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Sketches of Gotham

Chapter 2: INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS
By Ike Swift
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American LiteratureShort Stories

About This Book

A series of short sketches portrays early twentieth-century city nightlife through anecdotal vignettes centered on women who navigate hotels, theaters, beach resorts, and dance halls. The pieces mix tales of ambition, performance, and petty schemes—dances that open social doors, staged seductions, auctions of reputation, and brushes with law—while sketching a cast of entertainers, gamblers, and patrons. Tone shifts between wry observation and gritty detail, using episodic scenes to map the social textures and risks of metropolitan entertainment life.

INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS

“Ike Swift” 2
A spectacular dance which helped her in meeting people 12
Her swell figure made her an attraction on the beach 18
She was once the real thing on physical culture 28
A dose of knockout drops proved the turning point in her life 38
A wonderful but untrue picture of love behind the scenes 50
She has been known to kick the crown of a hat held six feet from the floor 60
Rackets where pretty girls cut capers to the music of male voices 68
He often made an honest dollar teaching American women how to smoke “hop” 78
There was disclosed the figure of a young woman rather scantily clad 90
She had such a superb figure that she once posed for a sculptor 100
Disguised as a sailor boy she shipped on one of Uncle Sam’s ships 108
For three solid hours he sat there trussed up like a chicken 118
She put herself up at auction and was promptly bid on 128
She went into the smoking car and calmly lighted a cigarette 136
She had one or two fights on her hands, but she always won out 146
She had danced the fandango in a way that made the Mexicans cheer 156
Atlantic City is the place for sporty girls who play the game to the limit 164
They had a hot time in Minneapolis when the show hit town 174
“I wasn’t arrested, but I was put out as if I were a common swindler” 184
There were times when she did things that were unconventional 192
A light flashed out on the landing and revealed the figure of a beautiful woman 202
Put her in tights and she would have been an Oriental sensation 212
The first pair are in the ring, the talk ceases, and the show is on 220
The glitter of a circus became too much for them to resist 230
Wild revelry of the masked ball and the perfect ladies with the hot sports 240
It’s only a dream after the lobster course 250
She figured once at a masked ball that was raided by the police 260
Once she had been on the stage, but she got a rough deal and quit 268
When the clock struck two she was on the table doing a dance 278