Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a generic for the city government, the higher courts, the police department and similar authorities.

1906		A. Train Prisoner at the Bar 56: [C]harges of misdemeanors or of felonies [...] must of necessity be tried in a higher court or, as the magistrates [i.e. presiding in lower courts] say, ‘go downtown.’ .
1929		Illinois Association for Criminal Justice et al. Illinois Crime Survey 852: [A]n overlord of the First Ward Levee was ‘fixer’ in the new tenderloin and was settling with the people down town.
1943		W.R. Burnett Nobody Lives for Ever 239: ‘Okay, Lloyd,’ called one of the cops [...] ‘Get on your feet. You got a date downtown’.
1952		W.R. Burnett Vanity Row 28: ‘Chad, you understand I’ve got to put on quite a show. Not only for the newspapers. But also for Downtown’.
1967		Werthman & Pillavin ‘Gang Members & the Police’ in Bordua Police 93: ‘[T]hey say they had a right to hit you or arrest you because you were talking back to an officer or resisting arrest [...] Well, that means you in the wrong when you get downtown’.
1970		G. Cain Blueschild Baby 66: [C]an’t stand a bust, can’t stand to go downtown. My parole, my record, my past, will convict me.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 520: ‘Your application [...] will never be processed unless you get a rabbi to light a fire under someone downtown’.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 98: It takes a lot of pictures to pay off attorneys and grease the boys downtown.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 11: He’s catching heat downtown.

2. (US black) the female genital area, in the context of cunnilingus.

1928		C. Panzram Journal of Murder in Gaddis & Long (2002) 116: A face artist is one who goes downtown for lunch and nose-dives into the bushes when he’s hungry.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 downtown Definition: oral stimulation/ excitement of the female vagina. usually expressed as, ‘daddy, take me on downtown.’ Example: Girl, I take you on ‘downtown’ but first we goin’ up ‘Penis Street’.

3. (US police/Und.) police headquarters.

1931		P.J. Wolfson Bodies are Dust (2019) [ebook] The opening of the theatres and night-clubs and the return of the crooks, gamblers and whores kept me downtown.
1942		R. Chandler High Window 186: I’m quite willing to go downtown and say I shot him. But don’t lay your smooth white paw on me again – if you want my story.
1948		J. Archibald ‘Klump a la Carte’ Popular Det. July 🌐 A private flatfoot hides most things he finds out from real cops [...] I bet they don’t know from nothin’ about us downtown.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 181: ‘Get out of the car, you’re taking a little trip downtown.’ [...] ‘You take me down and we’ll see who does what to who. This guy I’m thinking of don’t like none of his boys drug downtown.’.
1969		C. Himes Blind Man with a Pistol (1971) 112: Did the boys downtown make him?
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 34: Get dressed [...] We’re going downtown.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 239: Downtown knows this is a bullshit charge.
1995		C. Hiaasen Stormy Weather 177: Killebrew [...] had some heavy juice downtown.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 292: You wanna tell me what you’re doing here or you wanna go downtown?
2021		S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 102: ‘That’s how I end up having to arrest you and drag you downtown’.

4. (US black) the area where the black community lives; thus down-towner.

1941		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 26 July 9/8: Glimpsed Irene Parsons with a ‘down-towner’ [...] Thursday nite.
1947		R. Goffin Horn of Plenty 92: Below the Tenderloin or red-light district, lay the Creole zone, called ‘downtown’.
1958		‘Ed Lacy’ Room to Swing 108: I stopped ‘downtown’ for a paper and a change of underwear.