SEX AND THE CITY
The city’s reputation as a place of debauchery was sealed early at the end of the last century by a place
whose one-word name still resonates 100 years later: Storyville. Proposed by Alderman Sidney Story,
the district was designed to halt the spread of prostitution throughout the city. The result was a rollicking
red-light district that was a home not only to prostitutes, but also to musicians who would become some
of the city’s most famous. It also spawned the famous series of photographic portraits by E.J. Bellocq,
and was the birthplace of the song “Pretty Baby,” by pianist Tony Jackson. Its end came in 1917, when
the Navy Department decided it was more important to make war, not love. At the Navy’s insistence, the
district was shut down to avoid spreading venereal diseases among servicemen shipping out of New Or
leans to fight in Europe.
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