Bywater, New Orleans

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Bywater is a neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is situated along the Mississippi River, down river from the Faubourg Marigny and up river from the Industrial Canal. 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.

Island of Salvation Botanica on Piety Street offers Voodoo supplies and artwork by local artist/priestess Sallie Ann Glassman.

During Mardi Gras the Society of Saint Anne marching krewe starts their procession on Mardi Gras morning in Bywater and gathers marchers as it travels through the French Quarter and ends at Canal Street. This walking parade of local residents, artists and performers, is preceded by the Bywater Bone Boys Social Aid and Pleasure Club (founded 2005) an early rising skeleton krewe made up of writers, tattoo artists, painters, set designers, musicians, and numerous other pre-7 a.m. revelers.

After Hurricane Katrina, many survivors flocked to this area as it was less affected by the storm due to the slightly higher elevation closer to the Mississippi river. Bywater became part of what was known as "the sliver by the river" of neighborhoods that saw no flooding including Faubourg Marigny, the French Quarter, Irish Channel Area, and parts of the lower Garden District including St. Charles Avenue.

[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.

As 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, it has made steady progress toward recovery, more so than many other parts of the city.