Chorine Court (West 47th Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue)

O. O. McIntyre (1884-1938) wrote the syndicated newspaper column “New York Day By Day.” On June 12, 1924, he wrote about “Chorine Court,” a block on West 47th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue where New York City’s chorus girls resided in about fifteen small hotels.
   
“The Rialto (Broadway community—ed.) dubs it Chorine Court,” McIntyre wrote, but other citations of the term cannot be found. The block changed after World War II (1940s) and “Chroine Court” is of historical interest today.
     
   
Newspapers.com
12 June 1924, Kansas City (MO Times, pg. 15, col. 3:
A HIVE OF CHORUS GIRLS
“CHORINE COURT,” NEW YORK
HOUSES MANY STAGE NEAR-STARS.
They Are a Jaunty Crew, Facing Suc-
cess of Failure With Laugh and
Jest, Holding the Future
Lightly.
BY O. O. McINTYRE.
NEW YORK, June 11.—The Rialto dubs it Chorine Court. It is a block on West Forty-seventh street between Broadway and Sixth avenue that houses hundreds of New York chorus girls. The block is the comb of a monstrous bee hive riddled with tiny cells and filled with paint, powder and honey.
 
The street is dotted with about fifteen small hotels—most of them shabby, dim-lit and not inclined to questioning. All about bloom beauty parlors, quick lunch emporiums, upstairs millinery shops and downstairs modiste salons. it is attuned to vanity.
 
Just now the Rialto is in the throes of a summer slump. And Chorine Court arouses from sluggish sleep at 3 o’clock in the afternoon instead of noon. The pavements fill with the hastily dressed, airing white kiyoodles. Maisy, Daisy and Pearl are greeting life with a yawn.
 
Around 3 o’clock faces are unpowdered and unrouged. It is not until around 4 o’clock that curls glisten from the iron of beauty shops and cheeks and lips acquire the artificial scarlet. They are preparing for the night and Chorine Court takes on a bird-like swiftness.
 
It is a jaunty crew, there blithe young women who form the hoop-la of Gotham’s merry-merry. They have put their hearts to the hurdles and if they fail to make them they are not inclined to moan and fold their hands. They face genteel starvation gracefully and with a laugh.
 
Chorine Court is a world of youth unchaperoned. Yet at times they seem more honest toward life than their more fortunate flapper sisters who chase new fox trot steps and bulge with desire to be cuddled in some dark corner of the tea room.
 
There are approximately eight thousand chorus girls in New York. At least 80 per cent of them have married unhappily. The remaining percentage are those who expected big careers on the stage but found they could not make the grade.