It's been a few days since we've read anything about a hooker, huh? We're sort of beginning to miss them.

Ashley Dupré and Kristin Davis made libidinous ladies cool again — and it's about time.

New York has a long and illustrious tradition of tarts, you see. In the twentieth century alone, it goes all the way back to the halcyon days of Polly Adler’s bordellos in the twenties.

Surely you remember the name Sidney Biddle Barrows, otherwise known as the “Mayflower Madam”? Or Gypsy Rose Lee? There are others, of course, who don’t have Broadway musicals named after them.

For example, we bet you don’t have the name Megan Marshak seared into your memory (hint: Nelson Rockefeller’s widow probably did).

That’s why we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the greatest tarts in New York City history, for your titillation and edification.



Kristin Davis (1976–)

New York's latest famous tart is most likely destined to be a footnote to the Eliot Spitzer scandal, but the enthusiasm with which madam Kristin Davis rode Ashley Dupré's coattails to her own hooker fame is certainly charming.

She also scores points for the amusingly (and yet somehow not) vague names of the three prostitution rings that led to her arrest: Wicked Models, Maison de l'Amour, and New York Body Miracle.

And then there's this: Davis is about as close as you can get to looking like Amanda Lepore without actually being born a man.



Ashley Alexandra Dupré (1985–)

If Bon Jovi wrote a song about a tough but sweet Jersey girl chasing a New York dream, that song would star Ashley Alexandra Dupré.

Born Ashley Youmans, Dupré moved to New York at 19 to be a singer but wound up working for the Emperors Club prostitution ring as “Kristen” (it happens).

Eventually this led her to the Mayflower Hotel on February 13—and you know the rest. But Ashley’s not letting go of those little-girl dreams: She put a few of her own pop songs online when the story broke, making more than $200,000 as of mid-March.



Samantha Jones (1998–)

She's fictional, but so many New York women have so consciously embodied the "Sex and the City" aesthetic that Jones's influence might be greater than anyone else's on this list.

Of the four ladies of SATC, she was the proud strumpet: As she rarely slept with the same man twice, her exploits are too numerous to list but, we can confidently say, included anything (legal) you can think of.

And in a case of life imitating art, Kim Cattrall—the actress who plays Jones— has written two sex books herself.



Amy Fisher (1974–)

Maybe the youngest—and most dangerous—of all our tarts, Fisher spent seven years in jail for the attempted murder of the wife of Joey Buttafuoco in 1992, with whom she had been having an affair since she was 16 years old.

Upon her release, Fisher grew into her strumpet-y shoes: She reunited with Buttafuoco for the coin toss at the 2006 Lingerie Bowl, and in October of 2007, news of her sex tape hit the Internet—it reveals signs of breast augmentation. Girl’s been busy since the slammer.



Madonna (1958–)

Does this need any explanation? Madge was born and raised in the Detroit suburbs, sure, but she made her name in New York City—and how do you suppose she did that? Talent and perseverance? Yes.

Awesome fingerless lace gloves? Yes. Dry-humping a four-poster bed while wearing said gloves? Oh yes. Relentless reinvention of said dry-humping for the next two decades? Hell yes.



Xaveria Hollander (1943–)

Famous for her book The Happy Hooker: My Own Story, Hollander quit her job at the Dutch consulate in Manhattan in 1968 to become a $1,000-per-night call girl (wonder if that price would hold today with inflation?).

A year later she went into business for herself as a madam, opening the subtly named Vertical Whorehouse brothel.

She soon became a trampy superpower— until she was shut down in 1971. Now she runs a bed-and-breakfast in Amsterdam that caters to all of your nonsexual desires.



Valerie Solanas (1936–1988)

She's best known as a radical feminist who attempted to assassinate Warhol (the movie I Shot Andy Warhol was about her), so why is she included on this list?

First of all, Solanas is rumored to have supported herself in her itinerant, pre-Factory years as a prostitute.

And more important, legend has it that in 1967 Warhol refused to produce Solanas's play Up Your Ass because even he found it too pornographic.

An assassin-feminist-prostie who reclaims porn? Welcome, Valerie.