page_title: Combat Zone, Boston
section_title: Prostitution
hierarchical_section_title: Combat Zone, Boston / History / Prostitution
context_page_description: The Combat Zone was the name given in the 1960s to the adult entertainment district in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Centered on Washington Street between Boylston Street and Kneeland Street, the area was once the site of many strip clubs, peep shows, X-rated movie theaters, and adult bookstores. It had a reputation for crime, including prostitution.
  In 1974, in an attempt to contain the spread of adult businesses, the Boston Redevelopment Authority officially designated the Combat Zone as the city's adult entertainment district. For a variety of reasons, such as rising property values and the introduction of home video technology, most of the adult businesses in the area have since closed, and the "Combat Zone" moniker has become obsolete.
  By the 2010s, the area had become part of Chinatown and undergone extensive redevelopment. Between Boylston Street and Lagrange Street are several 2000s-era residential high-rise buildings. South of Lagrange Street are a wide variety of Asian cuisine restaurants and small shops that occupy historic storefronts.
context_section_description: LaGrange Street, a small one-way street which runs between Washington and Tremont Streets, was the principal gathering spot for street prostitutes. Most congregated near "Good Time Charlie's" at 25 LaGrange Street. The Pilgrim Theater, one of the last old time burlesque houses, was the site of a political scandal in December 1974 when the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Wilbur Mills, seemingly inebriated, appeared on stage with stripper Fanne Foxe, "The Argentine Firecracker".  The Pilgrim then ceased to feature live shows, instead focusing on X-rated movies, and became a cruising site for men to have (paid or unpaid) sex with men.
  State Representative Barney Frank made a name for himself in the mid-1970s as a political defender of the Combat Zone. Frank took a libertarian view on vice, bucking the consensus that the area needed to be "cleaned up." At the same time he wanted to prevent the Zone's adult businesses from spreading into the affluent Beacon Hill and Back Bay neighborhoods where they might disturb his constituents. In 1975, with the support of Boston Police Commissioner Robert DiGrazia, Frank introduced a bill that would have legalized the sex-for-hire business but kept it quarantined in a red light district, which would be moved to Boston's Financial District. The Financial District was not populated at night, unlike the areas abutting the Combat Zone.
  The Combat Zone had other supporters.  Boston Mayor Kevin White was in favor of allowing adult businesses to operate within defined boundaries, as was conservative pundit William F. Buckley, Jr. In 1975, White made headlines when he made an unannounced tour of the Combat Zone, visiting several establishments where he went largely unrecognized. When approached by a prostitute on LaGrange Street, White replied, "Thank you, I'm too old."
  Many Combat Zone prostitutes, both male and female, were minors. In 1975, 97 girls under the age of 17 were arrested in the Combat Zone for prostitution. A spokesperson for the Boston Police Department called that "the tip of the iceberg", explaining that minors were more often charged with being a Child in Need of Services. Audrey Morrissey, a former underage Combat Zone prostitute who went on to become the associate director of a victims' service agency, recalled that in her day, underage prostitutes were held responsible for what would now be considered a crime against them, while johns were rarely arrested.
caption: The Pilgrim Theater, 1960s.
  City Censor, City of Boston
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