Storyville
The busy red-light district that lasted in New Orleans from 1897 to 1917 has since been destroyed, and in its place stand federal housing projects still partially under renovation. Known as Storyvillle, (named after the neighborhood's creator Sidney Story), the area's splendid Victorian homes served as brothels and provided a venue for the raw sounds of ragtime and early jazz—an extremely young Louis Armstrong cut his teeth in some of the clubs here. The world's first electrically lighted saloon, Tom Anderson's House of Diamonds, was at the corner of Basin and Bienville streets, and the whole area has been the subject of many novels, songs, and films. In 1917, after several incidents involving naval officers, the government ordered the district shut down. Some buildings were razed almost overnight, but it would be years before federal funding would be available for the housing project in the 1930s. Only three structures from the Storyville era remain, all former saloons: Lulu White's Saloon ( 237 Basin Street), Joe Victor's Saloon ( St. Louis and Villere streets), and "My Place" Saloon ( 1214 Bienville Street). Currently, a historical marker on the "neutral ground" (median) of Basin Street is the only visible connection to Alderman Sidney Story's experiment in legalized prostitution. The area is a popular stop on many ghost tours, though what there is to see unfolds in the imagination.
