during the years just before the Playland closed.

Back then, there was a great sub shop across and just down the street from the Playland that was open very late until the bars closed.

There was a club that played country music. Mostly patronized by winos. Does anyone remember it?.

Rito1
11-24-18, 12:21
I worked as a doorman in the 90's at the glass slipper, that was the last club in the zone for a long time.I believe it's still there. They just moved across the street next to Centerfolds.

Rito1
11-24-18, 12:27
M, I remember the Hillbilly well. Glad that no one on this site has brought up the Playland which was on Essex I think, right at the fringe of the Zone. That place played to only the gender benders. I can remember some of the guys in drag and makeup and long gowns, used to leave Playland to hang at the bar at the Slipper to get free drinks. Several of them were very convincing with their looks, and some Slipper patrons (including 2 friends of mine) could not tell the difference and would try to pick them up thinking they were female. The guy Physcosid who posted that he was a doorman at the Slipper, I think would have doormanned during the years just before the Playland closed.

Back then, there was a great sub shop across and just down the street from the Playland that was open very late until the bars closed.
.I used to drive a cab and picked up a lot of fares from there. Everyone was very drunk and always tipped good.

Fuhgetaboudit
11-25-18, 00:17
Poncho's Villa, which was next to the original B. G. ? (and yes, I know it was not in the combat zone, but it was a rough place).


I used to drive a cab and picked up a lot of fares from there. Everyone was very drunk and always tipped good..

Rito1
11-28-18, 17:18
Poncho's Villa, which was next to the original B. G. ? (and yes, I know it was not in the combat zone, but it was a rough place).

.No, I have never even heard of the place.

Physcosid
08-04-19, 17:13
Anyone remember Brandy day girl at the glass slipper in the 90's. Totally 90's hot rocker chick hot, flat ass straight hair? She was a hardcore drunk, she would go to work drunk off Bayard I and diet coke??

Jack A Dogov
08-05-19, 10:56
Anyone remember Brandy day girl at the glass slipper in the 90's. Totally 90's hot rocker chick hot, flat ass straight hair? She was a hardcore drunk, she would go to work drunk off Bayard I and diet coke??I don't remember her but I do remember Kelly / Kathy. I also remember Lana, 6 ft tall blonde who I heard later OD'd and died. Also Tommi Love who had giant fake tits. I had takeout with Kelly a few times and once with Lana. Never could get Tommi but I really didn't try all that hard with her.

Rito1
06-18-20, 20:24
Not sure if it has been posted here before or not but I came across a WGBH video of the zone from way back. It start off shaky but it does clear up.

http://bostonlocaltv.org/catalog/V_JVFOIXVY1ZNIKY1

Britaly
06-18-20, 21:07
Not sure if it has been posted here before or not but I came across a WGBH video of the zone from way back. It start off shaky but it does clear up.

http://bostonlocaltv.org/catalog/V_JVFOIXVY1ZNIKY1Ahhh. Mammaries! I used to walk that area on lunch breaks and take a peek. Naked Eye! Oh yeah. Thinking about now, I should be dead.

MeatMan
06-24-20, 14:48
Not sure if it has been posted here before or not but I came across a WGBH video of the zone from way back. It start off shaky but it does clear up.

http://bostonlocaltv.org/catalog/V_JVFOIXVY1ZNIKY1(sigh) Those days are never coming back. I remember as a teen, going to the Publix Theatre with some friends to see some Kung Fu flicks. Right across from the Publix was the Pilgrim. I went once when I turned 18 and never went again. Not my scene.

Gianni Versace
06-27-20, 15:27
Not sure if it has been posted here before or not but I came across a WGBH video of the zone from way back. It start off shaky but it does clear up.

http://bostonlocaltv.org/catalog/V_JVFOIXVY1ZNIKY1That video was awesome. When I was about 16 years old that's when I remembered using my fake I'd getting into the naked eye and the pilgrim theatre. In fact I remember being traumatized when I was younger when I was at the pilgrim theatre and going to the bathroom in the basement and stumbling upon a guy taking someone from behind in the bathroom stall.

GhostDog4
06-27-20, 16:31
Not sure if it has been posted here before or not but I came across a WGBH video of the zone from way back. It start off shaky but it does clear up.

http://bostonlocaltv.org/catalog/V_JVFOIXVY1ZNIKY1Mid 70's I lived in Cambridge and used to ride my bike at night all over and 1/2 the time I'd ride through the Zone. I'd turn up LaGrange and the girls outside Good Time Charlies would yell "Hey BicycleMan you going to stop tonight"! I would often Pick (steal) flowers along the way and give them to whoever was out. You would of thought I handed them a $50 when $10 would do. LOL A buddy of mine ran the Porn store on Washington across from Beach St.

MeatMan
06-27-20, 18:01
That video was awesome. When I was about 16 years old that's when I remembered using my fake I'd getting into the naked eye and the pilgrim theatre. In fact I remember being traumatized when I was younger when I was at the pilgrim theatre and going to the bathroom in the basement and stumbling upon a guy taking someone from behind in the bathroom stall.Yep. That downstairs bathroom not only smelled like a homeless alley but, to see a guy getting porked in a bathroom stall really screwed my young brain. Fuck that, never went back.

Rito1
06-27-20, 18:35
That video was awesome. When I was about 16 years old that's when I remembered using my fake I'd getting into the naked eye and the pilgrim theatre. In fact I remember being traumatized when I was younger when I was at the pilgrim theatre and going to the bathroom in the basement and stumbling upon a guy taking someone from behind in the bathroom stall.At 16 I would just walk up and give them the $5 and walk thru the turn style. I always stood about a foot before the window so the person could not get a good look at me. But I don't think they cared anyway. Also my 2nd time there I was watching the movie and a couple came in and sit in front of me and before you new it she moved next to me and started kissing me then blew & fucked me while he just watched. I miss it. I don't miss that bathroom. My 1st time down there there was a guy laying on the floor in front of the urinal and was begging everyone to piss on him. At the Naked I to see the girls I would walk in and straight thru and out the other door.