The True Story of Storyville! - How the city's infamous redlight district came to be!
New Orleans had a reputation as a wide-open town long before the birth of Storyville. Brothels, like corner stores, were to be found in every neighborhood. Particularly overrun with ladies of ill repute would be Gallatin Street and the narrow alleyways which snaked through the riverfront, catering to sailors spending a few days in port, though this was seldom an issue for the early residents of the Big Easy. As the city began to mature, however, attitudes began to shift.
In the wake of the Civil War, New Orleans' economy was shattered. City leaders, intent to revive their port, would bring businessmen from other parts of the country to show our city's opportunities. When these businessmen, often from more conservative parts of the country, would arrive with families in tow, they would be forced to run a gauntlet of drunken sailors and painted ladies. Not exactly the image the city wanted to present.
The location of the District, as well as the non-White District.
Sydney Story, a city alderman, would hit upon a novel solution: a red-light district based on those found in European cities. This district, which would carved from the Upriver portion of the historic Treme', was bounded by Iberville, Basin, St. Louis, and N. Robertson streets, and which would bear Story's name, would thrive for two decades. Elaborate brothels would be run by colorful madams, jazz music, merrymaking, and clinking glasses would fill the night (and early morning) air. In fact, jazz was first widely played in Storyville, as the madams appreciated its "dirty" sounds and rhythms. Prostitutes of every shape, color, and description would cater to the desires of the white men in the city. Men of color were banned from Storyville, though they could patronize a designated area four blocks upriver from "the District," as it was commonly called.
After twenty years, however, this experiment would come to an end in 1916. The armed forces, objecting to the effect this district was having on the morals of troops (and also the deaths of four servicemen in Storyville within weeks of one another) would force the closure of the district. Knowing that closing the district would merely disperse prostitution back into the neighborhoods, the city would object, with Mayor Behrman himself saying of prostitution: "You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular!"
The elaborate brothels of Basin Street, before their destruction.
In the 20th century the city would try to wipe away all vestiges of the former district, demolishing most of the area to make way for the Iberville Housing Project. They would go so far as to rename Basin Street itself for a number of years, calling it North Saratoga until restoring the name decades later. Only a handful of buildings, mostly in disrepair, remain to mark the former glory of the District, but the memory and legacy of Storyville lives on, most notably in the jazz music which got its start in the brothels there.
For more tales of murder & mayhem in the old French Quarter, join us on our True Crime! tour of New Orleans. Our tour departs Thursday through Sunday @4pm October 1st through April 30th, then @6pm May 1st through September 30th.
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