The Backatown: Sex, Drugs, & Jazz

Long before sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll became part of our American identity, New Orleans was showing skin, indulging in “sin,” and doing it all to one of the most influential playlists in human history. But Storyville, our former “vice district,” was far more than a neighborhood with sexy shenanigans. Populated with legendary brothel owners, notorious mafiosos, brave crusaders for equality, and pioneering jazz virtuosos The Backatown Tour strolls through some of the most jaw-dropping history the state of Louisiana has to offer. There’s just one problem: New Orleans bulldozed Storyville over half-a-century ago, replacing its most compelling stories, melodies, and architecture with cheap housing and corner stores in a puritanical effort to erase its debauched past.

Thanks to the miraculous work of city archivists, as well as historians like the one who curated our tour, Hottest Hell is now able to resurrect this forgotten neighborhood through a combination of historic photographs, visual aids, and narrative storytelling. Each tour guests receives their own “blue book”—modeled after the printed ‘guides to gals’ that old-timey ‘Tenderloin’ visitors could purchase when seeking a wild weekend—to help better see what was lost when Storyville was replaced.

After a brief lesson on the differences between cribs, brothels, and salons, this 90-minute excursion gets juicy. Guests are treated to details about New Orleans’ “sex circuses” and scandalous animal shows; how powerful madams kept the city’s politicians under their well-manicured thumbs; and the way organized sex work created the perfect environment for the birth of jazz. Visitors can expect to hear about future icons Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton (then just broke artists trying to make a few dollars for dinner), shameless powerbrokers like Tom Anderson (a brothel owner with more clout than City Hall itself), and buxom goddesses of business like Lulu White, Josie Arlington, and Willie Piazza, who turned rags into diamond-encrusted riches. By the end of the tour you’ll understand why everything people love about New Orleans today is owed to, and still tied to, Storyville...and its army of workers. 

If you’re looking for something less familiar than the usual “haunted history”—but just as entertaining as a good piece of vampire lore—this journey through sex, class, and music is just what the witch doctor ordered.

Questions? Prefer to book your tour by phone?
CALL US: 1-888-975-HELL