Waterfront (sometimes water-infused) property
If you ask ten locals how to get to the batture, nine are likely not to know what you’re talking about. The tenth might reply, “Why do you want to go there?”
The word batture refers to the entire strip of land that runs between a levee and river. Once entirely populated, New Orleans’ batture was a part of the city almost since the beginning, but now it is down to only about a dozen quirky residences that are built on pilings and stamped into the edge of the Mississippi River. Once characterized as truly fringe, these days you’ll find this little-known area is becoming more of a mixed community, where newly constructed or renovated homes stand alongside the original ramshackle houses known as “camps.”
Info
Address Located on the Mississippi River, roughly between Dakin Street and Monticello Avenue where they intersect with River Road, at the Jefferson-Orleans parish line. | Tip After a walk on the wild side, you will be close to a cluster of noteworthy restaurants at what’s called the Riverbend, or where St. Charles Ave turns a corner to become Carrollton. You can eat at New Orleans’ most famous burger joint, Camellia Grill (626 S Carrollton Ave), or Cooter Brown’s (509 S Carrollton Ave), a sports bar with 21 TVs and 400 brands of beer, or go upscale and dine at the James Beard Award-winning Brigsten’s (723 Dante St).
Separated from the rest of New Orleans by the levee wall, the batture still feels like a world unto itself, and much of its eccentricity remains. In 2011, NPR did a story in which they interviewed some of its residents. One, Jean Brady Hendricks, used to be a performer in the burlesque clubs on Bourbon Street. Around the time the classic venues were replaced by much raunchier joints, Jean, then in her mid-eighties, moved out to the batture to live in isolated peace. Macon Fry, another resident, is an urban farmer and educator. He built the house he lives in from salvaged wood. Macon can also wax poetic about his chosen community. He described his homestead this way: “It’s not in the city, and it’s not really in the river. But it’s on the edge, and there’s a lot of interesting things that happen on edges.”
The people who live on the batture surely cherish their otherness and solitude. No doubt they don’t want the “neighborhood” to be soiled by tourists. But you can still respectfully wander the community and see folk sculptures created out of whatever’s washed ashore—or just watch as the river flows up into people’s yards and underneath their homes.
Back