Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a metaphorical ‘street’ denominating a state of impoverishment.

1866		Clarksville Wkly Chron. (TN) 19 Jan. 3/2: Poverty Row! What memories does the word recall.
1870		Clarksville Chron. (TN) 8 Jan. 4/1: [advt] Poverty Row Looking Up!
1879		London Life 5 July 5/2: [T]he corner commonly known as Poverty Junction.
1879		London Life 24 May 8/1: Mr. Smith [...] has enlarged and seated a bar for the convenience of ‘pros,’ who are not ambitious of being seen hanging about ‘Poverty Corner’.
1888		Iola Register (KS) 21 Dec. 9/1: The more or less hardened inhabitants, young and old, of Poverty Row.
1897		Eve. Bulletin (Honolulu) 22 Mar. 5/2: The Daughters of Rebekah will have a hard times party [...] at which those attending must dress in the style becoming ‘overty Row’.
1901		St James’ Gaz. (London) 21 Feb. 16/1: Poverty Row [...] The poor themselves now seem to be wakening up to the necessity of better abodes [...] judging by their ’dogholes’.
1903		Hickman Courier (KY) 25 Dec. 1/5: In packing a Christmas box, a young girl placed a doll [...] for the little tot of Poverty Row .
1912		Citizen (Honesdale, PA) 13 Dec. 8/2: [heading] Christmas Eve in Poverty Row.
1919		N. PLatte Semi-wkly Tribune (NE) 10 Oct. 1/5: A humorous journey to Poverty Row by a rich family.
1940		R.L. Bellem ‘Death’s Passport’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 112/1: They laid plans for the juiciest publicity coup that ever came out of Poverty Row.
1944		R.L. Bellem ‘Focus on Death’ Hollywood Detective Jan. 🌐 A Poverty Row independent company can pirate some footage of a cattle stampede or Indian fight without cost.
1971		B. Short Black and White Baby 55: Bless their hearts, many of the [social club] members themselves were only a whistle away from poverty row.
1993		(ref. to 1890s) I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 53: The opposite state of affairs is to end up on Poverty Row, the most popular metaphorical state of poverty in late nineteenth-century New York.