Don’t worry, I’m not going to do a Skyline Countdown for Paris like the one I’m doing for Frankfurt, and even if I did, the 96-meter Chambord Tower (Tour = Tower) on Boulevard Kellermann wouldn’t make it since it is only the 39th tallest building in Paris. From the name Read More …
After forty-four years in the 9th arrondissement on rue des Italiens, seven years in the 15th (rue Falguière) and eight years in the 5th (rue Claude-Bernard), the daily newspaper Le Monde moved in 2004 to this building (photo above) in the 13th arrondissement at 80, boulevard Auguste Blanqui. Here it Read More …
The street that is now called rue Corvisart, (after Jean-Nicolas Corvisart, the personal physician of Napoléon I) was formerly called rue Champ-de-l’Alouette (Street of the Field of the Lark). It is in the Croulebarbe Quarter of the 13th arrondissement. In the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, Jean Valjean led Read More …
When I was staying in a studio apartment on Rue Broca, in the Croulebarbe quarter of the 13th arrondissement, I decided to take a walk up the street to see what there was to see. Rue Broca is not a very long street, only four blocks, but it used to Read More …
This is the newest and largest of the five public sites of the French National Library. It was one of the “great projects” — which included the Great Arch, the Opéra Bastille and the Pyramid of the Louvre — that were undertaken during the presidency of François Mitterrand, who was Read More …
In February 2011, the street artists Jana & JS (Jana Balluch and Jean-Sébastien Philippe) were commissioned to make two large wall paintings on these new buildings at 110 rue Jeanne d’Arc in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. The paintings show the artists themselves, taking photos of each other. They have Read More …
This striking new footbridge, Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir, was built from 2004-2006 to connect the new National Library François Mitterand with the new Parc du Bercy. It is a steel structure with oak planks as a deck, and it crosses the Seine in one leap, with no supports in the middle. Read More …
The Austerlitz Bridge is a stone bridge with five arches. It was originally built from 1801 to 1805, but it was widened and strengthened twice during the nineteenth century. The bridge was named after the Battle of Austerlitz, a French victory under the command of Emperor Napoléon I in 1805. Read More …
Nowadays, if you say a couple was ‘married in city hall of the 13th’ it just means they both said oui (yes) here in this building on the Place d’Italie. Until 1860, however, Paris only had twelve arrondissements, so in those days if you said a couple had been ‘married Read More …
If you go snooping around the western half of the 13th arrondissement (and adjoining sections of the 5th) in Paris you will find numerous references to a river called the Bièvre (pronunciation here) — but you won’t find the river itself, because it was banished underground over a century ago. Read More …