Empire of Sin (51 page)

  
9
“staggered from the scene of combat …”
The Beulah Ripley fight (with quote) is from Asbury,
French Quarter
, 449.

10
“too drunk to take to the parlor” …
 was from Josie Lobrano’s testimony in the second trial.

11
According to Phillip Lobrano …
 The Lobranos gave significantly conflicting testimony in the trials. I have generally given more credence to Phillip’s account, first, because his version apparently convinced all but a few members of two juries, and second, because evidence exists in the newspaper trial accounts that Josie was “anxious to have this man convicted” and had told a witness that she would “swear the accused to the gallows.” Moreover, Josie’s other brother, Henry Deubler, was alleged to have intimidated defense witnesses after the first trial.

12
“You’ve done it, Phil!” …
 as per Josie in the first trial.

13
“expected a tragedy to take place …”
Corporal Duffy’s experience in the brothel comes mainly from the NODS and NODP of November 30, 1890, and from his court testimony.

14
he walked into the Central Police Station …
 Lobrano’s surrender and Peter Deubler’s “very dangerous” wound as per the NODS of November 30, 1890.

15
“sinking rapidly” …
 Peter Deubler’s relapse and death were reported in the NODP of December 9 and 10, 1890, and in the court reports in the same paper’s January 29 and March 31, 1892, editions.

16
she also resolved to change …
 For Josie Lobrano’s decision to become respectable, see especially Long,
Babylon
, 153–55, and Asbury,
French Quarter
, 449–50.

17
“turn over a new leaf” …
 as quoted in Rose,
Storyville
, 48.

Chapter 2: The Sodom of the South

Vice in New Orleans has been the subject of much first-class academic analysis, the very best of it to be found in Alecia P. Long’s
The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and Respectability in New Orleans, 1865
–
1920
and Emily Epstein Landau’s 2005 dissertation, “Spectacular Wickedness: New Orleans, Prostitution, and the Politics of Sex, 1897–1917” (which has since been published as a book, though all references in these notes are to the PhD thesis). Russell Levy’s 1967 master’s thesis, “Of Bards and Bawds: New Orleans Sporting Life Before and During the Storyville Era, 1897–1917,” is also quite useful, and Levy had access to certain sources that seem to have been subsequently lost. The two best-known books on the topic are Herbert Asbury’s
The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld
and Al Rose’s
Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District
. Both lack footnotes, however, and sometimes traffic in apocrypha and folklore (though Rose seems more reliable than Asbury); I have tried to use both with caution.

  
1
“I doubt if there is a city in the world …”
is from Olmsted’s
A Journey in the Seaboard States, with Remarks on Their Economy
, as quoted in Campanella,
Bienville’s Dilemma
, 170.

  
2
“What a mingling of peoples! …”
as quoted in Campanella,
Bienville
, 169, is originally from Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg’s
Travels on the Lower Mississippi, 1879
–
80
.

  
3
“It is no easy matter to go to heaven …”
is a quote from Rev. John Chandler Gregg,
Life in the Army
, 156–57.

  
4
these goings-on had begun to spread …
 See especially Long,
Babylon
, 78ff. and 116ff., and Landau, “Spectacular Wickedness,” 66ff.

  
5
“concert saloons” …
 Long,
Babylon
, 64, provides the most complete description of these establishments.

  
6
so-called coon music …
 The spread of “coon music” to Canal Street was reported, with great condescension, in the
Mascot
of November 11, 1890.

  
7
brothels and assignation houses had become impossible to avoid …
 The danger of brothels opening up next door to decent families was a persistent theme in the press during these years; see, for example, the
Mascot
of June 11, 1892.

  
8
“The social evil is rampant …”
is as quoted in Rose,
Storyville
, 37.

  
9
“At no time since the war …”
is from the
Mascot
of March 2, 1888.

10
“Negro dives” …
 is from the NODP of October 20, 1888.

11
“If given our choice between the Negro …”
is from the
Mascot
of September 7, 1889.

12
support for “the Ring” …
 A useful source for the local politics in New Orleans during the 1880s and ’90s is Joy Jackson’s
New Orleans in the Gilded Age
.

13
civil war and federal occupation …
 Jackson,
Gilded Age
, is also the source for the city’s punishing debt (p. 53) and its drop from fourth- to ninth-largest city (p. 6).

14
the city desperately needed to rebuild …
 Landau, “Spectacular Wickedness,” 5, 67, and 73, is best on the need to improve New Orleans’ reputation in order to attract Northern capital. See also Jackson,
Gilded Age
, 221.

15
“The reputation of our city …”
From an illegibly signed letter to Mayor Shakspeare in the Joseph Shakspeare Collection (MSS96, Folder 3) dated April 20, 1888.

16
“Its campaign committee …”
The best source for the YMDA is John S. Kendall’s
History of New Orleans
, Chapter 30. See also Jackson,
Gilded Age
, 96ff. (and p. 36 for “a blue book of the city’s commercial elite”).

17
“a ticket which is an insult …”
Kendall,
History
, 469.

18
“if need be at the point of the bayonet” …
 Kendall,
History
, 471.

19
“countless questionable devices …”
as noted in the NOTD of April 20, 1888.

Chapter 3: The First Casualty

The literature on the murder of David Hennessy (often misspelled Hennessey) and its aftermath is as extensive as it is contentious. For my retelling in the next two chapters, I have relied most heavily on newspaper accounts and on three admirably comprehensive books:
Vendetta
by Richard Gambino;
The Crescent City Lynchings
by Tom Smith; and
Deep Water
by Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon (a descendant of one of the defendants), with backup from Humbert Nelli’s much shorter account in
The
Business of Crime
. However, given the wide range of conclusions drawn—in these and other accounts—about what role was played by anything resembling a New Orleans “Mafia,” I have used all sources with a certain amount of caution. (For a short but sensible account of the Hennessy affair and its contentious historiography, see Katz’s “The Hennessy Affair: A Centennial,” 58–62, 81.)

  
1
the disciplinary hearing of two police officers …
 Details of the Police Board meeting come principally from reports in the NODP and NOTD of October 16, 1890, and from Smith,
Crescent City Lynchings
, xxi–xxii, and Hunt and Sheldon,
Deep Water
, 230ff.

  
2
Virtually his first act as mayor …
 For Shakspeare’s early appointment of Hennessy and his intent to reorganize the police department, see Kendall,
History
, 469f., and Hunt and Sheldon,
Deep Water
, 198f.

  
3
tall, lean, and dourly handsome …
 Particulars about Hennessy’s history and appearance come principally from engravings and obituaries in the daily papers of October 16 and 17, 1890.

  
4
the country’s youngest police chief …
 as per Mike Dash,
First Family
, 72.

  
5
“You had threatened me before …”
is from the NODP of October 16, 1890.

  
6
After the police board meeting adjourned …
 The scene in Hennessy’s office after the meeting was described by O’Connor (often identified as “Connors” in the literature) in a statement to the newspapers.

  
7
accompanying his friend on a semiofficial basis …
 For the city’s arrangement with the Boylan agency for the chief’s protection, see especially Hunt and Sheldon,
Deep Water
, 230.

  
8
roiled by a struggle between two rival families …
 The Provenzano/Matranga feud has been ubiquitously covered in the sources, with significant disagreement over whether or not the feud qualified as “Mafia-related.”

  
9
Inviting representatives of both clans …
 The NODS of October 17, 1890, is especially detailed on the meeting at the Red Light Club.

10
he launched an investigation into the Matranga organization …
 Hennessy’s alleged discoveries with regard to Matranga Mafia connections are based almost exclusively on undocumented statements made to the press by George Vandervoort (Hennessy’s secretary) and his friend, the famous detective Pinkerton, after the chief’s murder.

11
on this rainy Wednesday night in October …
 Details about the walk back to Girod Street come mainly from the daily newspapers, as told by O’Connor. The quotes are as reported in the NODP of October 16, 1890.

12
Shortly before the chief reached the end of the first block …
 The shooting scene on Girod Street as per newspaper reports of the next day and testimony from the subsequent trial, as reported in the newspapers. [NB: As an example of how careless the daily newspapers could be with names, the Boylan’s man encountered by O’Connor is variously spelled as Carter, Cotter, Kolter, and one or two other ways.]

13
“Which way did they run?…”
This and all quotations in this scene as per the NODP of October 16, 1890.

14
Several men helped carry the wounded Hennessy …
 The scene at the Gillis House is best described in the NOTD of October 16, 1890.