The Home of Josie Arlington
The Home of Josie Arlington From the archives of the Earl K. Long Library at the University of New Orleans, we have this unattributed photograph of the building at 2721 Esplanade Avenue, the residence of Josie Arlington. Born Mary Deubler in New Orleans around 1864, she was drawn into a life of prostitution at the age of seventeen by Philip Lobrano in order to support her family. Lobrano would later be arrested for the murder of her brother, Peter Deubler, but was acquitted of the crime. At the age of twenty-six she opened her first brothel at 172 Customhouse Street (Iberville Street) which she relocated to 225 North Basin Street in Storyville in 1898 shortly after it opened. Mary took up with a clerk in the city’s Treasury Office named Tom Brady. Following a trip to the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs she renamed her brothel and took the name Josie Arlington as her nom de guerre. Influenced by the opulence of the Arlington Hotel, Josie’s establishment was elegant and expensive. He...