63 West 70th Street
This pink five-story row house appears ordinary at first glance. It is one of many different colored but similarly designed homes on a quiet residential street on the Upper West Side. A wonderfully liberal Upper West Side family probably currently resides within its walls. However, the building has a darker and more lascivious past. In the roaring 20’s, the house served as the largest and most famous bordello in Madam Polly Adler’s sex empire. Adler operated a club out of the house, which she rented, and turned it into a multi-functional space, with offices, bedrooms, bars, and lounges. It is safe to say that the behavior inside the house today is tamer than it was over eighty years ago.
Polly Adler typified much of what the roaring twenties were all about: money and sex. She ran a string of brothels out of various locations throughout the city. This building was her most famous and impressive establishment.
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