771 Market St. | map |
Opened: This second floor venue opened sometime around 1888 as the Cremorne Variety Theatre. It was on the south side of the street between 3rd and 4th.
Capacity: Around 1,500.
The June 5, 1888 Examiner article about the fight.
Art Siegel was researching early variety theatres and found "an amusing article written by an intrepid reporter who was 'shocked, shocked' to find these 'theatres' in our fair city." The story in the April 4, 1892 San Francisco Call that he located via the California Digital Newspaper Collection website mentions a number of 'dives' by name and offers a discussion of that new usage of the word. The Cremorne was a major focus of the reporter:
"CRIME HATCHERIES. Life in San Francisco's Dens of Depravity. PLACES WHERE VICE RUNS RIOT. Jack Hallinan's Notorious Cremorne Theater. A PLACE THAT SHOULD BE CLOSED. Other Vile Resorts in This City Where Youth Is Corrupted and Women Slowly Slain... Life In the dives of San Francisco: What is it like? Tell us not that it is picturesque. Say not that it is permissible; that the low and vulgar will be low and vulgar, no matter what is said or done. Say that it is vile, and you have spoken of it in fit terms— sharp, short and to the point. Vile is the word.
"There
are different kinds of dives. There is the underground hall, where the
fetid air reeks with a stench that never leaves the place night or day;
where young maidenhood is debauched; where innocent youth becomes laden
with foulness; where robberies are concocted; where men are slain; where
licentiousness rules supreme. There is the hall just off the street,
perhaps a step or two up from the sidewalk, which is just so many steps
downward into Hades for those who go in as participants. Here, possibly,
it is a little cleaner in a physical sense, though morally it is just
as foul and loathsome as the dive-cellar. Then there are a few places
where one goes upstairs in order to gain entrance. So far as good air
and decency are concerned nothing is gained by the ascent. The upstairs
places are just as vile as those in the cellars. Often they are worse.
"But
they are all dives, whether above or below ground. The 'Century
Dictionary' gives the definition if a dive as that of 'a disreputable
place of resort, where drinking and other forms of vice are indulged in,
and commonly vulgar entertainments are given.' So it may be in a cellar
or in an attic. If it conforms to the foregoing definition putting it
upstairs does not let it escape from the appellation of 'dive.' But
there is a bitter name for them — crime hatcheries. That is what they
are. The police records will prove it. Now, there are a great many dives
in San Francisco. If there were only one, that would be one too many.
Some of them are hidden away out of sight. Others flaunt themselves
brazenly on our leading streets, their blatant bands of harsh music
sending forth their discordant notes nightly.
"At the rear of the gallery is a bar. Colored waiters are in attendance up here. The 'ladies' do not serve the drinks. They only punch the bell for the waiter alter they have 'worked' you for the price. The stage performance is of an order so obscene as to shock and surprise even the New York Bowery rounders, and the orgies which take place in the gallery, in and out of the boxes, would be tolerated in no public place in the civilized world outside of San Francisco. Barbary Coast is mild when compared to the Cremorne, and even Chinatown can boast of no such wild, open iniquities. Boys are here, gamblers, cutthroats, blacklegs and thieves, but mostly the human jackals who live on the earnings of the 'lady' workers and waiters. Now and again you see a young face among the latter. Girls who have just started on the downward road are often to be found in the galleries of the Cremorne. What a fearful plunge toward hell they have already taken! And there is no hope for them. And the pity of it is more than words will tell.
"Sometimes, too, one sees that the 'lady' waiter's hands are hard and bony. These hands tell a mournful tale. They speak of good intentions, hard toil, of a striving and a trying and an ending in— damnation. At 11 o'clock the orgies of the Cremorne are at flood tide. There is a horrible din, above which can be heard an occasional curse or vile epithet, though the weazened orchestra is completely drowned. Tobacco smoke and the fumes of bad liquor are so thick as to render the atmosphere opaque. The indecent 'jokes' of the stage performers are inaudible, but their actions and poses speak louder than words. The bar is doing a rushing business. Everybody is almost or entirely drunk. Satan is king and 500 men and women are being damned in body, mind and soul. Sometimes the number is greater; never less. And seven nights a week!
"Hallinan's Crime Hatchery operates under a theatrical liquor-dealer's license and pays $76 every three months into the public treasury. Just what the Cremorne costs the taxpayers of the city and State in the way of necessitating increased accommodations in the County Jail, Hospital, Poorhouse, City Prison, Insane Asylum and other public institutions has never been computed to a nicety, but a liberal estimate places the cost at about 500 per cent greater than the license fee. Under the provisions of the law regulating these licenses the Cremorne must be closed by one hour after midnight. That is, its music and stage performance must be stopped. That there should be a limit to the inflictions of its loud-mouthed, weazened orchestra is a consideration devoutly to be thankful for by the adjacent neighborhood.
"Only boys of well-to-do parents are encouraged in patronizing the Cremorne. Those who can afford to buy bad wine at $5 a bottle are welcomed most heartily. And a dirty, greasy negro waiter stands around waiting to sneak away the bottle after the first glass or two have been emptied. Not to save the vile stuff, for it is worthless. Oh, no; the half filled and nearly filled wine bottles are not filched from the boxes because the 'wine'— called only by courtesy— is valuable, but rather that another bottle may be ordered at once.
"A police official who investigated Hallinan's Crime Hatchery recently very thoroughly, tells how the 'actresses,' dressed most indecently and immodestly, proceed to rob their victims. In the box In which he sat— disguised as a 'sport'— a flashy young man with more money and less brains was shown in by the colored waiter. A moment later one of the 'actresses,' with low-necked, short-sleeved bodice and very, scant skirts, came tripping in and at once set about to 'work' the 'sucker.' 'I'm awful dry.' she began at once, after the initial 'How are you to-night?' had been passed between them. Then without further ado the punched the button. Immediately the door slid back and the waiter appeared. 'We want something to drink,' said the harpie. 'What shall it it be?' to the 'sucker.' 'I don't like beer; let's have wine, eh?' 'Wine,' feebly responded the victim. He was a little surprised to find he had to pay $5 for a bottle of cheap claret that had not even the virtue of being corked nor labeled, but by this time the unblushing siren who had edged very near him had her arm about him. He paid it ungrumblingly. Two small glasses were filled from the bottle and the bottle sat in a corner on the floor.
"Presently the 'actress' became thirsty again. They looked for the bottle and found it gone. 'Why, we must have drunk it all,' she said, and another bottle was ordered and paid for. This was repeated till the victim had spent $30, which was all he had. He was pretty full by this time, and being 'broke' the woman at once deserted him. He went to sleep on the floor. In the morning he awoke to find his watch and ring in the possession of Hallinan and a wine bill for $40 against him at the bar. Before he could recover his jewelry he had to satisfy this bill. Twenty of these cases happen nightly, and seven nights a week."
"THERE ARE MANY SUCH. Dives That are Moral Stenches to the Community... There are many dives in San Francisco— many more than in any other city of its size. We may be lacking in many things, but not in dives. Our gilded youth are well provided for in this respect, and the pitfalls for our own sons and daughters are numerous and varied. No; we are not backward in iniquity...The main feature of all the dives are the female waiters. They are mostly aged, all are brazen and but few even passingly good looking. Yet they serve their purpose. They make the dive-keeper rich."
Thanks, Art! While the Cremorne got much of the space, the article also discussed the Palace Variety Theatre on Post, the Bella Union at Kearny and Washington, the Star on Grant near Sutter, the Olympic at Grant and Morton (now Maiden Lane), and the Elite on Grant at Geary.
Sometime around 1893 it was rebranded as a burlesque house called the Midway Plaisance. Scott MacLeod comments:
"I did a search and found
that the 'Midway Plaisance' had its origins at the 1893 Columbia
Exposition in Chicago. The S.F. version is mentioned in the Call as late
as 1897 and was a bawdy striptease house featuring Asian women. My
guess is that it probably changed to the Midway Theatre around the turn
of the century."
The building was to be demolished in 1897 but the building
owner, John W. Makay, granted the Midway Plasiance operator, Ned Homan, a new three year
lease. Thanks to Scott MacLeod for finding an article about this in
the April 15, 1897 San Francisco Call.
It's on the website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection. The
article called the venue a "Noted Palace of Sin" and noted that "the
living pictures and Oriental dancers will continue to lure the rural
visitor."
This photo by George A. McDonald, from a scrapbook of
Hamilton Henry Dobbin, is dated 1898 by the California State Library.
The Midway Plasiance is
the building on the extreme right. We're looking east. The three story light-colored building
just this side of Sanborn, Vail & Co. was the Cineograph. Down the street the Call Building is still
under construction.
Looking east on Market between 3rd & 4th in a c.1898 image from a stereo slide in the Scott MacLeod collection. It was a post on the San Francisco Remembered Facebook page. The Midway Plaisance is the light colored building in third from the right. Signage on the front also says "Home of Burlesque." On the side we get "Oriental...", "Big Show Ev..." and "Admiss..." The Cineograph building, here seen with an added fancy dome, is just this side of the Sanborn Vail & Co. building.
A detail from the 1901 image.
Sometime around 1902 the venue was renamed the Midway Theatre.
A Grand Jury inspection of the conditions at the Midway resulted in an arrest warrant being issued for its proprietor. This article appeared in the January 27, 1905 issue of the San Francisco Examiner:
A 1905 image from a stereo card by International View Co. appearing on the Open SF History Project site. The Midway Theatre is the second building in from the right. The Cineograph is a bit lost down the block.
A March 23, 1905 image by T.E. Heght from the San Francisco Public Library collection. We're looking west with the domed building of the Cineograph halfway down the block, after the Sanborn, Vail & Co. building. The Midway is the lighter building way down the block.
Thanks to Jack Tillmany for this detail from the 1905 photo. That second building in from the left is the Cineograph. The Midway Theatre, "Home of Burlesque" is the lighter building farther down the block. The image appears on the Cinema Tour page for the Cineograph.
A view east toward the Call Building taken by Stewart and Rogers on April 18, 1906. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for locating the image in the Open SF History Project collection.
More information: There was also a Midway Theatre on Pacific Ave., opening post-earthquake. It was another place of dubious virtue.
Jack Tillmany's Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres of San Francisco" can be previewed on Google Books. It's available from Amazon or your local bookseller.
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Bert Williams (1874-1922) and George Walker (1872-1911) of Williams and Walker, got their start in San Francisco at Cremorne's establishment sometime in early 1894 while they simultaneously masqueraded as Dahomeyans in the Dahomey Village (human zoo) at the California Midwinter International Exposition. They performed at Cremorne's off and on until the fall of 1895. Williams composed his first hit "Dora Dean: The sweetest gal you've ever seen" there. Also, they developed their "Two Real Coons" moniker after watching White, blackface performers score big with minstrel inspired, sub-mediocre renditions of Black people, culture and humanity. Their contemporary, Ernest "The Unbleached American" Hogan also embraced the "negative" identity of Blackness and used the criminality of the stage to flip it on its head with Clever jokes, infectious syncopated rhythm, unparalleled dancing a level of hustle that remains unsurpassed. Williams and Walker rode the "Two Real Coons" philosophy all the way to Broadway and Buckingham Palace. After that, they became, "The Royal Comedians" and were international stars!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the research!
DeleteThanks, Woody! It's now on the page. Most appreciated.
ReplyDelete