The epic slugfest between Jack Dempsey and Jack Sharkey in Yankee Stadium couldn’t have come at a better time, as far as Polly Adler was concerned. July and August were always tough months in her business; really, in every branch of Broadway’s Billion Dollar Beauty Trust. Action on the Main Stem was slow during the dog days of summer, in this age before air-conditioning. The big money men of Wall Street and midtown decamped to Europe with their wives, or to country homes on Long Island, Westchester, or the Jersey shore. The high-stakes gamblers and racketeers who were Polly’s most loyal customers hightailed it to Saratoga Springs for a blissful month at the racetrack. Most speakeasies and nightclubs closed, and the leg-and-fanny revues went on tour, taking with them many of the showgirls who moonlighted in Polly’s house of ill repute.
But receipts were down far more than usual in that summer of 1927. Up until now this had been Polly’s best year ever. After seven years in the skin trade, she had finally worked her way into the blue-chip clientele who thought nothing of dropping a couple hundred bucks for a roll in the hay and a few rounds of drinks. It wasn’t just her house. All that spring Broadway’s nightlife was booming as never before, fueled by the soaring stock market and the thriving bootleg liquor industry.
The Big Street seemed gripped by a feverish, almost hysterical atmosphere of debauchery, with more shows, more nudity, and more cash changing hands than in any season in memory.
By July, however, the money river mysteriously seemed to dry up. One by one “the after-dark palaces of joy,” as The Morning Telegraph dubbed them, were closing their unmarked doors for lack of business.
Perhaps it was the spiraling prices in the nightclubs—lately even the top-hat-and-ermine set were starting to grouse about the size of their bar bills. Maybe it was the growing allure of Harlem, which was all the rage among the more daring thrill-seekers. It didn’t help that the city was in the grip of a vicious heat wave. Every day 8 million sweating citizens swelled the already-crowded stoops and sidewalks in search of a cool breeze.
Every night thousands carried their alarm clocks and pillows to rooftops and fire escapes, hoping for a little relief. Even the hoopla over the historical transatlantic flights of Richard Byrd and Charles Lindbergh, including two tickertape parades up Fifth Avenue, did little to boost revenue. So the return of Jack Dempsey—the biggest entertainment draw in America, bar none—in a major prizefight was like the answer to a heathen’s prayer.
Boxing was always a hot topic among Polly’s clientele, second only to horse racing. But this matchup between Dempsey, the legendary Manassa Mauler, and the young upstart from Boston had sent the whole city into a frenzy of excitement. Tex Rickard, the impresario of Madison Square Garden who’d set up the bout, was predicting over $1 million in ticket sales. Newspaper coverage of the event was feverish, with more than five hundred reporters and photographers planning to be in attendance, and more than a million words in print before the first bell rang. This was Dempsey’s last shot at a comeback, and every high roller who could get his hands on a ticket planned to be there to see it. Everyone in the underworld hospitality industry—the bootleggers, bookmakers, nightclub managers, crap game runners, gold diggers, and prostitutes—was eagerly anticipating the arrival of so many fresh bankrolls eager to be plucked.
