Walking down Bleecker Street as the afternoon light fades into evening, you can't help musing that it isn't quite like any other street in Manhattan. The commercial section has already come to life, roaring with laughter and animated conversation as crowds of friends wander in and out of Italian restaurants, provocative nightclubs, experimental theaters, French cafés, and Negro saloons. A few of the men wear rouge, one or two women wear trousers, and you hear more than a few outbursts of drunken song and poetry. As you turn onto the residential portion of the street, you see young people of both sexes sitting out on tenement steps and balconies, smoking cigarettes and eagerly discussing art and radical politics in Italian, English, French, and Yiddish.
At last, you arrive at a three-story brick building that looks snug and cozy despite its bustling locale. A scattering of trees and a neat little flower garden suggest a caring landlady, and decorative iron bars form a sunburst pattern in the half-moon window above the door. Perhaps you're feeling a bit nervous--this is known as a scandalous neighborhood, after all, an artists' enclave full of racial mixing, sexual freedom, and new-fangled ideas. What you find when you walk in, however, is a cheerful little lobby with a fire crackling in the grate and a plump, middle-aged black woman sitting behind the desk.
"Hey there, honey!" she says, rising and offering a hand and a smile. "The name's Mrs. Heartwick. You lookin' for a bed? You sell papers? Good. Rent's five cents a night, an' you pay the same for breakfast or supper. Gotta be out workin' by seven every mornin', an' curfew's nine o'clock, or midnight if you get a special pass. You just sign the registration book an' get settled right in." She turns toward the stairs and raises her voice. "FOOTSTEPS! GOT A NEW GOIL FOR YA!"
Seconds later, a tall brunette comes bounding down the stairs, rosy-cheeked and breathless, but she isn't alone. Five or six other girls rush down on her heels, clamoring and laughing as they try to get a look at the newcomer. One of them is wearing a paint-spattered smock, another has ink-stained fingers, and a third is singing an Italian aria at the top of her voice, bouncing down the stairs without missing a note. Chasing after them is a boy with a cigarette between his lips and a shrieking, giggling girl in his arms.
"C'mon now, everyone," the brunette pleads in a lyrical Irish brogue, turning to face her entourage. "You want the new girl thinkin' we're all a bunch o' savages?"
"True, ain't it?" one of the girls laughs, but at a look from Mrs. Heartwick, the lodgers (and their male visitor) all race each other back up the stairs, still laughing and chattering fit to raise the dead.
Only the Irish girl remains, and she turns to offer you a dazzling smile, not looking at all worn out by all the excitement. "We ain't got an awful lot o' rules around here, but they're good girls, every one o' them," she assures you, and sweeps a curtsey. "Footsteps Callaway at yer service, love. The girls'll tell ya I'm their leader. They never exactly consulted me on the matter, but it seems I don't get much of a choice." She laughs a bit uncomfortably, then brightens. "Never mind all that, though. Ye've stepped right into a land o' dreams, an' I've been summoned to guide ya! Pull up a chair an' let me an' Mrs. Heartwick tell ya all about the house."