The Elusive Tenderloin by O. Henry — Read

There is no Tenderloin. There never was. That is, none that you could run a tapeline around. The word really implies a condition or a quality -- much as you would say "reprehensibility" or "cold feet."

Metes and bounds have been assigned to it. I know. Realists have prated of "from Fourteenth to Forty-second," and "as far west as" etc., but the larger meaning of the word remains with me.