1010 Conti Street, New Orleans LA 70112
Website, tickets, social feeds here.
- The New Orleans Storyville Museum, located just steps away from the site of the original District, expertly presents a fascinating topic — the city-sanctioned red-light sector at the turn of the 20th century.
- Galleries explore the brothels, saloons, lives of the sex workers, and Storyville’s continuing cultural impact.
The history
New Orleans’s attempt to consolidate vice lasted from 1897 to 1917. The New Orleans Storyville Museum offers a comprehensive history of the District, as it was known, as well as what was known as Black Storyville.
The museum is the vision of Claus Sadlier, who parlayed entrepreneurial success in California into a return to his hometown and the founding of the museum. A press release at the time of its opening described it as a “passion project.”
The museum’s two buildings once housed a sheet-metal shop and was more recently home to Carl Mack’s Mardi Gras Museum of Costumes and Culture, now operating at 318 N. Rampart. Per the Historic New Orleans Collection’s online Vieux Carre Digital Survey, both buildings are old enough to have been witnesses to foot and carriage traffic headed toward or returning from the Storyville district.
Overview
The narrative starts with a colorful review of the city’s early history and then presents the conditions that eventually led to it becoming a continental capital of immorality.
The route continues, as visitors pass:
- A retelling of the District’s founding at the initiative of Sydney Story, the alderman on the city’s Common Council who proposed the district as a civic cure, or at least cosmetic remediation, to a citywide “plague of prostitutes,” per one of the newspapers of the day. He is remembered by history as the famous red-light district’s namesake, poor guy.
- A selfie-ready display that explains why the light is red.
- A beautiful re-creation of what a stroll down Basin Street might’ve been like at Storyville’s peak.
- An encounter with ghostly sex workers in a simulated bawdyhouse parlour.
- Overviews of the gambling, drinking, food, and music that would’ve accompanied the transacted sex.
- A sobering introduction to the health costs the workers who provided the sex would’ve paid.
- A look at the district’s place in popular culture, including a brief on the 1978 film Pretty Baby, which is set in Storyville and loosely based on the life of photographer E. J. Bellocq.
My first thought, after visiting the museum and interviewing Sadlier, is that the museum is better than it needs to be, which should be read as a recommendation. The opinion stands, and I’ve repeated it to museumgoers who’ve asked me if it’s worth its admission price. If you’re interested in the subject matter, you’re not likely to find a way to learn more about it in a compressed period of time. Fascinating topic, expertly presented. Two hours if you’re a diver. One if you’re a swimmer. Which are you?
Must-see objects
Blue Books – Sadlier has obtained two Blue Books, which wall text describes as directories of pleasure, dating to the years 1907 and 1914. The enterprise of a former newspaperman who’d elevated his lot in life to become manager at one of the Storyville saloons, the books list madams and sex workers, though specific services are not detailed. Available for a quarter and distributed by newsboys, the Blue Books, some of the beguiling Bellocq photos, the song “The House of the Rising Son,” and the jazz music that grew to young adulthood in Storyville’s parlors are pretty much all that remain of the District. All are addressed in the museum. The Blue Books have been digitized, and visitors can swipe through a video display to see the contents.
Museum store
History books and a few branded keepsakes are available on your way out. The operative T-shirt catchphrase, referring to the city and its reputation: “Lewd and Abandoned since 1718.” Reproductions of both on-view Blue Books are available. All items, including branded rain ponchos and umbrellas, are also available online here.
Parking
First choice could be street parking on Rampart Street. Other more expensive surface lots are nearby as well.
Lunch
The mountains of fried seafood at Deanie’s, the suburban flagship of which is a favorite of locals, will set you up for an afternoon nap. The breakfast and lunch spot Wakin’ Bakin’ is a six-block walk and also a local favorite. Killer PoBoys, appropriately a neighbor of the Museum of Death, is where to sandwich.
Drinks
The Irish Cultural Museum, just a few steps away, will give you a glow. The bar at Bourbon House also serves excellent oysters and is a climate-controlled location for Bourbon Street people-watching. Nearby Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar is also a visitor favorite.
Website
A beautiful, dynamic home page sets the stage with large photos and (presumed) visitor testimonials. Sections offer a comprehensive overview of exhibits and the museum’s narrative. A blog notes news and events at the museum. The “press” page gathers media pieces, including the Museumgoer Podcast interview with Sadlier. I love how the “buy tickets” box in the header wobbles as your cursor trips around the pages. Also worth copying by competitors: A downloadable turn-by-turn map of the museum’s interior, explaining what you’ll see and where.
Extra things
- An early reviewer made this point: “At least by neighborhood standards, the new Storyville Museum will strike some visitors as chaste, or at least chaste-adjacent, given the topic, which is New Orleans’s civic attempt at vice consolidation at the turn of the last century. The historic footprint of the Storyville red-light district, where not-legal-but-tolerated sex work occurred in fancy mansions and grungy cribs from 1897 to 1917, is just a few steps toward the lake from the museum’s storefront. A few steps toward the river, at least at certain hours? Much worse than you’ll see inside 1010 Conti St.” OK, that was me. Point being: The museum limits guests to ages 18 and up.
- Linger in the gallery titled “Walking Tour of Storyville,” which delivers visitors from the old Southern Railways depot past some of the most notable houses of the District, including Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall, Tom Anderson’s Arlington Annex Saloon, and others. The gallery is dramatically rendered, full of excellent descriptions of each house, and concludes with the haunting “Pepper’s Parlor” brothel reception room re-creation.
- I’m not sure how to navigate to it from the website’s homepage, but there’s a gallery-by-gallery audio tour of the museum. It’s an excellent way to prep for a visit or return to any wall text you’ve missed. Find it here.
- A neighboring building at 1026 Conti was Bellocq’s childhood home and later served as the location of Norma Wallace’s brothel, remembered in the 2001 book The Last Madame. More here.
