������������

Named for its proximity to the Mississippi River and the surrounding canals, the Bywater neighborhood is located downriver from the Vieux Carré and the Faubourg Marigny on the river’s natural levee. Once a dense hardwood forest, the area was developed into various sugarcane plantations in the eighteenth century. By the early 1800s, these plantation estates were subdivided into a residential neighborhood, originally named Faubourg Washington and populated by African Americans, Haitians, and poor European immigrants. Its closeness to the river and the railroad connection to Lake Pontchartrain established the neighborhood as an important industrial hub particularly significant to shipping. It has seen additional growth and gentrification in the years after Hurricane Katrina, having weathered the storm