Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sidewalk n.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

sidewalk snail (n.) [their slow and steady pace]

(US) a police officer.

[US]J.A. Russell ‘Colgate University Sl.’ in AS V:3 239: Side-walk snail: policeman. ‘Avoid the side-walk snail.’.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
sidewalk sister (n.)

(Aus.) a street-walker.

[Aus]New Call (Perth, WA) 17 Dec. 1/3: [I]t was nothing to see a side-walk sister spend £5 every night on the drug, which usually represented about one-third of their night’s takings for soliciting.
sidewalk superintendent (n.) (also superintendent of the sidewalk)

(US) anyone, other than those employed at the site, who enjoys standing staring at buildings under construction; also attrib.

[US]St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) 14 Nov. 1/2: Watching Own Building Excavation [...] John D. Rockefeller Jr., founder of the Sidewalk Superintendent Club — New York’s first organization of steam-shovel kibitzers .
V. Hiscock et al. Ways to Community Health Education 109: This is a sound exhibit idea for people like to watch others work. Who is there among us who isn’t a sidewalk superintendent at heart?
[US]G.H. Bean Yankee Auctioneer 192: Many times I have lowered furniture from upper floors by a trick I learned when acting as a ‘sidewalk superintendent’.
[US]Carpenter LXXVI–VII 29: Arranged around the fence at eye level were several foot-square, wire-covered peepholes, each one engaged by an engrossed sidewalk superintendent.
[US]E. Wilson Earl Wilson’s N.Y. 288: It was the natives of New York who invented and popularized the ‘sidewalk superintendents’ pastime.
Greendale & Knock Housing Costs and Housing Needs 112: Being a sidewalk superintendent can be fun, as long as you do not move from the sidewalk into the construction site.
[US]N.Y. Mag. 24 Feb. 22: But the ‘sidewalk superintendent’ portholes that once allowed pedestrians to watch their city grow up are vanishing.
Press Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) 5 May 1/3: Dozens of ‘sidewalk superintendents’ stood in the drizzle to watch.
sidewalk surfer (n.)

(US) a skate-boarder.

[US]Pittsburgh Press (PA) 6 Sept. 3/3: An outbreak of sidewalk surfing [...] There is even a song, ‘Sidewalk Surfers,’ soon to be released.
Anderson Herald (IN) 31 July 29/1: [headline] Sidewalk Surfers Give Sport a New Twist.
[US]L.A. Times 18 Nov. 53/3: Where sidewalk surfers once had their way only shoppers remain.
[US]Tampa Trib. (FL) 18 Aug. 15/3: The unbridled joy he and other sidewalk surfers [...] derive from cruising the pavement.
[US](ref. to 1959) L.A. Times Magazine 13 June 15/2: Using woopd scraps and thrift-store roller skates Skip Engloom, hen 12, makes and sells boards for ‘sidewalk surfers’ [1959].
Jason Borte ‘Skateboarding’ at Surfline.com 🌐 Initially known as sidewalk surfing, skateboarding came about soon after Gidget introduced surf culture to the masses in 1959. [...] In fact, today’s sidewalk surfers are still waiting for surfing to catch up.
Great falls Trib. (MT) 9 July 19/1: Here’s a look at what it takes to be a ‘ssidewalk surfer’.
sidewalk surfing (n.)

(US) skate-boarding.

see sidewalk surfer
[US]L.A. Times 18 Nov. 53/3: Police say they will monitor the street during peak sidewalk-surfing hours.
Jason Borte ‘Skateboarding’ at Surfline.com 🌐 Initially known as sidewalk surfing, skateboarding came about soon after Gidget introduced surf culture to the masses in 1959. [...].
sidewalk susie (n.) (also sidewalk suzie)

a prostitute.

[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 202: sidewalk susie (n) A prostitute; a whore.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 14: The insulting connotations usually come through most clearly when the familiar form of a name is used, as in [...] suzie (commonly a prostitute, and for emphasis, sidewalk suzie).

In phrases

hit the sidewalk (v.)

(US) to walk the streets searching for a job.

[US]I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 40: To hit the sidewalks and to pound the pavement especially have meant looking for a job.
roll up the sidewalk (v.)

(US) used jokingly, of shops and entertainments in (small, provincial) towns or cities, to close down at nightfall.

[US] (ref. to mid–19C) I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 57: Cities long ago ceased to roll up the sidewalks at sunset.
H. Ward q. in Firestone Swing, Swing, Swing (1993) 125: ‘I constantly had to worry about where I was going to get my dress pressed when we finally reached wherever we were going because they usually rolled up the sidewalks by seven o’clock’.