After the war, the district moved up the hill from the waterfront, and by the s the establishments operated openly in an area bounded by Ontario, Lakeside, Superior, and E. Although police raided the premises monthly, they did not close them down.
By the turn of the century, police sought to end streetwalking and to exert tighter control over the vice districts by limiting prostitution to the E. The monthly raids were discontinued, and Police Chief FRED KOHLER , who had zealously raided the "tenderloin" district as a policeman, adopted a plan whereby patrolmen would be stationed outside the houses taking the names of all visitors.
This ploy discouraged business, and the targeted operations shut down, at least temporarily. BAKER closed down the segregated district, despite protests from his safety director and house-owners alike that eliminating an open red-light district would spread uncontrollable prostitution over the city. True to the predictions of Baker's critics, unauthorized prostitution districts developed around the city. In contrast to the 27 houses and known prostitutes operating in the segregated district at its shutdown in , an estimated 5, vice resorts including speakeasies and gambling joints flourished by , and downtown Cleveland was a haven for streetwalkers.
Sporadic crackdowns in the s gave way to major raids in and houses in the Roaring 3rd Central precinct the Scovill-Orange Ave. By downtown hotels along Prospect and Carnegie did such a brisk business that police had to break up traffic jams at 3 A. In subsequent decades, prostitution moved in response to urban renewal, highway construction, and suburbanization.
East side prostitution, however, remained concentrated along Prospect, Carnegie, EUCLID , and Chester avenues, where the ever-present criminal element discouraged legitimate business activity.
