Booze, but it was often race-mixing that irked them most

couples.

The two men’s tour ended in a nearby bordello, where for a pricey $15, the girls performed a nude “dance of nature” and a high-kicking cancan. Afterward, Parkhurst’s escort was persuaded to crouch on the floor for a game of naked leapfrog.

That was enough for the minister, who announced it was time to go.

Still, it was the race-mixing that rankled the reformers. Although New York had passed a law in 1873 guaranteeing “full and equal enjoyment of any accommodation, advantage, facility or privilege,” many whites drew the line at seeing the races fully and equally enjoying each other.

Black-and-tan clubs soon came under scrutiny. Blackowned establishments were explicitly targeted. Authorities ordered the elegant Marshall’s Hotel on W. 53rd St. to segregate patrons. W.E.B. Du Bois asked the authorities to reconsider but was ignored.

“From a cellarway leading to filthy underground apartments came the noise of a piano,” wrote missionary Helen Campbell in 1895, describing one saloon. “The place was filled with the fumes of rum and tobacco. … White and black mingled indiscriminately.”

Despite regular calls for reform, for a few more years New York remained what some considered a cesspool of vice where others lived out fantasies. It was pretty available, considering the numbers.

A study in 1912 counted 15,000 professional prostitutes in Manhattan. Those in bordellos saw between 10 and 30 customers a night, charging anywhere from 50 cents to $10.

The prostitutes didn’t have to share earnings with a madam. And cheap rooms were easy to come by.

Easier than ever. Although New York’s blue laws had long prohibited selling booze on Sundays, in 1896 hoteliers won an exemption: If you had more than 10 beds, and served food, you could serve liquor, too.

Smart saloon owners quickly hung up a sheet, threw some cots behind it, laid out a few stale sandwiches, and declared themselves innkeepers. Men ignored the food and guzzled the beer, then retired to the back with a “waiter girl.”

Nightlife choices abounded. The fancier bars boasted fullscale shows or singing servers, like young Irving Berlin.

The more notorious spots hid in tenement basements.

They were nicknamed dives because you had to go underground to find them. Places called slides catered to gays.

By World War I, though, all began to change.

Racists shut down the blackand-tans and reformers went after the most obvious bordellos. Ragtime — an AfricanAmerican invention that had drawn crowds, particularly in the gay bars — was going out of style. The temperance movement was growing.

Meanwhile, the War Department — worried about the corruption of sailors and soldiers — pushed cities to shut down their red-light districts.

It had been almost 90 years since the Rev. McDowall first preached against Manhattan as a hotbed of seduction and sin, but change had finally come.

The age of lousy hooch, loud music and randy coupling was ending. The reformers had won, and they could all give themselves a pat on the back.

After all, they didn’t know the Roaring Twenties were just around the corner.