In George Appo's world, child pickpockets swarmed the crowded streets, addicts drifted in furtive opium dens, and expert swindlers worked the lucrative green-goods game. On a good night Appo made as much as a skilled laborer made in a year. Bad nights left him with more than a dozen scars and over a decade in prisons from the Tombs and Sing Sing to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he reunited with another inmate, his father. The child of Irish and Chinese immigrants, Appo grew up in the notorious Five Points and Chinatown neighborhoods. He rose as an exemplar of the "good fellow," a criminal who relied on wile, who followed a code of loyalty even in his world of deception. Here is the underworld of the New York that gave us Edith Wharton, Boss Tweed, Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1970–1920

Winner of the Allan Nevins Prize of the Society of American Historians and the New York State Historical Association Manuscript Prize

"A wonderful book. The research is overwhelming in breadth, precision, and imagination. City of Eros beautifully portrays an aspect of social and urban, as well as economic history, which we can no longer ignore." —Mary P. Ryan, University of California, Berkeley

"Gilfoyle has tied together into one package the interrelationship between the role and status of women, American ideas about sex, the effects of urbanization and immigration, real estate speculation, vigilantism, and politics. . . . In short, he has effectively brought issues of sexuality into social history. . . . Deserving of the highest praise." — Vern L. Bullough, Historian

"A fascinating study. . . . Gilfoyle does not simply catalogue the omnipresence of the postitutes. He situates their trade in the economic life of the city. . . . City of Eros is social history at its best, beautifully written, with a mosaic of rich detail that informs but does not overwhelm the narrative line." —David Nasaw, New York Times Book Review

"Remarkable. . . . [A] clear and fascinating narrative . . . [that] opens up plenty of new lines of inquiry. . . . A major contribution to the history of gender, popular culture, and the life of New York City." —Elliott J. Gorn, Journal of American History

"The first careful analysis of the politics, geography, and business of prostitution in the nation's metropolis. With grace and style, Timothy Gilfoyle has moved the subject from the shadows to the light." —Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University

Obscene, libidinous, loathsome, lascivious. Those were just some of the ways critics described the nineteenth-century weeklies that covered and publicized New York City's extensive sexual underworld. Publications like the "Flash" and the "Whip" - distinguished by a captivating brew of lowbrow humor and titillating gossip about prostitutes, theater denizens, and sporting events - were not the sort generally bound in leather for future reference, and despite their popularity with an enthusiastic readership, they quickly receded into almost complete obscurity. Recently, though, two sizable collections of these papers have resurfaced, and in "The Flash Press" three renowned scholars provide a landmark study of their significance, as well as a wide selection of their ribald articles and illustrations.Including short tales of urban life, editorials on prostitution, and moralizing rants against homosexuality, these selections epitomize a distinct form of urban journalism. Here, in addition to providing a thorough overview of this colorful reportage, its editors, and its audience, the authors examine nineteenth-century ideas of sexuality and freedom that mixed Tom Paine's republicanism with elements of the Marquis de Sade's sexual ideology. They also trace the evolution of censorship and obscenity law, showing how a string of legal battles ultimately led to the demise of the flash papers: editors were hauled into court, sentenced to jail for criminal obscenity and libel, and eventually pushed out of business - but not before they forever changed the debate over public sexuality and freedom of expression in America's most important city.

Meet George Appo, pickpocket, con man, mayor of underworld New York in the late nineteenth century. In Appo's world, child pickpockets swarmed the streets, addicts drifted in opium dens and swindlers worked the lucrative "green-goods" game. The child of Irish and Chinese immigrants, Appo rose as an exemplar of the "good fellow", a criminal who relied on wile, following a code of loyalty in his world of deception. Here is the New York that gave us Edith Wharton, Gangs of New York and the Brooklyn Bridge.