Bywater vs Marigny: Which One Are You?

Bywater vs Marigny comes down to this: the Marigny is the older, louder one, with Frenchmen Street at its front door, and the Bywater is the quieter, stranger one down the river past the railroad tracks. They share a border and an argument that will outlive all of us.

We hear this question at the counter more than you'd think. Usually from somebody holding a lease application. Sometimes from two friends who already live there and want a ruling. We're not going to give you one. We'll give you the facts and let you pick a side.

Where the Marigny Ends and the Bywater Begins

Here's the first fight. According to the City Planning Commission boundaries summarized on Wikipedia, the Marigny runs from Esplanade Avenue down to the railroad tracks along Homer Plessy Way, which most of us still call Press Street. It goes from the river up to North Rampart and St. Claude. The Bywater picks up at those tracks and runs down to the Industrial Canal, and from the river back to Florida Avenue.

That's the official version. The unofficial version is whatever the person you're talking to needs it to be. Some people put the Marigny's lower edge at Franklin Avenue instead of the tracks. Landlords have been known to discover that a house on Louisa Street is "Marigny adjacent." Nobody has ever described a Marigny house as "Bywater adjacent."

Press Street itself is worth a stop. It got its old name from a 19th-century cotton press, and in 2018 the city renamed it for Homer Plessy, whose arrest on a train near Press and Royal led to Plessy v. Ferguson. A historical marker stands at that corner now. It's a heavy piece of history sitting on a block most people cross on their way to get a coffee.

The Marigny: Old Bones, Live Music

Bernard de Marigny laid out the neighborhood on his family's old plantation and started selling lots in 1806. We wrote about him in The Gambler Who Built a Neighborhood, and he lived up to the title.

What you get today is cottages shoulder to shoulder on streets that run at strange angles, plus Frenchmen Street, which turned into one of the city's real live music strips. That's the draw and the price. If you live within a few blocks of Frenchmen, the music is your neighbor. So are the people walking back to their hotel at 2 a.m. discussing it at full volume.

Then there's the Marigny Triangle, the wedge between Esplanade and Elysian Fields. People use the name like it's its own neighborhood. Technically it's part of the 7th Ward, which is a fun thing to say at a party if you want to start a second argument.

The Bywater: Further Down, Further Out

The Bywater got its name from a telephone exchange. Before that, people mostly called it the Upper 9th Ward, and by the 1940s the new name had stuck. That's about as on-the-nose as New Orleans naming gets: by the water, and it is.

It feels different from the Marigny, though it's hard to pin down why. The houses spread out a little. The corner bars feel more like corner bars. There are more murals, more porches with three generations of furniture on them, more dogs supervising the sidewalk, more people in the street on a Saturday trying to fix a bicycle. The Society of Saint Anne starts its Mardi Gras morning walk here, and if you've seen it, you understand the Bywater a little better.

The Bywater has also changed fast. Long-time residents have watched rents climb and whole blocks turn into short-term rentals, and we've written about what that's doing to neighborhoods across the city. If you're moving in, be the neighbor who's actually there.

Crescent Park: The Tie Breaker

The best argument for the Bywater might be Crescent Park, the long riverfront park that runs along the old wharves from the Marigny down into the Bywater. You can walk it end to end and watch the ships come around the bend, with the French Quarter way off in the distance looking like a rumor.

The famous way in is the Piety Street bridge, the big rust-colored steel arch everybody calls the Rusty Rainbow. It's stairs only. If you need a ramp, Frommer's lists accessible entrances at Mazant and Chartres and at Mandeville Crossing. Admission is free.

Marigny people will tell you the park starts in their neighborhood, too. They're right, technically. But the Rusty Rainbow is a Bywater landmark, and the Bywater knows it.

Frenchmen Spillover

Here's the honest part. Some nights, the Marigny doesn't feel like a neighborhood. It feels like the overflow lot for Frenchmen. The music is great and the crowds are mostly fine, but you'll find cups in your planter and someone asking for directions to a club that closed years ago.

The Bywater gets some of that too, just less of it and later. A few bars on St. Claude draw a crowd, and the stretch along the river gets busy on a nice weekend. But you can still sit on your stoop on a Wednesday and hear mostly crickets and somebody practicing trumpet badly three doors down. Our Listen To Your City design was made for exactly that kind of night.

So Which One Are You?

You're a Marigny person if you want to walk to music every night and don't mind sharing your street with visitors to do it. Our Do Watcha Wanna shirt works on Frenchmen.

You're a Bywater person if you want a porch you'll actually use and a park on the river close by. You probably own a bike with a basket. You've definitely painted something that wasn't yours to paint.

Most of us who've lived in both will admit they bleed into each other, and that the argument is half the fun. If you can't decide, hang the Welcome To New Orleans Print by Caleb Morris on your wall. Every neighborhood gets its own little world on it, and nobody has to win.

For the deeper backstory, our older neighborhood profiles of the Bywater and the Faubourg Marigny are still up.

Bywater vs Marigny: FAQ

What is the difference between the Bywater and the Marigny?

The Marigny is the older neighborhood just downriver from the French Quarter, home to Frenchmen Street and its music clubs. The Bywater sits further downriver past the railroad tracks at Press Street (Homer Plessy Way) and is generally quieter, with Crescent Park along the river.

Where is the border between the Bywater and the Marigny?

By the City Planning Commission's map, it's the railroad tracks along Homer Plessy Way, formerly Press Street. Some locals put the line at Franklin Avenue instead, so expect a debate.

Is the Marigny Triangle its own neighborhood?

Not officially. It's the triangular wedge between Esplanade and Elysian Fields avenues and is technically part of the 7th Ward, though people use the name constantly.