Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. gay) a place, such as a bar or a particular street, where homosexuals display their charms to potential customers. After the ‘singles bar’ explosion of the 1970s, the term was extended to heterosexuality.

1963		J. Rechy City of Night 50: We got up, walked [...] toward the ‘meat rack’ — the gay part of the park.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 61: That fabled Meat Rack! The sexual pits incarnate.
1980		(con. 1970) W. Sherman Times Square 36: Nor did he mention how queasy he felt [...] after the hours at what Gray called ‘the meat racks’. [Ibid.] 105: These kids had put themselves up for sale on the meat rack voluntarily.
1994		R.P. McNamara Times Square Hustler 53: The terminal is known among hustlers and clients as the ‘Meat Rack’.
1998		P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 70: ‘Where do you work?’ [...] I just don’t think ‘The Meat Rack, Piccadilly Circus’ was the sort of thing they liked to hear!
2002		M. Houlbrook Sun among Cities 92: The Monkey Walk, or the terrace below the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, the Meat Rack in the 1930s.
2003		K. Cage Gayle.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 294/2: meat rack 1. a male brothel. 2. any place where large numbers of men are sexually available.

2. an ambulance, usu. from a morgue.

1970

E. Tidyman Shaft 25: That’s the meat rack from the morgue coming to take you home.