The best little whorehouse with class
Entering the French Quarter on Conti Street from Rampart, there’s a three-story gray building with dark green shutters. Unsightly parking lots sit to its left and right. Most people drive right by the house without pause, unwittingly flying by one of the Quarter’s most interesting addresses.
1026 Conti Street was once the home of posthumously famous photographer E. J. Bellocq (1873–1949). Buried in the mess of his apartment and discovered after his death were hundreds of pictures he’d taken of the prostitutes of Storyville. Subjects were partially or altogether naked except for the black masks that some wore, and many of the images had the faces of the prostitutes intentionally scratched out. Bellocq’s photos have been exhibited in art museums throughout the country and can be seen in the permanent collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art.
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Address 1026 Conti Street, New Orleans, LA 70112, www.1026contistreet.com | Hours Not open to the public; viewable from the outside only| Tip A few doors down, at 1017 and 1019 Conti St, are two surviving houses of the great fires of 1788 and 1794, which destroyed 80 percent of the city. The French Quarter was largely rebuilt under Spanish rule, using Spanish architecture. In contrast, these two earlier buildings display the steep-pitched roofs the Cajuns had learned to use in Canada to keep snow from piling up—a style that makes not a lick of sense in subtropical New Orleans.
Even more famously, or infamously, 1026 Conti is known for being Norma Wallace’s establishment for 25 years. Miss Norma was the madam of an upscale brothel that catered to the wealthy, the famous, and the powerful. Wallace won the protection of the cops when she helped them capture gangster Alvin Karpis, the FBI’s No. 1 most wanted. The New Orleans Police Department got the credit and the commendation from President Hoover; Norma got their undivided inattention. Still, as an insurance policy, she kept a book that listed all of her patrons. She had names, dates, and, in an era long before naked selfies, sizes and detailed descriptions of her clients’ private “assets.”
The building has been painstakingly restored and now houses seven apartments, each named after one of the ladies who worked there. Norma once said of her life as a madam: “I used to wake up around noon and have my coffee and wonder what this night’s going to bring … It was exciting … There was never a dull moment. You can believe me when I tell you that.”
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