Farewell to Storyville

February 05, 2016  •  Leave a Comment

In 1897, prostitution didn't exactly become legal in New Orleans, but it was officially tolerated, if only in one section of town. Called Storyville after the man who wrote an ordinance limiting vice to specific blocks, the red light district flourished for the next 20 years. So accepted  was the trade that "blue books," or guides to establishments and the girls therein were sold on street corners. The Secretary of the Navy demanded it be shut down in 1917 to protect the purity of its sailors stationed nearby who were about to go to war. By 1940, the whole  neighborhood had been torn down to make way for a housing project.

Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday sang Farewell to Storyville in the 1947 film New Orleans.


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