travsd

Slices of the Tenderloin

Now that we have a complete set I can share my series of stories I wrote for the Chelsea Community News for Black History Month and Women’s History Month. I decided to concentrate on New York’s now defunct Tenderloin neighborhood, which overlapped with where Chelsea is now. Among other things, it was one of the major neighborhoods where African Americans settled prior to the development of Harlem. It was also the site of Koster and Bial’s Music Hall, a venue where many female performers became major stars. Here are the articles, in case you missed them:

Williams and Walker

Ernest Hogan

Scott Joplin

Cole and Johnson

Saharet

La Sylphe

Aida Overton Walker

Koster and Bial’s

Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.