The Bywater on a Thursday in March

The Bywater on a Thursday in March

The Bywater begins where the Marigny ends, at Press Street, and announces itself with a shift in volume — shotgun houses get more colorful, murals get larger, someone is playing trumpet on a porch for the dog sleeping at their feet.

Bacchanal on Poland Avenue: buy a bottle, grab cheese, carry it to a courtyard where a jazz trio plays under string lights and a magnolia tree that has seen some things. I sat next to a woman painting watercolors of her own glass of rosé and neither of us spoke, which felt correct. Walk north on Dauphine to see every third house painted a color that would be illegal in an HOA — electric teal, mango, bruise-plum purple.

The Joint on Mazant: pulled pork in butcher paper, smoky and tender and dripping. The pit starts at five AM. You smell it from two blocks away. End up on the levee at Crescent Park watching the Mississippi push cargo ships south, the water café au lait color, the sky turning that particular lavender New Orleans owns the patent on.