Students are looking for locations of brothels in Santa Cruz in the late 19th century in the Pleasure Pt area. In the Pleasure Point entry in Donald Clark's "Santa Cruz County Place Names", he writes that he could NOT document that they existed there.
Brothels may be shown on Sanborn maps. The Library of Congress web site has an excellent explanation of how brothels (and other gender-related spaces) are designated on Sanborn maps. (n.b. 3rd paragraph down)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awgmd7/land_use.html
The "Mid-County Post" web site at
http://www.mcpost.com/archives/2003/121603.html
quotes local historian Carolyn Swift, a very reliable source, about this subject. It seems to be a Santa Cruz urban legend.
The Santa Cruz Public Library's web site also has a local history section, which may contain further information on this topic. (I couldn't get into it - temporary problem).