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The Legend of Storyville
Storyville
New Orleans is also known as the birthplace of Jazz. Early jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton and
King Oliver got their start in the nightclubs of Storyville, a red-light district. In 1897 Alderman Sidney Story created the district
in response to public outcry against rampant prostitution in New Orleans. He was successful in having the city council
adopt an ordinance limiting brothels, saloons and any business considered a vice to the thirty-eight block region.
The area had everything from the cheapest twenty-five cent houses to the most elegant establishments on North Basin Street.
Storyville was to become the most famous red-light district in the United States.
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In 1917 when the Unite States entered WW1, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy issued orders stating that all houses of prostitution
must be closed down within a five-mile area of any military site. Legal protests went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The order was not changed and the end had come to Storyville.
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E.J.Bellocq
Bellocq, was born into a wealthy white Creole family, in the part of New Orleans known as the French Quarter.
A photographer by trade, his passion was taking pictures of the seedier side of life, the hidden side.
He was particularly fond of taking photographs of the opium dens in Chinatown and the prostitutes of Storyville.
Bellocq died in 1949 and is buried in Saint Louis Cemetery in New Orleans.
After his death almost all of his photographs and negatives were destroyed.
However the Storyville negatives were later found concealed in a sofa.
The photographs continue to fascinate because of the beauty, grace, and melancholy of his subjects.
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Josie Arlington 1864-1914
One the most famous of the madams in Storyville was Josie Arlington,
Josie was the owner and proprietress of the Arlington, "absolutely and unquestionably the most decorative and costly fitted out
sporting palace ever placed before the American public."
Her 20-year partnership with a state legislator Tom Anderson cemented her position.
Not only was she one of the most colorful figures in the red light district, but one of the wealthiest and most successful business
owners in all of New Orleans and one of the most financially and politically powerful women of her time.
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