( Originally Published Early 1900’s ) The uses to which monasteries, convents, and churches were put after the Revolution had driven forth their occupants, were many and varied, but it is worth while to consider the old monastery of the monks of St Bernard : it is on the rue de Pontoise in the 5th […]
Baron Haussmannurbanist Thoughts On Paris
Men pass along a street and disappear; the houses live on. A street discards its original costume very slowly unless someone comes with a conscious determination to demolish its houses, change its line, and render it “modern.” Fortunately Paris has never had the habit of too long periods of such demolition. But there was once […]
Streets Of Paris
THERE are four thousand streets in Paris, and if you knew what their names meant, who the men were for whom they were named, you would know the history, not only of the town, but of France, the French, and of much besides. Four thousand streets in Paris, and over two hundred of them (if […]
Going Up In Paris
At le Bourget you can do it in an airplane. In the Métro, you can mount without any effort from beneath the earth to a third-story level on the via-ducts. Both these methods are for persons without initiative. The true adventure is to go on foot up all the columns and towers some lighted, some […]
Cemeteries Of Paris
There are twenty-three cemeteries listed in Paris. Many of them can only be explained by the fact that they served the villages which lay outside the city itself. Even Père-Lachaise was outside the wall of 1784. I do not recommend visiting any of them, unless you are curious to see the tombs of the well-known […]
Where To Breathe In Paris
Consider the chain of “Places,” which we would call “Squares,” where there is really a space big enough to let the automobile gas mount to the upper regions and leave room below for air. For the learned men have proven that the air near the ground in Paris is better than that higher up as […]
Industrial Paris
Wherever a small workshop has held its own and they are tenacious there you will find a bit of industrial Paris, such as that of de luxe dressmaking, interpenetrating the commercial, the artistic, or the literary (even in the fashionable regions). Around the Bourse the manufacture of such things as passementerie has intrenched itself because […]
Newspaper Paris
The greater number of newspapers are on the Right Bank. The first newspaper was founded in 1631 by a man who knew that his paper must be supported by the “ads.” He had his office in an attic on the Cité and had his “announcements” (the French still use announces for news-paper advertisements) posted in […]
New Streets And Old Of Paris
The rue Etienne Marcel is a colorless and fairly new extension of the rue des Petits Champs, a street which is so old that, try as it will, it can never entirely change itself for which we may be grateful. Paris was not at all sure of the part Etienne Marcel played in the municipal […]
Literary Paris
Like the Paris of the artists it has few limitations. Publishers, however, are for the most part on the Left Bank, where they have been from time immemorial be-cause of the schools and universities which drew them there. Magazines have their offices here, too. One publisher on the boulevard St Germain, which is lined with […]