Outside the Levee, but Still Above Water

A few weeks ago I posted a quick ps note about an interesting-but-nasty little point in New Orleans called World's End where the Industrial Canal meets the Mississippi River.  This led to to a later discussion of a neighborhood a few miles upriver called "the Batture."  Like World's End, it's wedged into a sliver of land between the levee and the river, and it exists in a legal gray area that most everyone seems to be generally OK with.

Moving on to the content of the post, here are some somewhat recent articles on the Batture (is it even capitalized?), including the origin of the name:

• NPR, circa 2011, the last time The River got this high
• House Crazy, with a little more history
• Law Library of Louisiana, discussing (surprise) some of the land ownership aspects
• The Story of Front Street, a closely related topic, at NOLA by the author of Cityscapes of New Orleans.  Pretty recent, and gives much more detail than the other sources, though it extends on the topic some too.

Anyway, makes for an interesting rainy afternoon read, and maybe for a brief biking adventure once this weather cools and drys out a little.