Interview with Melanie Young, Back Alley Tours

February 5th, 2010 | Posted by Debra Simpson in Online Radio Show

North San Diego Business At Large
Show Notes: February 5, 2010

My guest was Melanie Young, Back Alley Tours.

Back Alley Tours is a 90-minute walking tour through downtown San Diego’s historic Gaslamp district.

Before a 1912 vice raid, this district was known as the Stingaree. Dozens of brothels and saloons greeted visitors as they disembarked from the Fifth St. Horton Pier—now the site of the San Diego Convention Center.

Police looked the other way—that is, they looked right out the window of Police Headquarters, which was smack dab in the middle of the Stingaree.

All this changed when San Diego’s citizens decided to host the 1915 Panama Expo. And at least some of the city’s 40,000 citizens asked: what do we do about the Stingaree?

Find out which of your favorite downtown buildings once hosted ladies living “the sporting life,” which street created the district’s official “Boundary” and where local Asian and African-American families found ways to survive and thrive, often right next door to the most notorious saloons.