Welcome to NewOrleansBywater.Com

a web site dedicated to

 Bywater and The Marigny

New Orleans' First Neighborhoods

Our bars, restaurants, and coffee shops are the most unique in New Orleans. We have social aid & pleasure clubs, unusual and esoteric events, like our annual Hurricane Party presided over by a real vodoo priest or priestess. Theme parties such as the Decadence Ball, Blanch Du Buos Contest, delicious southern food add to the mix, 

Due to our diverse architecture,  Marigny and the Bywater are home to some of the most beautifull bed and breakfasts in New Orleans. See the menu on left for a list of these as well as listings for hostels and some unique rentals hosted by local characters. 

Our Mardi Gras style is distinctly different than that found in the French Quarter, just upriver, and in the rest of New Orleans. Our floats are pulled by mules, or we simply walk, second-line style in our neighborhood parades. You won't  
get a closer parade view anywhere else in New Orleans!

Once heavily populated by artists, musicians, writers and other interesting characters, the French Quarter has undergone a change. Expensive condos replaced once affordable housing, so many artists, writers and creative individuals moved to the Marigny and Bywater areas. 

The neighborhood is also home to a recent influx of preservation minded professionals, who appreciate the historic architecture and have invested in their restoration. Others just want to buy into the area and fix it their way without regard to our unique cultural diversity.

I have long been fascinated with the area because it has the broadest range of architectural styles in New Orleans, reflecting a cultural diversity that still exists here today. The well-to-do, the avant garde, the well placed and the misplaced seem to get along.

We celebrate our crazy people instead of locking them away. Ruthie the Duck Lady and the Chicken Man, famed French Quarter characters, are just two such examples. Bywater and the Marigny are full of such characters. If Tennessee Williams were alive he would still find  residents  here that are worthy of the pen.

I hang out with characters with names like Buzzy, The Shade, Bigfoot Julie, and Philadelphia Phil and kid red to name just a few. I ride on a bus named Desire, I eat shrimp-stuffed mirletons while watching The Storyville Stompers and the Neville Brothers at Bywater's Mirleton Festival. I'm present to hear Little Freddie King and Bobbie Lewis play at BJ's. I have listened to Kermit Ruffins at Vaughan’s with no cover charge.

This is their neighborhood. I've had the good fortune to attend parties where people like ButchTravette and Bobby Lewis often played just for fun. I've even hosted a Stella-calling contest and witnessed Bywater's adult parade, Krewe Du Vieux, which starts in the Bywater and ends on Canal street. Not well known but attended by thousands.

I've been privy to many other fascinating events and places that few people ever witness, such as a ceremony to rid the Bywater of drugs by America's only white voodoo priest (written about by Time magazine as well as our  
own Times Picayune).  I've photographed a cochon du lait. This is  where the men stay up all night roasting a pig, a cultural practice that originated in the cajun country of Southwest Louisiana. It is done regularly at BJ's Bar, 9th ward style. 

Do you know what a gris-gris stick is? Lots of people in Bywater/ Marigny have them. Do you know why the tops of the porches are frequently painted blue? Or why the shutters are so frequently painted green? Can you make Holy Water in your kitchen sink? I can. Dorothy, our block's spiritual advisor, taught me. I'm learning about these things, as well as other cultural and spiritual practices of the Bywater area, not to mention recipes! 

The Irish, the French, the Italian, the Basques, the Africans, the free people of color, and my people, the Chata who supplied the file for the gumbo--all these diverse cultures all are in this small area. People, recipes, cultural and spiritual practices mixed and the result is the beautiful Bywater/Marigny. 

I'd like to hear from anyone who has any information they deem relevant.Im hoping to meet long time residents of the area. Someone may even have and old family photo they would share. Souveniers of bygone businesses (like a Dr Nut bottle) or maybe a neighborhood story ? I would love to hear from you.