In 1896 a Neto Orleans alderman, Sidney Story, promulgated a city ordinance which restricted prostitution to a thirty-eight-block red-light district adjoining Canal Street. Much to the mortification of the alderman, some joker nicknamed the area Storyville. And the name stuck. Storyville it remained until, in 1917, the Navy finally closed the tenderloin for good. In Jelly Roll's time the District's legal boundaries toere: North RobertÂson, St. Louis, Basin and Iberville (Customhouse) Streets. See map on front covers.