Bywater, New Orleans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bywater is a neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is along the Mississippi River, down river from the Faubourg Marigny and up from the Industrial Canal.
During New Orleans Mardi Gras, the Society of Saint Anne marching krewe starts their processions each Mardi Gras morning in the Bywater.
After Hurricane Katrina, many survivors flocked to this area as it was less affected by the storm and because it houses many redblooded New Orleanians. As the Mardi Gras season following Katrina was greatly reduced in its scope, members of the Bywater krewes The Krewe du Poux, The Krewe of Eris, and The Royal Revelers of Discordia teamed up and held independent parades throughout the Bywater, Faubourg Marigny, and Vieux Carre.
Bywater is part of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, but it is located along the natural levee of the Mississippi River; so while it did see some flooding, it did not see the tremendous devastation that the newer suburbs did- even though these neighborhoods are just a few blocks away.
The Alombrados Encampment of the OTO has a lodge planted in the center of the Bywater where it serves as a hub for the rapidly increasing Thelemic community. Their Gnostic Mass has become a past time for many residents.
[edit] History
The area now known as Bywater was mostly plantation land in the Colonial era, with significant residential development beginning the first decade of the 19th century as part of what was known as "Faubourg Washington", part of the predominantly Francophone "Downtown" section of New Orleans. Many people from the French Caribbean settled here, especially refugees from the revolution in Haiti. During the century it grew with both white and free colored Creoles, joined by immigrants from Germany and Ireland.
There was little division between this area and what became known as the Lower 9th Ward until the Industrial Canal was dredged through the area in the early 20th century.
A generation knew the area as the "Upper 9th Ward", but as other areas of the 9th Ward above the Canal further from the River became developed, a more specific name was needed. Inspired by the local telephone exchange designation of BYwater which fit the neighborhood's proximity to the River and the Canal, the neighborhood was known as "Bywater" by the 1940s.
Development and speculation surrounding the 1984 World's Fair prompted many long term French Quarter residents to move down river, at first into Marigny; by the late 1990s the bohemian artistic type of communities of the type found in the Quarter mid-century had spread down to Bywater, and many long neglected 19th century houses were refurbished.
The portion of Bywater on the river side of St. Claude Avenue was one of the few portions of the 9th Ward to escape flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and has made a more rapid recovery than many other parts of the city.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: |
- Bywater Neighborhood Association
- Wikitravel New Orleans/Bywater
- marigny-bywater.org Marigny/Bywater Neighborhood News
- Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association
