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.41 This remained the norm for many years.When large-scaledrug traffic became an important profit center for organized crime and there-fore corrupt officialdom, these penny-ante busts provided cover for the citygovernment to prove it was doing something about drugs.Gambling, like alcohol and other pleasures of the flesh, is deeply inter-twined with New Orleans living.A 1937 Time article depicted gambling aspervasive, with an unusual number of nickels being handed out in changefor use in slot machines.42 The big-time gaming was found in Jefferson Parishand other outlying areas, where land was cheap, parking plentiful, and localpoliticians even more pliant that those of Orleans Parish.43So, as the 1930s wore on, a Vieux Carré visitor had a delightful menu fromwhich to choose.For well-heeled straight arrows, there was the still-fadingglory of the architecture, antique hunting on Royal Street, and the pleasuresof the table at places like Antoine s.Perhaps they might take in a play at LePetit; in the 1936 season they might have chosen Lardner-Kaufman s JuneMoon or Maxwell Anderson s Mary of Scotland.44 For students and would-bebohemians, there was poetry and intellectual vibrancy in the coffee shopsand salons.45 The Arts and Crafts Club was in full flower.Beyond instruction,it hosted exhibitions by world-famous artists, and its students contributed tolocal Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects.Arts and Crafts Clubmembers also participated in Le Petit Théâtre and Le Petit Salon.46 For those 40 1930 1946: the struggle for the tout ensembleso inclined, liquor and gambling were readily available, and dope, particu-larly marijuana, could be found with little effort.Women and young men ofAnthony Stanonis s felicitous description purchasable virtue were conve-nient.47 As long as he didn t pass out on someone s stoop, or fuss about los-ing money at gambling, or shortchange a whore, a man could usually have agood, safe time in the Quarter and then return to whatever respectable lifehe lived somewhere else.Complaining about the entertainment was a badidea.The same police that protected these pleasures also punished those whodidn t play by the rules with arrests, jail, and beatings.48 The Quarter was stilllargely a slum, becoming more genteel only by degrees.It could still be a dan-gerous place; Lyle Saxon was robbed and brutalized during an invasion of hisRoyal Street apartment in 1932.49An interesting window into the nightclub scene of the late thirties andearly forties is The Bachelor in New Orleans,50 published in 1942.Robert Kin-ney rendered suave yet blunt advice on what, and what not, to do in the Quar-ter.He touts Dixie s Bar of Music, soon to move to Bourbon Street ( Dixieherself does a mean clarinet and vocalizes indigo )51; the James Bar at Royaland Toulouse, where classical records were played52; and Café Lafitte s, wherethe reader is advised that if the bartender is passed out, go behind [the bar]and mix your own [drink]! 53Kinney lays out the upper Quarter entertainment district thusly, and hiswords still have a ring of accuracy for the present configuration: Here arehonky-tonks and gilt-and-silver supper clubs; here are clubs with B-girls bythe score and clubs with strip-tease entertainers; here are floorshows withdozens of lovely dollies and floorshows with a few boney old hags grinningthrough their routines in horrible travesty; here is the gamut of nightlife. 54For young men, the Quarter offered inexpensive, if usually shabby, lodg-ing handy to all the things a young man might need cheap eats, hot jazz,strong drink, and sexual partners.Apartments favored by students in theQuarter might go for twenty-five to forty dollars a month.Po boys could behad for twenty-five cents; a five- or six-course fancy lunch at Tujague s mightcost fifty cents; beer after Prohibition ended was a nickle a glass.Hot spotsfor young adults included the 500 Club at 441 Bourbon; Pat O Brien s on St.Peter; and Victor s at Chartres and Toulouse.55Aside from living in college dormitories, respectable young southernwomen away from home were expected to stay in rooming houses supervisedby old women interviewed by their mothers.56 In the dual standards of thetime, for a young man to move to the Quarters was a declaration of virile, 1930 1946: the struggle for the tout ensemble 41if perhaps o eat, independence; a young woman would be announcing herapparent moral abandonment.So it was rare for a young woman, alone, to rentan apartment in the Quarter for strictly legitimate reasons, and some land-lords would not rent to a single woman, no matter how pure her resumé.The Quarter continued to host diverse ethnicities.After the Chinesemarket on Tulane Avenue was torn down in 1937, some Chinese merchantsmoved to the 300 and 400 blocks of Bourbon.57Kind Strangers Preserve UsNew Orleans has never been known as an exporter of political causes
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