Empire of sin A story of sex, jazz, murder, and the battle for modern New Orleans

WHEN TOM ANDERSON'S saloon opened in 1901, at the entrance to the recently designated sin district known as Storyville on the edge of New Orleans's French Quarter, people from all over town came to marvel at its opulence. Its cherrywood bar stretched half a block and was lit by a hundred electric lights. With Anderson's encouragement, high-class brothels were soon flourishing down Basin Street. Josie Arlington, his business partner, had a four-story Victorian mansion with a domed cupola, mirrored parlor and Oriental statues. The exotic, mixed-race Lulu White built a brick palace that specialized in interracial sex and featured the jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton at the piano. Another octoroon (the appellation given to people considered to be one-eighth black), Willie V. Piazza, passed herself off as a countess and sported both a monocle and a diamond choker. Anderson, whose civic spirit earned him the title "the Mayor of Storyville," published a Blue Book that contained photos and descriptions of the area's better prostitutes, annotated with symbols ("w" for white, "c" for colored, "J" for Jewish and "oct." for octoroon). It was all a vivid expression of the city's tolerance and diversity. Gary Krist, a lapsed novelist who now writes nonfiction narratives, chronicles the crazy excitement of the Storyville era in this well-reported and colorful tale of jazz, sex, crime and corruption. I can attest, as a native of New Orleans, that in "Empire of Sin" he has captured the flavors and class nuances of the town. And his interwoven story lines, intentionally or not, evoke a piece of jazz, albeit one that's Buddy Bolden raggedy in places. Some strands, like the concurrent rise of Storyville and jazz, weave together nicely, and others trail off like a wayward solo, among them the descriptions of some unsolved murders that may or may not have involved a crazy axman who may or may not have been connected to the Mafia. The most interesting aspect of Krist's book is the battle between upright uptown reformers, who wished to rid New Orleans of sin and corruption, and downtown denizens, who relished the town's permissive mores. With our 21st-century sensibilities, we're expected to be appalled by the degradation and exploitation of the women of Storyville. But by the end of the book most readers will be cheering for Anderson over what Krist calls the "highly sanctimonious" temperance advocates and "self-styled champions of virtue." This isn't merely a case of rooting for the raffish. Krist's underlying theme is the uncomfortable relationship of civic reform to class prejudice. Leaders of the uptown business establishment and social elite were opposed to the tolerance that defined Storyville. But Krist shows that their intolerance went deeper. They were repelled by racial intermingling, and some were involved in notorious lynching s of both blacks and Italians. An integral part of their moralistic crusade was support for Jim Crow laws that attempted to resegregate the city and destroy the complex social interplay among the various shadings of Creoles and whites. The first American metropolis to build an opera house, New Orleans was, Krist writes, "the last to build a sewerage system." By the late 19 th century, the city was populated by French, Spaniards, Haitians, Brazilians, Scots, Germans, Italians, former slaves and Creoles, by white and black and in between. It wasn't so much a melting pot as a gumbo pot: Each group blended with the others while retaining some of its own flavor. Racial mixing was not only rampant but exuberant. Krist's scalawag hero, Tom Anderson, was of Scotch-Irish descent, but he cultivated connections with all the town's tribes, even occasionally the uptown elite. He and a friend created a spoof Mardi Gras ball featuring a queen and court composed of prostitutes; people from all walks of life, including a few socially prominent interlopers in masks, would attend. His big break came partly at the hands of the reformers who wanted to contain the town's pervasive prostitution. "Recognizing that any attempt to abolish vice entirely was doomed to failure (at least in New Orleans)," Krist writes, "they hoped instead to regulate and isolate the trade." Storyville, which was named, much to his chagrin, for Sidney Story, the alderman who devised the plan, had 230 brothels by 1905. At Mahogany Hall, Lulu White often appeared in a formal gown, a red wig and so many diamonds "she was said to rival 'the lights of the St. Louis Exposition.'" According to lore, she offered customers a "discount book" of 15 tickets, each featuring "a different lewd act." As for Willie V. Piazza, who was light enough to "passe pour blanc" but didn't choose to, her outfits "were carefully studied by local dressmakers, allegedly to be copied for the ensembles of customers belonging to the city's 'better half.'" Storyville's sporting houses became cribs for jazz. Like most of the creative culture of New Orleans, this new style of music was spawned by the town's diversity. Flowing together on the street corners were the sounds of marching brass bands, church spirituals, plantation blues, Creole orchestras, returning Spanish-American War cornetists, ragtime pianists, African drummers, Congo Square dancers and opera house singers. Like the pleasures of Storyville, jazz respected no color line. As a local newspaper wrote of a music hall, "Here male and female, black and yellow, and even white, meet on terms of equality and abandon themselves to the extreme limit of obscenity and lasciviousness." The first great jazz artist was Buddy Bolden, loud and unpolished and raunchy, who with his moaning cornet began ragging hymns, marches and dance tunes. He soon converted more refined Creole musicians like the jazz clarinetists George Baquet and Sidney Bechet. Bolden also begat the trombonist Kid Ory and the cornetist King Oliver, who in turn trained Louis Armstrong. Most of them played the clubs and brothels of Storyville. Through much of the 19th century, New Orleans had been racially progressive, especially for Creoles of color, most of them French-speaking Roman Catholics descended from families that had intermarried with Europeans. From the early 1870s onward, blacks could vote and serve on juries; marriage between different races was legal; and schools, lakefront beach areas and many neighborhoods were integrated. But the advent of Jim Crow laws after Reconstruction created a new dynamic. The reformers of the city's elite took the lead in passing segregation laws as well as in cracking down on prostitution. In 1908, the State Legislature passed a bill that barred musical performances in saloons, prohibited blacks and whites from being served in the same establishment and excluded women from bars. it was a testament to the tenacity of sin as well as the wiliness of Tom Anderson that Storyville clung to life for almost a decade. But in 1917, after the United States entered World War I and New Orleans became a military transit area, a federal law was passed that banned prostitution within 10 miles of a military encampment. Abruptly, the curtain came down on Anderson's domain. Louis Armstrong, age 16, was there to witness the district's final night. "It sure was a sad scene to watch the law run all those people out of Storyville," he later wrote. "They reminded me of refugees. Some of them had spent the best part of their lives there. Others had never known any other kind of life." The reformers had triumphed over vice. But it wasn't a clean moral victory. They had also triumphed over tolerance. "For the city's privileged white elite, jazz and vice were of a piece, along with blackness generally and, for that matter, Italianness, too," Krist writes. Therein lies this book's most important lesson: Rooting out sin may be worthy, but beware the unsavory motives that can lurk in the hearts of moral crusaders. WALTER ISAACSON is the chief executive of the Aspen Institute and a co-chairman of the New Orleans Tricentennial Committee. His latest book is "The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution."

Though this book's title may draw in those seeking a randy true-crime tale, they will be pleasantly surprised and engrossed by Krist's in-depth, seasoned analysis of the creation, growth, and downfalls of New Orleans, particularly its colorful Storyville area, which was indeed the site of vice and murder of all sorts but also of the birth of entrepreneurships and a music unparalleled in the U.S. of the time. Dividing his tale into four eras, ranging from 1890 to 1920, and providing chapter-opening photos of characters and scenes, Krist's well-researched and -told history of New Orleans is an eye-opening tale of a melting pot of the worst (French jails and hospitals were ransacked for potential colonists) trying to make the best of its situation while attracting northern dollars and achieving respectability. There are characters here, genial, business-savvy, and cruel; concerted efforts to live and let live, along with lawlessness; and righteous reformers, all wrapped into a captivating history of an era and locale that ultimately touched much of America's arts, attitudes, and outlook. A fascinating, detail-filled tribute to a city and an era.--Kinney, Eloise Copyright 2014 Booklist

This well-researched book captures an exciting chapter in the history of Louisiana's most vibrant city. During the late Victorian era, New Orleans reformers hoped to confine the city's notorious vices to one officially sanctioned district, Storyville, in order to protect the wealthier neighborhoods from seediness. Brothers, saloons, and jazz halls filled the lively, violent neighborhood, from which larger-than-life figures emerged, such as Tom Anderson, the "major of Storyville," jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton, and the "Axeman of New Orleans," a serial killer with a penchant for grocers. Narrator Dean excels in delivering this rich look at the birth of New Orleans and the struggle over its morality. His voice, a deep clear baritone, delivers the countless stories of shootings, seductions, and crime lords with enough solemnity to underscore the historical evolution of the city, but inflects the perfect touch of wryness while relaying the scandalous events and outrageous characters. An entertaining, educational listen. A Crown hardcover. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Krist (City of Scoundrels) presents a fascinating look into attempts to change New Orleans's rough-and-ready reputation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The city's elite worried that its wide-open sexuality, violence, and race mixing prevented Eastern bankers from investing capital in New Orleans, especially in the growing petroleum industry. They restricted prostitution to the infamous Storyville red-light district and pushed the notoriously corrupt police department to clamp down on violence in the Italian American community. They also persuaded the Louisiana state legislature to pass strict Jim Crow laws. All this enriched elements of the New Orleans underworld, especially Tom Anderson, the so-called Mayor of Storyville, who became wealthy through running brothels and bars. Robertson Dean does an excellent job presenting this tale. VERDICT This interesting and entertaining audiobook is recommended to all listeners. ["Highly recommended for readers interested in New Orleans and also for those looking for a readable collection of true stories from one of America's most fascinating metropolises," read the starred review of the Crown hc, LJ 10/1/14; a Top Ten Best Book of 2014, LJ 1/15.]-Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ. Parkersburg Lib. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A colorful account of reform efforts to eradicate sin, corruption and violence in early-20th-century New Orleans. In this richly detailed narrative, Krist (City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster that Gave Birth to Modern Chicago, 2012, etc.) describes a three-decade battle that pitted an Anglo-American elite against the forces of vice in a swiftly changing Crescent City. After the Civil War, New Orleans hoped to downplay its worldly reputation and attract Northern investors, but crime and immorality flourished. "The social evil is rampant in our midst," wrote one newspaper. By the late 1890s, the "better element" wanted to drive vice out of respectable neighborhoods entirely. Enter alderman Sidney Story, who proposed the 18-block tolerated vice district soon known as Storyville, which harbored 230 brothels as well as dance halls featuring so-called "coon music," or jazz, by Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and other musicians. Much of Krist's story focuses on denizens of the notorious district, including businessman and Storyville "mayor" Tom Anderson, demimonde "queen" Josie Arlington, and a cast of legendary madams, dancers, gamblers, prostitutes and underworld figures. Drawing on newspaper accounts and court testimony, the author offers vivid accounts of mob violence against Italians and blacks, notably the brutal vigilante lynchings of 11 Italians after the assassination of police chief David C. Hennessy. The members of the mob were hailed as heroes of efforts to clean up the city. By 1918, Jim Crow reigned, Storyville was closed, and jazz was under attack. In the 1930s, having forced vice underground, the city found itself trying to re-create its wicked old reputation to lure tourists. Krist's lively book is only marred by an overlong section devoted to a series of axe murders that plagued the city. A wild, well-told tale. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

It was, in many respects, the most brutal assault so far: a two-year-old child killed instantly by a single blow to the skull; her critically injured parents rendered senseless by multiple head traumas. Clotted gore soaked the bed where they all lay. Across the walls and curtains around them, blood spatters radiated like birdshot. And yet, despite this evidence of what must have been a savage frenzy of violence, no one in the neighborhood had heard a thing. The perpetrator had been able to escape without a single witness to the crime, and with hours to spare before his deed was detected. The axman was apparently becoming even more adept at his trade with time.   The crime had been discovered at about seven o'clock on a Sunday morning. Several neighbors had made earlier visits to the grocery, which usually opened at five a.m., and had merely walked away when they found it closed. But one little girl named Hazel Johnson was more persistent. After getting no response at the front door, she decided to try around back. In the alley leading to the rear of the building, she found a chair set up below a side window. She climbed up on the chair and peered inside, but couldn't see anything in the murky morning light. So she continued down the alley to the backyard. There she found the back door closed, but with one of its lower panels missing. Puzzled, she called a passerby into the yard, and he persuaded her to go inside, perhaps because she was small enough to fit through the missing panel. She crawled in--and moments later burst out the back door, screaming.   Aroused by this clamor, a young neighbor named Frank Jordano ran over with his aging father, Iorlando. They found Charles Cortimiglia half-conscious on the floor, and Rose Cortimiglia clutching her lifeless toddler and sobbing inarticulately. Her husband, Charles, roused out of his stupor by the younger Jordano, sat up on the floor. "Frank," he said. "I'm dying. Go for my brother-in-law." It was the last thing he would say for several days.   Since the town of Gretna was in Lafayette Parish, Peter Leson, chief of the Gretna police, and Lafayette sheriff Louis Marrero would conduct the investigation of the Cortimiglia case, with Superintendent Mooney's force merely assisting from afar. What Leson and Marrero found at the scene, however, indicated that the crime was clearly related to the previous year's cases across the river. The axman's signature modus operandi was obvious--from chiseled door panel to rummaged belongings, with little sign of anything of value actually being taken. This time, a box containing money and jewelry was found undisturbed in the bedroom, along with $129 in cash hidden under the Cortimiglias' mattress. But two trunks and a dresser had been practically torn apart in some kind of frenzied search; even the face of the mantelpiece clock had been pried open and examined. As in the other axman cases, however, no fingerprints were found anywhere, and any footprints in the yard had unfortunately been trampled by the curious crowd of neighbors that had gathered at the scene after hearing Hazel Johnson's screams.   The discovery of two axes on the premises--one bloody and obviously the murder weapon, another covered with fresh mud--led Leson to believe that two men might have been responsible for this attack. Perhaps one had stood on the chair in the alley to keep an eye on the victims--and simultaneously on the street--while his partner worked on the back-door panel to gain entrance. This two-perpetrator idea could even illuminate one nagging aspect of the earlier attacks. Having an accomplice could explain how the axman was so successful at eluding detection, even while chiseling away at a back door--an activity that must have been noisy enough to be heard by anyone lying awake in bed or passing on the street. In other words, the axman may not have had wings (as the impressionable Bruno girl had speculated), but he could have had a second set of eyes--keeping a lookout while he performed his grim duties inside.   But Leson and Marrero were not interested in solving the earlier crimes; they were concerned only with the one in their own jurisdiction, and they pursued their investigation with an aggressive single-mindedness that they would later come to regret. While interviewing the Cortimiglias' neighbors, they gleaned hints that the Jordanos might not be the Good Samaritans they at first had seemed. According to the neighbors, the two families had been feuding for some time, ever since the Cortimiglias had taken over the languishing Jordano grocery in 1916 and turned it into a success. The Jordanos had taken back the business just a few months ago, forcing the Cortimiglias to find a shop elsewhere in Gretna. But recently the Cortimiglias had come back, setting up a brand-new grocery on the lot adjoining that of the Jordano store. And now, just two weeks later, the Cortimiglias were lying near death after being brutally attacked in the night. When asked about the situation, the Jordanos insisted that they had made peace with the Cortimiglias and were now good friends, but Marrero had his doubts.   Back on the other side of the river, Superintendent Mooney continued to insist that all of the ax attacks (except, perhaps, for the Harriet Lowe murder) had been committed by a "degenerate madman," and that "he ransacked the places he enters to create the impression that robbery is his motive." The superintendent's desk was now covered with maps, police reports, and photos of all of the ax cases in the city, and he was reportedly poring over them night and day. According to the Times-Picayune, his collection also included "the opinions of some of the South's best recognized scientists, placing the axman in the same class as Catherine de' Medici, the French author Sade, and other historic degenerates."   But the Gretna authorities had a far more mundane perpetrator in mind for the Cortimiglia attack. So sure were they of Frank Jordano's guilt that they kept asking the Cortimiglias again and again whether he was the man who assaulted them. The victims were still barely coherent and could do little more than nod or whisper in reply. But while Charles Cortimiglia (by some accounts) continued to insist that he did not recognize his assailant, his twenty-one-year-old, highly traumatized wife apparently indicated an affirmative to the question. This was enough for Chief Leson.   He promptly had the younger Jordano arrested, despite the fact that the Cortimiglias' doctor refused to "vouch for the condition of their minds." "Both Charlie Cortimiglia and his wife, Rosie, told me that Frank Jordano had committed the crime," Leson told a skeptical press. "We have worked up a strong case against him and I am satisfied that the circumstances surrounding the case justified the arrest."   Frank Mooney ignored these developments in Gretna, preferring to pursue his own theory of the murders. In a high-profile presentation to the press--including, as a visual aid, a large city map marked with no fewer than sixteen alleged axman incidents--the superintendent outlined what he was now calling his "panel theory." There were common elements, he claimed, not just in the various ax assaults, but also in the numerous attempted ax break-ins that had been reported throughout the city over the past year. And these common elements convinced him that the crimes were all the work of a single man.   The Times-Picayune reprinted the commonalities in full:   Location -- In nearly all of the cases a corner house with a high board fence at the side and rear has been selected, and in most instances it was a grocery or barroom or a combination of both.   Time --The hour generally has been about 3 AM.   Method --Entrance has been effected by removing a lower panel of a rear door. The plan of work in each instance has been remarkably similar.   Weapon --Where the crimes proceeded to the attack, an ax has been used (except in one case where a hatchet was wielded)--sometimes an ax found on the premises, sometimes brought by the murderer, but always an old ax and always left behind.   The attack --Always on sleeping victims with no apparent choice between men and women, and use of the blade of the weapon as a rule.   Precautions --Complete failure to find fingerprints, together with the fact a pair of rubber gloves was left behind in one case, leads to the belief that the murderer uses rubber gloves to protect himself against identification by the fingerprint method.   Robbery as a Camouflage --In practically every ax murder, while bureaus, safes, and cabinets have been ransacked, little was stolen, and money and valuables in plain sight were left behind. And in numerous instances of "panel burglaries," the work of the intruder has been so incomplete as to leave strong doubt whether robbery was the real motive.   Mooney did acknowledge that each assault and break-in could conceivably be a separate, unrelated incident. He also admitted that they all might be part of a systematic campaign of revenge or terrorism by the Mafia or Black Hand. But he remained convinced that the culprit in all or most of the incidents was a "solo maniac"--"a diabolical, bloodthirsty fiend, cunning and shrewd," as the Times-Picayune described him, "a slinking agent of the devil at 3 AM."   Then, on Sunday, March 16, the city received a kind of confirmation of this macabre description. The Times-Picayune reprinted a remarkable document the paper had received in the mail on Friday. It was an open letter to the public purporting to be from the axman himself. Addressed to the newspaper's editor, and written in a hand similar to that of the letters received by Superintendent Mooney from the anonymous criminologist, it began with an attention-getting flourish: "Esteemed Mortal: They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether which surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a fell demon from hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police called the axman."   The letter went on to ridicule the police for their inept investigation of his crimes. The department's antics had been so "utterly stupid," in fact, that they had amused not only him, but also "His Satanic Majesty" and the recently deceased emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph, among other denizens of hell. "Undoubtedly you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am," he continued, "but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished to, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death."   The letter writer followed this with a threat, specifying the time of his next appearance: "Now, to be exact, at 12:15 o'clock (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans."   But those in fear of their lives had one way to protect themselves:   "I am very fond of jazz," he wrote, "and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose house a jazz band is in full swing at the time I just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then so much the better for the people. One thing is certain, and that is [that] some of those persons who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the ax." The letter was signed, simply: "The Axman."   The sensation created by this letter--particularly in the poorer ethnic neighborhoods that had been hardest hit by the ax crimes--can only be imagined. Certainly many, if not most, people in the city must have doubted the authenticity of the document. There was something too slick--too ironic and knowing--about the entire exercise to be fully convincing as the ramblings of a crazed maniac. But for a populace traumatized by a bizarre and brutal crime wave, the letter was a shock, hoax or no hoax. After all, something was stalking the streets at night with malicious intent. And if the way to appease the demon was to cut loose for a night, then New Orleans, starved of music and conviviality by the forces of reform, would cut loose with abandon. Excerpted from Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.