Bywater & Marigny
The downriver neighborhoods where the city's music, food, and design scenes have settled.
The Marigny begins at Esplanade and runs to Press Street; the Bywater picks up there and runs to the Industrial Canal. Together they're the New Orleans that locals point to when they want to show that the city is more than its tourist Quarter.
Frenchmen Street, three blocks of the Marigny, is where to go for live music after dinner — The Spotted Cat, d.b.a., Snug Harbor. It's busier than it used to be but still genuinely a music street, not a Bourbon Street imitation. Walk past 11pm and the energy shifts.
Bywater proper is residential — Creole cottages, shotgun houses, the occasional warehouse converted into something. Bacchanal Wine for backyard live music and a wine list. Pizza Delicious and N7 for dinner. The neighborhood is gentrifying visibly, which is a complicated thing, but it remains one of the most rewarding parts of the city to walk in the late afternoon.