Galerie Vivienne

The galerie Vivienne. Right next door to competing passage Colbert. Both are beautiful, but one's a school of architecture now, and the other can use a bit of renovation IMHO. There's not very many of these passages left in Paris, and a few are looking downright macabre these days. This project will be going on a while so perhaps I'll post another pic or two as I go along.

Coiffure/Cassoulet

I don't know what it is with my quarter. There's boutiques like this one, what have seemingly not seen any new business since the 1960's, or another nearby storefront on the rue Monge, gaudily painted in red and reflex blue, this one, that has its window displays of 'William Saurin' cassoulet rearranged every few months, but has not opened for business in years. There's also that former bookstore on the rue Lacepede that has remained closed since five years now... but the largest renovation trend for this quarter seems to be banks, as we're getting a new one...

I've had so much webwork lately that I haven't strayed far from my home. Here's hoping for next week.

La Tour Dagobert

This is a Paris landmark that no longer exists... and that, for a while, I thought never existed. The tower you see in the righthand centre of the photo is part of a cardboard model of the Île de la Cité shown at Paris' Musée Carnivalet: this represents what was thought to be a light/guard tower overseeing Paris' first 10th-century port. Normally standing to the south of the rue des Ursins, this tower, falling to ruins, was destroyed in around 1910. I could find no indication of its real existence other than a mention in Balzac's "The Human Comedy", but I later found proof in its central column that once supported a winding staircase, today mounted on a wall of the Cluny museum of medieval history. Legend would have it that it dated from King Dagobert's 11th-century reign, but more than likely it was built during the early 16th century at the same time (and in the same sculpted style) as the Rive Droite's "Tour de Jean-sans-peur" on the rue Etienne Marcel.

To name a Pavée

Voici la rue... Jacques-Henri Lartigue. Formerly a dead-end extension of the rue Arras, extending from the side of the rue Monge from where this picture was taken. Personally, for a photographer who donated his life's work to the French government, thus people, the city could have made an effort to find a longer stretch of avenue for one of its most illustrious photographers. I'm not sure if the rue Arras did this before, but a formerly private alley belonging to the Institut Auguste Comte has taken the new name as well. A hard street to find, and not yet on many plans.

Very. Early. Morning.

What better way to begin this blog with an early rise, a hot cup of coffee and a spin around my own neighbourhood. There were few people out at 8am, as this time is between the street-cleaning and off-to-work rush.... I simply love these buildings though. Lots of sharp angles around where I live, as, although the buildings date mostly from the end of the 19th and early-20th century, the trace of some of the streets here have remained unchanged from as early as the 13th century.