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Pearl Polly Adler

from Bandito by Robin Aigner and Parlour Game

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about

The oldest of nine children of Gertrude Koval and Morris Adler[1][2], Polly Adler emigrated to America from Yanow, Russia, near the Polish border at the age of 14 just before World War I. The war stopped her family from joining her. She worked in clothing factories and sporadically attended school. At 19, she began to enjoy the company of theater people in Manhattan, and moved into the apartment of an actress and showgirl on Riverside Drive in New York City.

She opened her first bordello in 1920, under the protection of mobster Dutch Schultz and a friend of mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano. One building in which she plied her trade was The Majestic at 215 West 75th Street, designed by architects Schwartz and Gross and completed in 1924 with hidden stairways and secret doorways.[3] Her brothel there boasted such patrons as Robert Benchley, New York City mayor Jimmy Walker, and mobster Dutch Schultz.[4]

In the early 1930s, Adler was a star witness of the Seabury Commission investigations and spent a few months in hiding in Florida to avoid testifying. She refused to give up any mob names when apprehended by the police. She survived by providing half of her income to her underworld safety net. For over 20 years, Adler kept active by moving her brothel from apartment to apartment. She retired in 1944.

Adler attended college at age 50, and wrote a bestselling book, ghosted by Virginia Faulkner, A House is Not a Home (1953), allowing her to live off the proceeds. She died in Los Angeles, California in 1962. A House Is Not a Home was made into a movie two years later, starring Shelley Winters as Adler. Her notoriety led her to be included in Cleveland Amory's 1959 Celebrity Register.[5]

lyrics

Pearl Polly Adler

By Robin Aigner



I’ve been to the Campbell Apartment

At the invitation of FDR

I’m the only one who knows where he goes when he parks his car

You can’t believe the papers, periodicals you read

I’m a lady first and foremost

Doer of good deeds



A house is not a home

And Winters can not hold a candle to my throne

I said it first, let it be known

I’m a spy in the house of love

Mistress of mirth, enemy of the church



You can call me Polly

You can call me Pearl

I’m the queen of the Nile, of Riverside Drive

A Murry Hill girl, the run of mill kind

Red wine wall coverings

Covering the underthings

The birds sway, to the out of tune humming



A warm meal for Lucky Lou

A bed when he’s broke

He treats me all right, with his limited sight

From the point of view of a half-funny joke

Think we’ve got the makings of a pretty good deal

I’ll know I’ve arrived, when the books that I sign

Keep me in Clevelands for the rest of my life


I’ll protect my men

With an armor of amour, by hill or dale or glen

See you at Seabury

I’ll come when they call

But madame don’t take kindly

To windy lies and watching other fall



You can call me Polly

You can call me Pearl

I’m the queen of the Nile, of Riverside Drive

A Murry Hill girl, the run of mill kind

Red wine wall coverings

Covering the underthings

The birds sway, to the out of tune humming



I might take my learning

Later than others

But I learned from the best

The mightiest of brothers

The living that I’m earning

Fits inside of a Mason jar

But you won’t find it in the floorboards

Underneath the mahogany bar



I’ve been to the Campbell apartment

At the invitation of FDR

I’m the only one who knows…

Where he parks his car

credits

from Bandito, track released April 4, 2010
Robin Aigner (music, lyrics), Josh Camp (tack piano), Caroline Shaw (violin)

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Robin Aigner and Parlour Game Brooklyn, New York

"Local folkie Robin Aigner croons witty, vintage-sounding tunes with dashes of klezmer and swing." —Timeout New York. Brooklyn's Aigner plays engaging and emotive history vignettes, blending 30s novelty tunes, old-time folk, mid-century country-and-western, and Eastern European music. ... more

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