Diamond Street: The Story of the Little Town With the Big Red Light District

Diamond Street chronicles the history of vice and crime in the city of Hudson, NY, from its founding in 1783 to a major crackdown by the NYS State Police in 1950. The little city of Hudson, New York (pop.8,000), was for many years the unlikely setting for a world of prostitution, gambling, murder, and government corruption with more than a touch of the Keystone Kops thrown in. In the century or so before 1950, dozens of madams, bootleggers, and gamblers held sway there, making Hudson famous as a mini sin city. There were at least two major illegal horse rooms, a big-stakes floating dice game, and as many as fifteen houses of ill repute. Meanwhile, the church suppers took place and the parades marched up and down as Hudson's respectable citizenry convinced themselves that there was nothing out of the ordinary in this town described as ten streets wide and ten streets deep ... a Norman Rockwell painting in motion.