tenderloin, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tenderloin n.

[SE tenderloin, a tender cut of meat, such as beef, pork etc. Coined for an area of New York City, the term was extended to cover similar areas of other major US cities, notably San Francisco, where it is still in use. The concept was linked to police corruption and so great were the bribes and pay-offs available to officers of the 29th Precinct, who administered the area, that they termed it ‘the juicy part of the service’. First used in 1876 by a notably corrupt policeman, Alexander S. ‘Clubber’ Williams (nicknamed for his propensity for violence rather than any love of nightspots), who had just moved to the 29th Precinct. ‘I have been living on rump steak in the Fourth District,’ he remarked, ‘I will have some tenderloin now’ (alternately quoted as ‘I’ve had nothing but chuck steak for a long time...’) ]

(US)

1. the area of a city devoted to pleasure and entertainment, typically containing restaurants, theatres, gambling houses and brothels.

1881		Annual Report of the Attorney General of Nevada 74: [ref. to Reno, NV] The women who are in the immediate vicinity of said saloon (which is in the tenderloin district) hire cribs which are in a [...] separate building.
1887		Harper’s Mag. Mar. 500/2: His precinct is known as the ‘Tenderloin,’ because of its social characteristics [DA].
1890		Mountain Democrat (Placerville, CA) 3/3: The Broadway of the promenaders is divided into three parts. The first part, the shopping district, reaches from Eighth street north to Twenty-first, the second part stretches from Twenty-first to Thirty-third, and is the widely known ‘Tenderloin or Hoffman House district,’ and from Thirty-third to Forty-second stretches the ‘soubrettes’ parade.’.
1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 42: The league between the Powers that Rule and these female Powers that Prey is founded on the exploitation of the Tenderloin.
1903		E.W. Townsend Sure 11: [of NYC] The Tenderloin — where every man has a watch and no woman cares what time it is.
1910		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley Says 8: [of Chicago] Think iv this Light iv th’ Tenderloin bein’ compelled to set down ivry month an’ chat about a new tooth.
1915		O.O. McIntyre Day by Day in New York 4 June [synd. col.] [of NYC] The lid has been taken off the Tenderloin [...] there never have been more outrageously indecent conditions in New York.
1921		R. Lardner ‘A Frame-Up’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 426: [of NYC] Suppose you [...] got invited to some of them big mansions on Mott Street or the Tenderloin.
1931		(con. 1900s) C.W. Willemse Behind The Green Lights 64: In the Fall of 1902 I was transferred into the 19th Precinct [...] It was the Tenderloin – the Tenderloin when it was real.
1946		J.E. Dadswell Hey, Sucker 87: Other interesting words in daily use are: [...] glittergals for girl-shows performers; tinsel-molls for the painted ladies of the tenderloin.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 179: The high-grade tenderloin is around the Circus.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 222: I live over a bar in the tenderloin.
1987		in Delacoste & Alexander Sex Work (1988) 98: Easy come, easy go, as we used to say in the Tenderloin.
2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 644: I’m sellin’ my candy right in the Tenderloin.
2014		R.J. Martin ‘Pimp Game ’76’ in ThugLit Jan. [ebook] The trade in North Beach was nothing like Oakland, or even the Tenderloin for that matter.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1889		N.Y. Times 15 Oct. 8: A noteworthy characteristic of life on Sunday nights in what Inspector Williams was once pleased to term the ‘tenderloin district’ is not the long lines of persons going to church or to the houses of their friends, but the groups of men and women with pinched expressions on their faces and anxious energy in their steps making rapid time toward the nearest restaurants.
1899		Stark Co. Democrat (Canton, OH) 28 July 2/2: An attempt was made to burn the ‘Long Green,’ red-light joint in the tenderloin district.
1912		J.W. Johnson Autobiog. of an Ex-Coloured Man (1927) 139: I think I heard more and more different kinds of slang during my few weeks’ stay in London than in my whole ‘tenderloin’ life in New York.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Aerial Performer’ in Ade’s Fables 197: He was admitted to full membership in the Tango Tribe of the Tenderloin Night-Riders.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 34: ‘Them women’ were women who kept ‘parlor houses’ in the Tenderloin district.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice in Hamilton Men of the Und. 291: I steered clear of saloons and tenderloin joints.
1941		A. Lomax Mister Jelly Roll (1952) 22: You see, my young friends had brought me into the tenderloin district at a very young age.
1944		G. Fowler Good Night, Sweet Prince 108: Jerry the Lug, a Tenderloin hack driver.
1955		B. Appel Tough Guy [ebook] [H]e brought him up to a tenderloin sporting house.
1962		R. Dougherty Commissioner 6: When precinct commands, in such lucrative sections as the Tenderloin district, were purchased by their captains at prices of $100,000 or more.
1982		M. Braun Judas Tree (1983) 12: The combination had made her the toast of Denver’s tenderloin district.
1991		W.T. Vollmann Whores for Gloria 68: Those Tenderloin hotel rooms were havens.

3. an area where the homeless gather.

1965		S.E. Wallace Skid Row 18: At first the areas containing homeless men were called by a variety of local and descriptive names: e.g. Beer Gulch, Chippie Town, the Red Light District, the Tenderloin.
1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 1: Tenderloins strewn with winos sucking on a bottle in a bag and young dopers on the nod.