Mahogany Hall
Until forcible closure in 1917, White ran a sumptuous brothel known as Mahogany Hall, located at 235 Basin Street.29°57′25.13″N 90°04′20.56″W / 29.9569806°N 90.0723778°W / 29.9569806; -90.0723778 It was known as an 'Octoroon Parlor' meaning that all of the girls working there were light-skinned African Americans of mixed racial descent. The four-story house reportedly cost $40,000 to build (about $1 million in 2008 dollars). In 1929, the structure sold for $11,000.
According to publicity of the time, Mahogany Hall, housed forty women. The official brochure for the house also stated that it had five parlors (one of which was a 'Mirrored Parlor') and fifteen bedrooms, each with its own adjoining bathroom. Famous Storyville photographer E. J. Bellocq's surviving photographs of the house attest to its abundance of elegant furnishings, huge chandeliers and potted ferns. The building housed several expensive oil paintings, Tiffany stained glass windows and other works of art.
Other pamphlets featured photographs and biographies of each of the 'Octoroon' girls. They also contained a supposed picture of Miss White, but it was actually another picture of Victoria Hall, one of the Octoroons. Aside from Miss Hall, other known residents of Mahogany Hall included Emma Sears (The Colored Carmencita), Clara Miller, Estelle Russell, Sadie Reed and Sadie Levy.
Mahogany Hall served as a House for the Unemployed in the mid-1940s but was demolished in 1949. White's Saloon building on Bienville Street was one of the handful of Storyville buildings to survive past the 1940s, but was extensively damaged during Hurricane Betsy in 1965, losing its second story; the ground floor remains in modified condition as a 1 story building.
In addition to Mahogany Hall, White operated a drinking establishment at 1200 Bienville Street. The Saloon opened in 1912 and, with the onset of Prohibition, changed to a soft drink bar. Throughout the twenties, White was brought in on charges of violating the Volstead Act. In 1929, she sold the Bienville property to New Orleans businessman Leon Heymann.
Read more about this topic: Lulu White
Famous quotes containing the word hall:
“Having children can smooth the relationship, too. Mother and daughter are now equals. That is hard to imagine, even harder to accept, for among other things, it means realizing that your own mother felt this way, too—unsure of herself, weak in the knees, terrified about what in the world to do with you. It means accepting that she was tired, inept, sometimes stupid; that she, too, sat in the dark at 2:00 A.M. with a child shrieking across the hall and no clue to the child’s trouble.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)