Wickedness and Rat fights on Water Street.

Water Street, close on the waterfront but near enough to Wall Street to attract the money of risk-takers and Sports, was a 19th century Las Vegas. What happened on Water Street was likely though to follow you home in the form of gambling debt, flea bites, or venereal infection.

Kit Burn’s Sportsmen’s Hall at 273 Water Street, hosted fights between rats and terriers, in which thousands of rats and the occasional dog died, and fortunes were gambled. Rat fights were one of the early targets of the SPCA.

In the 1860’s the New York Times revealed that Kit Burn’s had closed his establishment and was allowing revival services to be held there. This was less of a victory for the forces of virtue than it appeared, as Burn’s was in fact receiving a heft sum in compensation for his lost revenue from a clergyman eager to gain the kudos for closing down this den of vice.