With the passage of time the legend of Storyville—New Orleans' notorious red light district—has taken on an almost mythic quality. It shines in the collective memory as a kind of Camelot of the underworld, a splendid semi-legal citadel of sin where all the normal civic virtues were turned topsy-turvy.

In reality the place was probably at least as common and sordid as it was splendid. And just below the heady atmosphere of ragtime and rye whiskey, of hot music and cold cash, was a jungle ju...