Tanqueray: NYC ex-stripper says Alfred Bloomingdale once paid her to play Black maid, used N-word and whipped her
A former New York City stripper, who went viral last year by recounting wild tales from her life, is back on the 'Humans of New York (HONY)' with even more astonishing tales. This time Tanqueray, whose real name is Stephanie, recounted the time when she allegedly fulfilled department store heir Alfred Bloomingdale's fantasy by posing as a "Black maid."
Tanqueray, in November 2019, became one of the most talked-about subjects in HONY's history when founder and photographer Brandon Stanton gave the wild 76-year-old story-teller a platform to share her experiences, from making costumes for porn stars to wearing stolen designer clothes. Stanton is now releasing her tales for a 32-part series, which is being published this week. The new accounts continue to amaze the readers, particularly her encounter with Bloomingdale, who attempted to hit her with a belt, according to her.
"One of my best customers was a GoGo dancer named Vicki, who was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed bombshell. She worked at the Peppermint Lounge when it was really going, but she made a lot of money on the side as an upscale call girl," Tanqueray recounted in one of the latest posts. "All her clients came through a woman named Madame Blanche. Blanche controlled the high-end prostitution in the city. All the powerful men came to her because they knew she wouldn’t talk. But that didn’t mean Vicki wouldn’t talk. Vicki told me everything."
"One night I was selling her a coat, and she told me that Madame Blanche was looking for a Black girl. The client was Alfred Bloomingdale — the owner of the department store. It was a roleplay thing. All I had to do was go to his hotel room and pretend to be a maid," she continued. "She promised me that I wouldn’t even have to take off my clothes. And the pay was $300 — so I agreed. Bloomingdale was set up in a permanent suite at a fancy hotel off Park Avenue. When I walked in the door, he was lying in the bed, wearing one of those smoking jackets like Hugh Hefner wore. He was surrounded by five White hookers in French lingerie. They weren’t even touching him. They were just sorta sitting on the edge of the bed, looking bored."
(10/32) “One of my best customers was a GoGo dancer named Vicki. Vicki was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed bombshell. She...
Posted by Humans of New York on Tuesday, 22 September 2020
"On the bedside table there were stacks of $100 bills. He peeled off three of them and handed them to me," the former stripper added. "Vicki had coached me so I knew what to do. He ordered me around for a while. I was serving them drinks and picking up clothes off the floor. He gradually got more and more demanding, and I was saying dumb stuff like: ‘Yessuh, Mr Bloomingdale. Oh Yes, Mr Bloomingdale.’ But after thirty minutes I was supposed to switch it up. The plan was for me to start talking back, and he was going to get angry and call me the N-word and whip me with his necktie. I didn’t care. I was getting $300. But when that time came, he didn’t grab a necktie. He grabbed a leather belt. And that wasn’t in the agreement. So I grabbed my coat and got the f**k out of there. Thankfully I got my money up front.”
Tanqueray, in one of the posts of the series, talks about her life, recounting how she arrived to New York City from her home in Albany with just "$90, a pack of baby powder, and a bar of prison soap" and stayed with the Salvation Army. "My roommate was a prostitute named Edna, and she had the exact same bar of soap as me. But neither of us are admitting that we just got out of prison," she said.
Stanton's book 'Humans' is set to come out on October 6. The photographer has also set up a GoFundMe page for Stephanie, who took a bad fall recently and is unable to walk. He said: "Stephanie’s health has taken a bad turn," and so he is raising money so that she can have a healthcare plan and a home aide. The fund, so far, has raised over $800,000.