Storyville

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Storyville

Or

Love For Sale

Brothels; Houses of Ill Repute; Cat-houses; Whore Houses; Bordellos; Red-light Districts; Comfort Parlors; Sporting Palaces; however you refer to them, simply put, are places where you go and pay someone to have sex with you.

 

 

        Generally speaking, it’s men who go to get their rocks off; their jollies; their load lightened; get laid. Women hire gigolos and pamper cabana boys; men pay whores. The oldest profession is also the oldest systemic subjugation. Prostitutes are people that give sexual comfort and take money for that service (we won’t talk about sluts like me that give it away free).

        Post Civil War, New Orleans was rife with mischief of all kinds: gambling, drinking, carousing, dancing, loud music, violence, mayhem, manslaughter and, of course, all the sex you could afford to pray or pay for. Some folks here still call them the good old days; some folks claim that not much has really changed.

        Back then, we were truly a seaport river town with cargo and waterfronts and seamen from foreign climes; boatmen from up river and local raconteurs, rapscallions, ruffians and roustabouts all looking for a way to blow off steam and not having to go far to find it, created a city whose atmosphere was definitely not Christian-like to say the very least. That particular New Orleans became notoriously definitive as a place to ‘do whatcha wanna’. It was known as a “Sin City” where shenanigans were a participatory sport, a tourist attraction and an economic engine. Tops among these attractions were the “women notoriously abandoned to lewdness”.

        However, in 1897 a City Alderman named Sidney Story came up with a unique and clever idea: what if we made all that misbehaving miscreantial mischief legal in one area, one area only, and let the madness be confined and unbridled at the same time? That sounded so good and righteous that it was decreed that thirty-eight blocks (twenty square) above the French Quarter would be set aside for unchecked raucousness and let the games begin. And indeed the games did begin. Dance halls, gambling dens, vaudeville theaters, restaurants, bars and fancy and not so fancy sex parlors sprang up; talent was rounded up and put to work and a good time was had by all. It was not necessarily a completely safe area but, what the heck, where is?  

        Names of Madams, club owners, sex workers and gangsters, who had risen to the top, became household heroes for the whey criminals as examples to aspire to; great pleasure mansions arose along Basin Street. Lulu White, Josie Arlington, Tom Anderson (the unofficial mayor of Storyville), Willie Piazza, Pete Lala, Frank Early, Joe Victor and more, held sway and influence.

        The district had borders from off Canal Street (Iberville) to Saint Louis Cemetery number one; from Basin Street to North Robinson; but was by no means the only pits of vice; Sanctity Row; Gallatin Alley (where the French Market is now) and the infamous Tango Belt and French Town (from Dauphine Street to Rampart, from Bienville to Saint Louis streets) operated as much rougher, less discerning and more affordable alternatives. Even into the twenty-first century there can be found houses of ill repute functioning; the book The Last Madam (by Chris Wiltz) describes Norma Wallace’s place in the 1960’s history and legends of New Orleans pleasure characters. Jeanette Maier opened her brothel on Canal Street in 1999. And so it goes.

        Storyville operated with its own brand of law outside the law, even having its own published directory The Blue Book, which gave locations and attributes of businesses and personas that functioned in that district. Storyville was also near New Orleans’ own Chinatown which contributed to other trades of opium and take-out food (not kidding).

        But more importantly there was music. Using our current Bourbon Street scene, what better way to draw in customers to your place of frolic than to have music wafting through your doors?  That idea is not new.

        In Storyville there was so much music that music became a competition; sure, every place that was pleasure oriented had a piano player (a revered Professor) and the higher falutin the place the more ambitious the music scene, bands became an attraction and the employment level for musicians was high.

        Musicians stood to make more money is Storyville than other hot spots around town Kid Ory, Papa Celestin, King Oliver, Fess Manetta, Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong among others explored a new found freedom of expression in musical duels called ‘Cuttings’, discovering new styles of music, leading to a form called ‘Jass’  which eventually became ‘Jazz’. I’ve read about a half a dozen references to the definitive definition; however, the term to me just means ‘Jazz’.

        1915 saw the reopening of the U.S. Naval base and World War One bringing lots of new trade for Storyville; however it was short lived. The military regulations prohibited such entertainment within five miles of a base and rather than lose the war; the federal government ordered Storyville closed down (1917) and the city under duress acquiesced. So there you have it and take from it what you will.

        But I ask you: do we really ever stop people that seek adolescent enjoyment from engaging in risky business or do we just send those pastimes into the shadows? Does making something illegal that people take pleasure in ever work? Does the razing of Storyville, the destruction of our Chinatown, the 610 overpass, the demolition of neighborhoods in the name of ‘eminent domain’ really make us ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ or is that just another way of the Big Brother ruining our fun, security and well being?      

        Or, does the common man (of which I am one) simply view “last call” in a bar (or other interferences) as an affront to my rights as a person just trying to have a good time and hurting no one?