Forbes: A Fascinating, Slightly Scandalous New Museum

There Is Always Something New In New Orleans To Explore

December 2, 2024

by Laurie Werner

The Big Easy is a melting pot of cultures and a constant generator of new music, restaurants, hotels and sights. Recent openings do just that but also bring back favorites and reflect the city’s past.

Rather than denying its somewhat risqué past, the city has put it on vivid, detailed display in the New Orleans Storyville Museum which opened in the French Quarter in September. Named for the red light district created in 1897 by an alderman who wanted to quarantine the various sin city vices in one section, the museum describes in exhibits spread out over 7,000 square feet the operation of high end brothels, nightclubs and gambling dens in photos, histories and artifacts including the books listing prostitutes for hire at any given time. Apparently, singer Eric Burdon, lead singer of the 60’s British pop group The Animals, who had a hit with a folk song describing one of the brothels, “House of the Rising Sun,” has turned up at the museum and performed a surprise rendition. Even without that, though, it’s a museum really worth visiting. Not surprisingly, visitors must be at least 18.