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Rating: 
Summary: 14 years in the making
Review: Al Rose was a mentor and great friend to me. He died in New Orleans about two years ago and was given a jazz funeral. He researched Storyville for 14 years. Many of the records had intentionally been destroyed. At the time he began the research he was living in Hollywood, Fl and wanted to paint a mural and map of Storyville on a wall in his home. He was a wonderful artist as well as writer. When he went to find a good map of Storyville and more details he discovered that the records of ownership of the well known houses of prostitution had been razored out of the official deed books. Intrigued by this he went on and on and the result was Storyville. He was a renaissance man: artist, writer, jazz impressario, labor organizer. He fought in the Spanish Civil War and worked with the Quakers to smuggle social democratic leaders out of eastern europe after the soviets took over. He studied under Diego Rivera, knew Trotsky, was a friend and confidant of every great jazz musician of the 20th Century and befriended all of them. I sat in his living room one night while Eubie Blake played the piano. Al wrote his biography and knew him for 50 years. He produced jazz records for the State of Louisina, still much in demand by collectors. The records bear the legend, "recorded under the personal supervision of Al Rose." His real name was much longer---he was from a very old New Orleans family and actually has to take fencing lessons in case he had to fight a duel. he would be extremely pleased at the reviews on this site. I miss him a lot.
Rating:
Summary: 14 years in the making
Review: Al Rose was a mentor and great friend to me. He died in New Orleans about two years ago and was given a jazz funeral. He researched Storyville for 14 years. Many of the records had intentionally been destroyed. At the time he began the research he was living in Hollywood, Fl and wanted to paint a mural and map of Storyville on a wall in his home. He was a wonderful artist as well as writer. When he went to find a good map of Storyville and more details he discovered that the records of ownership of the well known houses of prostitution had been razored out of the official deed books. Intrigued by this he went on and on and the result was Storyville. He was a renaissance man: artist, writer, jazz impressario, labor organizer. He fought in the Spanish Civil War and worked with the Quakers to smuggle social democratic leaders out of eastern europe after the soviets took over. He studied under Diego Rivera, knew Trotsky, was a friend and confidant of every great jazz musician of the 20th Century and befriended all of them. I sat in his living room one night while Eubie Blake played the piano. Al wrote his biography and knew him for 50 years. He produced jazz records for the State of Louisina, still much in demand by collectors. The records bear the legend, "recorded under the personal supervision of Al Rose." His real name was much longer---he was from a very old New Orleans family and actually has to take fencing lessons in case he had to fight a duel. he would be extremely pleased at the reviews on this site. I miss him a lot.
Rating: 
Summary: American History That's Not Taught in Schools
Review: Al Rose's history of America's only (until recent decades in parts of Nevada) legalized red light district is an entertaining read if you have an interest in American history, Victorian and Progressive Era culture, historic preservation, jazz or prostitution. Featuring Ernest Bellocq's bittersweet photographs of Storyville's denziens and reproductions of 19th century New Orleans newspapers and gossip sheets this book has a moral for all of us: namely, that the legalization of prostitution can put an end to disease, abuse, and harrassment by johns and the authorities and become a viable part of the economy."Storyville, New Orleans" starts out with a brief history of prostitution in the Crescent City and takes the reader on a street-by-street tour of the district created by city aldermen in 1897. Photographs of the girls and their houses are on just about every page and really shows the day-to-day operation of Storyville. In addition, scattered throughout Rose's work are the surviving calling cards and advertisements for each prostitute and her place of business. This includes the "Blue Book", a sort of Yellow Pages for the lecherous. There is also an extensive chapter on the jazz musicians--professors--who played in the various brothels and bars. Storyville was closed by order of the US Navy in 1917 and Rose shows us what happened to some of the women and many of the buildings. My only problem with this book is that many of the newspaper reproductions--especially that of the full-length Mascot in the back--are hard to read. I first found "Storyville" in my university library years ago when I was a student researching a paper. It was an original hardback copy and the pictures and reproductions were of a much higher quality. This paperback edition is not as good. I hope future editions will correct this when it comes time to print. Other than that, I recommend this "Authentic, Illustrated Account" to anyone who likes their history a little on the raw side.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating History Of A Unique Time And Place
Review: If this was a fictional account about the section of New Orleans called "Storyville," no one would ever believe it. That it is true is wonderful, monstrous, fascinating, horrible, and damn good reading. The birthplace of blues, jazz, Dixieland and the beginning of the "Black take" on music that has swept the world and reinvented itself many times...right up to the present. The sex in this book and the way it was practiced and viewed at the time is unbelievable; it boggles the mind. This book cries out to be the basis for a movie, a musical, and/or a TV series. The cast of characters defies explanation. If this book doesn't blow your mind, you don't have one. Great!
Rating:
Summary: Well done!
Review: In my research for a recent paper on the lives of prostitutes, I found this book indispensible, not only for its inclusion of interviews with actual Storyville prostitutes, or its thorough examination of the history and availiable statistics on the district, but also for the strange and beautiful photographs that are abundant in its pages. The expressions, attitudes, and settings the women and photographer chose say volumes about life in Storyville, as does Al Rose's wonderful book!
Rating:
Summary: Informative and Interesting
Review: This is a very informative book.However, more than being full of facts and figures and information, this book is interesting. The interviews with prostitutes, pimps, visitors and musicians that lived and worked in Storyville make this book interesting. The pictures are tactful and add a lot to the book and it's contents. Anyone interested in the history of New Orleans will find this a not to be missed book. Anyone interested in prostitution will find this book useful.
Rating:
Summary: Glorious view of that famous seamy underbelly.
Review: Thoroughly engaging and readable, this history of prostitution in New Orleans is almost enough to make me happy I'm still living in a city with as richly a bizarre past as this. Definitely not the sanitized soft-focus Hollywood version of brothels and the women who ran and worked in them. Biographies within are of vicious, insane, wonderfully horrible creatures who fascinate the reader even while gouging each other's eyes out and savagely beating each other to death with their own prosthetic limbs. To me, this is the spirit of New Orleans; blood, depravity, and all the bad craziness a night in the tenderloin can conjure.
Rating:
Summary: Glorious view of that famous seamy underbelly.
Review: Thoroughly engaging and readable, this history of prostitution in New Orleans is almost enough to make me happy I'm still living in a city with as richly a bizarre past as this. Definitely not the sanitized soft-focus Hollywood version of brothels and the women who ran and worked in them. Biographies within are of vicious, insane, wonderfully horrible creatures who fascinate the reader even while gouging each other's eyes out and savagely beating each other to death with their own prosthetic limbs. To me, this is the spirit of New Orleans; blood, depravity, and all the bad craziness a night in the tenderloin can conjure.
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