Ladies of the Night

In 1964 the Police Department decided to make a special effort to

reduce the number of women employed in “the world’s oldest profession”.

It may have become a priority because the frat houses at the U of T were

starting to use the services of these shady ladies quite frequently, often

including them as part of their initiations and hazing. Many of the civic

fathers had their sons attending the university and were anxious to see that

the reputations of their privileged offspring remained unsullied.

The Morality Squad selected several new recruits fresh out of Police

College to assist them in their quest to rid the city of these wicked women

and I was among the chosen few. They wanted us to pose as university

students and participate in a scheme that today would be considered

entrapment but back then ‘all was fair in illicit love and war’. Our job was

to head down into the tenderloin districts of the city and wait until we were

solicited by one of the hookers. The job didn’t end there. We were issued

with marked money and instructed to go with the woman in question to her

room. When she had disrobed to the extent that there could be no mistaking

her purpose and accepted the marked money we were instructed to whip out

our badges and arrest them.

At first the women were pretty easy to trick. Although we didn’t have

the academic qualifications, with our Ivy League togs and haircuts we could

pass well enough as students. There were no entrance exams.

Several of my young classmates who were assigned the same duties

had, at the outset, been very apprehensive about how the prostitutes would

react when they found out that they had been duped. At a general meeting

before we started the operation they expressed the concern that they would

be unarmed and that some of these girls were pretty tough.

I, however, was not worried and before I realized what I was doing,

blurted out that, in my opinion, the women would simply surrender

gracefully and accept the situation as just another part of the job. The room

fell silent for what seemed a long time and I was getting some strange looks,

especially from the Morality Squad detectives. I knew they wanted me to

explain how it was that I knew so much about prostitutes but they let it slide

and continued with the briefing. The American military’s rule of “Don’t

ask and don’t tell’ is not a new concept.

The fact is that I knew a lot about prostitutes. Now don’t get me

wrong. It’s just that you can’t have lived on Pembroke St. in downtown

Toronto in the 1950’s and passed the Spot One Grill on Dundas St. every

morning on the way to school and not have learned a great deal about these

ladies of the night. The corner of Pembroke and Dundas was the epicenter

of the flesh trade, surpassing even the infamous Jarvis St. As kids growing

up in that notorious area we saw a lot but at first, understood very little.

I had a school friend named Terry Gilder and we spent a lot of time

together. We participated in all the traditional after school pursuits like

snaring pigeons in Allan Gardens or dragging big magnets up and down the

back lanes seeing what rusty treasures we could snag. We travelled

everywhere on scooters we built ourselves. All we needed was a piece of

two by four, an orange crate and an old roller skate.

As kids will, we had sleepovers. Terry spent nights at my house but I

liked it best when we stayed at his place. It was more fun. The house was a

hive of activity. He had several aunts who lived in the rooms upstairs and

there were all kinds of interesting men coming to visit them. It was as if

there was a party going on all the time and, best of all, his aunts were always

subsidizing our banana splits at the Chinese restaurant on the corner if we

promised to stay there for an hour or so.

Of course as we grew into our teens we realized what was going on

but by then it somehow seemed normal. It was before the era of the drug

addicted prostitutes and Terry’s mother and aunts, when not engaged in their

nocturnal pursuits, seemed to be very normal caring people. They certainly

looked after my friend very well along with several other children who

shared the house. They even had a summer cottage at Wasaga Beach and

Terry often invited me to join them there. I never went. My parents, who

were working very hard and often away, had no idea what was going on at

his house and I didn’t want to press my luck. They might have wanted to

meet his mum before allowing me to travel that far away with them.

We eventually moved away and I lost track of Terry but now, as I sat

with the rest of the cops planning our assault on the bawdy business, I

wondered what he would think of me. It occurred to me that the girls in the

business must be already hurting. It was the era of free love and who could

compete with that?

But duty is duty so I played the game and did what I was told. It was a

short assignment. After a couple of arrests the girls all knew me and I had to

be replaced. I was right about their attitude. They couldn’t have cared less;

the arrest and the fine were just the cost of doing business. Both the girls

that I temporarily removed from the streets found the situation hilariously

funny and we had a good laugh together before I took them in. Of course

they felt compelled to embarrass me in front of the Desk Sergeant by

offering me a freebie but that, for want of a less explicit phrase, was just a

little tit for tat. Actually, they bore me no grudge and later when I was

patrolling the streets in uniform and they were back in business they would

often greet me like an old friend.