On March 26, 1874, the Children's Aid Society opened the lodging house at its current address, 9 Duane Street. Located on the Lower East Side, it provides room and board to boys under the age of eighteen who have been orphaned or left home with good reason. (If you're already living here, they might let you stay after you turn eighteen--or even nineteen--but twenty's really pushing it, you hear?) Over the years, the house has seen a few superintendants come and go; the latest, John Kloppman, is a 75-year-old widower who has held the position since 1887. Though childless himself, Kloppman has a fatherly nature that makes him more than a landlord to the Duane Street newsies. He looks after each and every one of them, seeing that they are properly fed and clothed, caring for them when they are ill or injured, and doing his best to keep them out of trouble--though it may well be a lost cause.

The rules of the lodging house are simple enough. Rent is six cents a night; supper and breakfast are each six cents extra and have to be paid for in advance. Everyone must be out of the house and selling papers by 7:00 in the morning, though some head out much earlier if their selling spots are far away. Curfew is 9:00 unless you've obtained a special pass to stay out till midnight (which many of the boys take advantage of practically every night). Come in late without a pass and you pay a fine; come in later than midnight even with a pass and you won't be let in at all.

If you are home by 7:30, you're expected to attend evening classes in the auditorium until 9:00. No class on Sundays, of course, and no evening edition of the paper, either; sell all your morning papers on Sunday and you've got a half-holiday. It's the job of the newsies to keep the bunkrooms clean and help with all the other household chores. Finally, the following are strictly prohibited within these walls: smoking, drinking, chewing tobacco, swearing, gambling, violence, and female visitors. (But it's all a matter of not getting caught.)

As for our fearless leader, Francis Sullivan moved into the lodging house in the winter of 1890; a cocky eight-year-old, he was already using the alias "Jack Kelly." With his mother dead and his father in prison, one would think that he had little enough to be cocky about. Before long, however, his brash, friendly demeanor and romantic dreams of the West endeared him to many of the older boys and made him Kloppman's special favorite.

Now seventeen, Jack has lived in the house almost ten years, aside from a few months spent in the dreaded House of Refuge. He and his selling partner, David Jacobs, have become celebrities throughout New York for leading the summer strike of 1899--and for selling more papers than any other duo in Manhattan. Jack's fighting skills and lying tongue are legendary, but so are his laidback attitude and his vigilance in looking out for the young and the weak. The other Duane Street lodgers rarely question his leadership, and he maintains a strong friendship with Footsteps Callaway, leader of the Greenwich Village newsgirls.