Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a gambling den.

1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 607: Peregrine was seized with this epidemic distemper to a violent degree; and after having lost a few loose hundreds, in his progess through the various rookeries of the place, entered into partnership with his noble friend.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel II 249: I must set up for gentleman, and go among the gallants at the Shavaleer Bojo’s [...] – the worse rookery of the two.
1938		H. Asbury Sucker’s Progress 263: By the early 1840’s virtually every settlement of any consequence in the Middle West had its ‘nest of gamblers,’ many of which eventually became sizeable rookeries.

2. a criminal slum ‘inhabited by dirty Irish and thieves’ (Hotten, 1860); London's best known was the St Giles Rookery (now occupied by the Centre Point tower), but the term appears in US and Aus.; thus attrib.

1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 20: A sort of cellar-door, which [...] led them to as neat a rookery as ever escaped the vigilance of a Charley.
1835		Dickens ‘Gin Shops’ in Slater Dickens’ Journalism I (1994) 182: That classical spot adjoining the brewery at the bottom of Tottenham-court-road, best known to the initiated as the Rookery.
1843		N.Y. Dly Trib. 27 Apr. 2/1: Magistrates will be more likely to molest brothels, and gambling-houses and other rookeries of depravity than other men.
1848		Sinks of London Laid Open 19: We directed our steps to that well known spot [...] the Rookery, the appropriate title given to that modern Sodom, St. Giles’s.
1857		‘Leary Man’ in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue (1857) 42: Then go to St. Giles’s rookery, And live up some strange nookery.
1863		Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: The frequenters of low dances and rum rookery rowdies.
1861		H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 278/1: The Waterloo-road — a well-known rookery of young thieves in London.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 215: rookery a low neighbourhood inhabited by dirty Irish and thieves ? as st giles’ rookery. Old.
1875		Hampshire Advertiser 10 Nov. 3/4: Alfred Sibley [...] Thomas Arney, Queen Street Rookery, were charged with gambling.
1879		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 29 Nov. 14/1: [headline] All the Petty Thieves are not Inhabitants of Rookeriws and Tenement dens / society’s ‘swell-mob’.
1885		Donaldsonville Chief (LA) 11 Apr. 1/4: Brooklyn [...] has none of the rookeries, slums or gambling hells that we have on this side of the river.
1889		G.R. Sims Horrible London 139: These people have all been forced back on a rookery through drink.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 407: We [...] threaded our way through the maze of tortuous alleys and reeking slums known to the habitués of St. Giles’ as ‘the Rookery.’.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 67: Rookery, a low neighbourhood.
1903		N. Devon Jrnl 5 Feb. 6/4: A rookery had to be swept away, which was occupied by six families.
1906		Eve. World (NY) 8 Mar. 10/1: Tenement Laws are Defied by Chinatown’s Rookeries [...] an old rookery in Doyers-street occupied by at least seventy-five people.
1910		Eve. Sun (Baltimore, MD) 8 June 6/3: I had a glimpse through a soot-begrimed window of rookeries across the way.
1927		H. Asbury Gangs of N.Y. 19: On December 2, 1852, the demolition of the old rookery was begun.
1933		H. Asbury Barbary Coast (2002) 233: The House of Blazes, a large three-storey rookery in Chestnut Street.
1942		N. Algren Never Come Morning (1988) 136: The street where men watch the weather from the windows of louse-ridden rookeries.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 330: A rookery is any place crowded with characters of low repute, e.g., a slum tenement, a military barracks, or a brothel.
1993		I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 46: Urban reformers [...] condemned the overcrowded housing as ‘rookeries’ and ‘warrens’ to suggest that people in them lived like animals.

3. a second-rate brothel.

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 193: A costard-monger, from the upper storey, roared out, ‘I say, governor, how long are ve to be kept in this here rookery […]?’.
1842		Wkly Rake (NY) 20 Aug. n.p.: the rake wants to knowHow comes on Madame Seignette. Does she intend to let fellows make such a rookery of the ‘club-house’ as they have done lately?
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Feb. 3/2: Tho rookery keeper admitted that she had thirteen beds!! Look at that ye Gods! and that she hired a man in her service for convenience (?).
1851		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 4 Jan. n.p.: [A] low-lived rookery on Middlesex street!
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 22 Nov. n.p.: What kind of rookery does Miss Allen keep [...] Does a street house pay better than a parlor house.

4. a row, a disturbance.

c.1820		‘Oh, What a Row!’ [song] People toiling, roasting, boiling, bless us! such a rookery.
1838		W. Holloway Dict. Provincialisms 143: ‘To make a rookery’ is to make a great stir about anything.
1925		DN V 340: Rookery, confusion, ruckus.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.

5. any run-down building.

1945

R.L. Bellem ‘Dead Don’t Dream’ in Hollywood Detective July 🌐 He had obviously scurried straight from my office to this moth-eaten rookery where his absent cousin was holed up.

6. in ext. use, any centre of the like-minded but marginal.

1968

T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 131: She ended up one night in St. Michael’s Alley, one of Palo Alto’s little boho rookeries.