Antiques and Brothel is an image from the ubiquitous “side-project,” Bexar County Line, deep in the heart and histories of Texas.
The story I heard, I’ve been working in and around San Antonio for damn near a quarter century now, the story I heard?
“That place, corner of South Flores, it’s now an antique store? It was a whorehouse. House of ill-repute. The cattle drives, the cowboys, they’d come into to town, and ride past the house, and the girls would be on the balcony, showing what they got.”
I’ve never been able to verify through an alternate source, but the lady speaking, she was San Antonio born and bred, part of the heritage that makes the city what it is.
The cattle yards, the old cattle yard, it’s not far away, and this area was, at one time, a bustling main thoroughfare. Whether it’s true or not? No way to know. The upstairs are inexpensive apartments, and the downstairs is a crap-shoot of antiques, some good, some great, some crap.
That portion of town, I have a fondness for it, still. One of the original images that prompted that whole side-project, started there, a folk-art, Virgen de Guadalupe. that image, I first captured it, not two blocks away from the purported scene of the brothel.
Fact, fiction, myth? The eons of time know the truth — I can only guess.