Forget about Zagat or Blackbook. The greatest New York City guidebook of all time was most definitely the Gentleman's Directory. This guidebook, which was published in 1870, listed all of the known and unknown brothels in Gotham, along with a detailed description of what a customer may find inside. The Directory's authors played it off as a way to warn readers so "that he may not select one of them for his boarding house when he comes to the city.” Cheeky bastards. An original Gentleman's Directory can be found at the New York Historical Society, or you can peruse a PDF here. [CityRoom]
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