Crescent Park opened in 2014, a 1.4-mile linear riverfront park on land that had been occupied by industrial rail infrastructure for more than a century, giving the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods direct access to the Mississippi River for the first time in generations. The park runs along the outside of the river's crescent curve — the bend that gives New Orleans its nickname, the Crescent City — and offers unobstructed views of the Mississippi that are rare in a city where the river has always been screened by the levees, warehouses, and industrial facilities that line most of its length. The entry ramps at either end are distinctive pieces of public design, particularly the arching steel bridge at the Marigny end that rises over the flood wall and descends to the riverfront promenade.
From the park you can watch the river traffic: container ships from around the world, towboat-pushed barge trains that can stretch a quarter mile, occasional cruise ships, and the New Orleans ferry crossing to Algiers Point on the West Bank. The Mississippi here is moving at four to six miles per hour, brown with the sediment of the continent's interior, and so wide that the far bank seems like another country. The park has quickly become one of the best-loved public spaces in the city, a place where the river, so long felt but rarely seen, is finally accessible.