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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2011 20:40:34 GMT
Crossing the railway bridge did not exactly take me to the chic part of town, but I was able to turn back towards Paris in front of this charity shop. In just a few moments, I was technically back in Paris according to this sign, but believe me, I did not feel like I was in Paris at all. The only buildings along the way were rail warehouses for various goods, including one of the principal suppliers of beverages to the cafés of Paris, but also the main supplier of Turkish foodstuffs to the region. Don't worry, the tramway will not run down this street, although part of it has been annexed to store tramway material for the time being. On the right of the street for most of the way, there was a high, grassy embankment following the périphérique. It was a nice sunny day, and the embankment was covered with refugees sitting in the sun. Clearly their camp was nearby, but it was not visible where I was walking -- it was probably on the traffic side of the embankment, which is less pleasant due to cars and trucks driving by 24 hours a day, but "safer" in terms of not being bothered by the authorities or predators as much. I did not feel that I could take any pictures as I passed them, because they are very suspicious of lone outsiders, and anyway it is not a nice thing to do, since they are not animals in a zoo. Most of the people that I saw were Afghans and Iraqis, with probably a few other groups mixed in. You learn to recognize the nationalities pretty quickly in such areas, and I see even more of them since the refugee aid center that they visit is very close to my apartment. I did sneak one photo just as I was leaving the zone as I approached Porte de la Villette. There was a little square where some of the rare women were also spending the afternoon. I hurried back into town. Porte de la Villette used to be the location of the relatively small international bus terminal (small because rail travel is so developed in this part of Europe) -- the big new terminal is at Porte de Bagnolet, where the big rectangular silvery high rises could be seen a bit earlier in this report. The old bus terminal escaped demolition by being turned into an avant-garde music venue, the Glazart. The tramway construction met me back here after crossing over its canal bridge to come to the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, one of the biggest museums in Paris, and which will be one of the most important stops along the way. This is actually the very first place where the new rails were welded at a ceremony attended by the mayor of Paris a couple of months ago.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 16, 2011 4:49:18 GMT
This is really something, Kerouac ~~ you may have surpassed yourself here!
I know I've already weighed in & said nice things, yadda-di-yadda-di, but there's so much to take in & so much to compliment.
The Marie Médiatrice church -- that brickwork is stunning. What is the huge white thing behind it that looks like an ocean liner? Is that the childrens' hospital?
I really like the "skin" on that club on the previous page.
As I looked through this thread, & thought about some others in the Paris board, it occurred to me that some of us lucky anyporters have now seen more of Paris without setting foot on French soil, than many repeat visitors to that city.
I quite like the blue frock in the charity shop, and am intrigued by the skinny slice of building housing it.
Gad, the refugees in their bright clothing in their very green park are the most colorful thing in a long span that you show. Interesting that shortly after their picture, you show more huge public housing being built. Where do all the people come from?
Yes, science museum BIG. Have you been in there?
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Post by mich64 on Apr 16, 2011 18:15:28 GMT
Thank you for the informative photo essay on Paris infrastructure. Your dedication to the subject is appreciated. You choose very interesting events to showcase for us and it is always an enjoyable learning experience. Cheers, Mich
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2011 20:57:27 GMT
The huge white thing behind Marie Médiatrice is indeed the hospital that wraps itself around it, Bixa. I have indeed been to the science museum, but not for a number of years now. I absolutely need to go back there and will do it when I do my promised Parc de la Villette thread. It was not built as a museum at all. It was built as the biggest slaughterhouse in the world. Before the park, La Villette was the location of the meat industry. But when all of the produce moved from Les Halles to Rungis, they decided (wisely) that the meat should move there as well. The giant slaughterhouse was still under construction (it was meant to handle meat for the entire country, which explains its size), but was abandoned before it was finished. And it sat there abandoned for about 10 years until the Mitterrand reign found a use for it. I have color slides of all of this, and maybe I will scan them before 2020 to show you. Anyway, back to the business at hand. The tramway will stop next to the museum and then the line passes in front to slide over to the canal St. Denis (yet another canal which branches off the canal de l'Ourcq -- new name of the canal St. Martin in this part of Paris. I hope you are all following me because there may be a quiz at the end of this report! ) The Cité des Sciences is in the back of this photo. This pointy building is a hotel and also a suite hotel. Then the tramway work jogs over to the canal, but first let's pause for a quick look at the kosher butcher area. Everything was closed because I took the final photographs today -- Saturday -- when they don't open.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2011 21:16:53 GMT
So here we are back up on a real boulevard with the name of a real Maréchal -- MacDonald. His full name was Étienne Jacques Joseph Alexandre Macdonald and he was born in the Ardennes. But yes, his family was Scottish. His father helped Prince Charles Édouard Stuart flee to France. Anyway, it has never been one of the more elegant boulevards of Paris, but that might change. At the moment it is a mess. That is the "outer" side of the boulevard. On the "inner" side is the famous MacDonald warehouse building, the longest building in Paris (and anybody who has seen how long the Louvre is will understand the meaning of the term "long building"). Actually, the building, which is being converted into apartments, has been chopped into pieces, because the tramway will actually go through it to have a stop at a new RER (suburban rail) station. I think I read that the name of the station has already been changed from Evangile (the local street) to Rosa Parks. I hope that nobody has forgotten who Rosa Parks was.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2011 15:27:01 GMT
Seeing this billboard, I decided I needed to take another look at the shopping mall construction. Anybody who saw my report about "la zone" will know that it is not really in Paris in spite of what the sign says, but it is close enough for a lot of the future tramway users to find it practical. The mall is actually much much smaller than the original plans for it, as well as having been delayed almost 5 years by the legal battles of all of the surrounding merchants' associations. The Carrefour is only 4000m² when the original plan was for 12,000m². It would have been one of the largest hypermarkets in France. So I hiked back over the big traffic circle. Actually, this time I hiked across the middle instead of going around the perimeter. This gave me a chance to see how much attention the municipal garderners pay to their tasks, even when practically nobody will ever admire their work. The gypsy circus is still there, but can they hold out much longer? Back to Paris. I noted just inside the city limits how quickly some recent social housing can become really ugly. Many of the immigrant families (but not just them!) use any spare space to stock as much stuff as possible, even if it was supposed to be a balcony or a terrace. But the next thing to see is the Cité Charles Hermite, one of the biggest social housing projects from the 1930's. I read things about it all the time (particularly in my local 18th arrondissement monthly), because it is so big but so cut off from the rest of Paris that it is practically a town in itself. There is the boulevard Ney (a maréchal) on one side and the périphérique on the other side, plus another string of huge warehouses backed by rail lines. Transportation is a huge problem, so the tramway will be a huge improvement. For the moment, they at least have a relatively recent " Traverse" bus line to connect them to the rest of town. These are small bus lines, of which there are 3 or 4 in Paris which exist specifically to disenclave neighborhoods that are cut off from the rest of town for some reason. Here's the first part of Charles Hermite peeking above the trees of the traffic circle.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 17, 2011 17:37:41 GMT
Yaaay, there's more!
Thanks for the answers. This is an elaborate route, and I'm trying to stay oriented.
Boy, a filmmaker could have a field day with some of these "sets". It's really worth looking at all your pictures at least twice -- once to understand the subject matter and again to appreciate what really fine photographs have been made from unpromising material. On this page alone, the 6th, 8th, & 10th full-sized pictures in Reply #60 and 6th, 7th, & 10th in #63, plus the penultimate one in that Reply are all great, Ditto 1st & 10th in #64 plus 9th & 10th in #65. And hey, that's just my taste and also trying not to pick too many!
I marveled over the little patch of green beauty in the traffic circle. You have to wonder if the municipal gardeners don't get a bit more creative there where they have freer rein.
The proliferation of stuff in the social housing made me grit my teeth. Lower-cost or partially subsidized housing here suffers from a complete lack of storage areas. You have to wonder if that's not the case in the building you show, as well. When people are forced to use every inch they have, with no space left over for adornment or just to give a sense of space, it must be demoralizing.
Interesting that the various merchants' organizations managed to ward off what I can only assume is the Wal-Mart of France. Surely keeping the mall down to a somewhat less gargantuan scale can only enhance the look and feel of the whole area, plus keep smaller companies from being crushed out of existence.
Can't tell you how much I admire what you've done here!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2011 17:47:28 GMT
There are block and blocks of public housing in the Charles Hermite sector. Elevators have been retrofitted in the buildings, increasing obesity. There is a nursery school... and also a high school in this zone. It appears that the local students are not all destined for university studies. Here's a stop for La Traverse. Did I mention that they run on canola oil (colza), thereby reducing carbon emissions by 25%? Here is one of the buses. They have room for 22 passengers. A remarkable thing I have always found is how a single plant can make an entire street seem nicer, for example this wisteria vine. But Charles Hermite also has its own little park. There is even a skate park hidden in back whose existence I never suspected here. There was even a.... well, you can't really call it a church. Luckily it was closed at 7:30 in the morning when I was there, or I would have gone inside. Ever since the law of separation of church and state in 1905, you really can see what a cheapskate the French Catholic church is when it has to finance something itself. last part of the report soon, thank god
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Post by bjd on Apr 17, 2011 17:57:57 GMT
Thanks for all this, Kerouac. I have never been to any of these places. Mind you, I don't think I have any more reason to go there now, but at least I know what they look like.
Do you think the 19th will get a better reputation now? The guy who used to run the shop downstairs from our apartment told me his son bought an apartment in the 19th because of the good price (this was in 2005 and he paid 100,000€). But, "Of course, they can't go outside in the evening."
Are all those kosher food stores on the boulevard? Which one?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2011 18:36:30 GMT
Bjd, the kosher food places are on rue Corentin Cariou, which is just a continuation of avenue de Flandre, just before porte de la Villette. I lived in that area for more than 10 years, and it is one of the main Jewish areas of Paris, so there are hundreds of similar places in the 19th in a rectangle that you could make using the 4 following metro stations: Corentin Cariou, Riquet, Ourcq, Laumière.
I absolutely cannot imagine why anybody would say that you can't go out at night, except out of complete ignorance. There was indeed a very ugly incident a year ago in the 19th with the media first started to claim was a Muslim vs. Jew event (since the victim was Jewish), and then found out that it was a "neighbourhood" event where young people (Jews, Muslims and Christians) from one area fought with others (Jews, Muslims and Christians) from another area. It is disgusting to even have to name religions in territorial events.
It is true that the 19th and 20th arrondissements are now the two cheapest arrondissements in Paris.
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Post by bjd on Apr 17, 2011 18:57:11 GMT
Thanks. Well, I think the guy's son bought a place that was considered cheap even for the time and place. You know, one of those "ça craint" kind of places, at least to outsiders.
The 20th around Gambetta isn't cheap.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2011 19:03:18 GMT
Nor is the 19th surrounding the Buttes Chaumont.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 17, 2011 21:33:40 GMT
I've actually been to that area near La Villette: I was also in a smallish supermarket with a large kosher section (the supermarket wasn't entirely kosher). I actually bought a bottle of kosher wine there because I was visiting the only friends I have in Paris who keep kosher. Madame is Moroccan and the one who is stricter about such matters. Monsieur is of Polish Jewish descent and was not very observant; I don't think he ate pork but that was about it (he is not at all religious; this is cultural). The wine was fine; perhaps a bit more expensive than non-kosher wine of the same quality would have been but nothing out of line. And for the North Americans, no relation to the ghastly horridly sweet kosher "wines" such as Mogen David (a horror from New York, if I recall). Kosher establishments in the area: kosherdelight.com/France_Paris_Kosher_Establishments_Paris_19_Ile_de_France.shtml Note that the 19th here also includes the far tonier area around les Buttes-Chaumont. Oddly, I've found nothing about la cité Charles Hermite on the web in terms of architecture or history - just neighbourhood news. There are some very handsome 1930s streamline buildings there.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2011 17:53:43 GMT
Charles Hermite is off just about everybody's radar. Anyway, all bad things must come to an end, so I am going to wrap up this report at last. Perhaps at the end of 2012, I will make a completely new report taking the tramway the entire length and showing how things have improved (or not). Just to give a perspective on the Charles Hermite enclave, as I already said, one side is the périphérique and another side is boulevard Ney, with a new endless warehouse along it to block off the city (not the fault of the warehouse, since it has huge train tracks directly behind it). Then of course at one end, there is the big Porte d'Aubervilliers traffic circle, but then at the other end there is something good but nevertheless a big blockage for the area. When the last ramparts of the city were removed, as I wrote right from the start, most of the zone was filled with public housing. But a few areas remained empty, and one of these was the zone right before Porte de la Chapelle. At some time, perhaps in the 60's or 70's, some big sports fields were placed there. Even though I'm sorry that the area was cut off for so many years, I can attest that the sports field is extremely popular and you can see football matches in progress there every evening or during the day on the weekend. Leaving Charles Hermite, there was a final street waiting for its new configuration to be completed. And then it was time for the very last trek to the future terminus at Porte de la Chapelle. One thing I kind of like, at least when I am driving into Paris from the north, are the two big social housing towers sitting on each side of the entrance to Paris. When you pass between them, you know that you have finally entered the city and are only 800 meters from Domain Kerouac. But for me, it was time to go back down to the metro. Rendezvous around the end of 2012 to whiz along the rails!
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Post by RichardRFC on Apr 18, 2011 22:32:33 GMT
Thanks, Kerouac2. I've been avoiding those areas (by car anyway) after getting stuck in horrendous jams last year at Porte de la Chapelle and Porte de Pantin. Nice to see the progress that's being made.
As you passed Pré St-Gervais Métro station, did you find the little park called Square de la Butte du Chapeau Rouge? It's on the hill between the Boulevard Sérurier and the Boulevard d'Algérie, the latter being an "extra" boulevard next to the Périphérique along which the T3 extension is being constructed. We found the park on a walk through the 19th last month, and two of our Parisian friends had never heard of it!
Someone was asking earlier about the T3 trams. They are Alstom Citadis 402, each tram being over 40 metres long, in 7 sections. Capacity is 300 people, though only 70 or so get seats. Alstom quote the top speed for Paris as 60 kph (37 mph), though the same type can go faster on less crowded routes elsewhere.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 18, 2011 23:37:02 GMT
Lovely report! What is the name of the economic car park? That should go on our Paris tips board, though of course it is more applicable to people in France and nearby Eurpean countries who drive in - people from overseas who rent a car should simply leave it when in Paris. I assume that this is an indoor carpark, or one that is well supervised?
The huge HLM towers look rather forbidding, though in good repair, and perhaps they are perfectly nice inside, with a view.
I love the playing fields. A large park near my place, Parc Jarry, also has playing fields for several sports and indeed they are always full as such places are at a premium in cities. In summertime I cycle round there very early in the morning as there are always people training.
This spring I'm jealous of Paris as last year everything was green by now, but the spring is still chilly so while there are flowers and low-lying bushes, none of the trees have broken out in full leaf yet.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2011 4:47:34 GMT
As you passed Pré St-Gervais Métro station, did you find the little park called Square de la Butte du Chapeau Rouge? It's on the hill between the Boulevard Sérurier and the Boulevard d'Algérie, the latter being an "extra" boulevard next to the Périphérique along which the T3 extension is being constructed. We found the park on a walk through the 19th last month, and two of our Parisian friends had never heard of it! Yes, I had never heard of it either, but it really is quite large! I did take a few photos, but they didn't make it into the final version of this overly long report. I think the park will be rediscovered when the tramway is completed. Lagatta, that car park is simply called Parc de stationnement de la Porte de la Chapelle. I often recommend it to people who are wondering what to do with their car during their stay in Paris.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 19, 2011 13:40:05 GMT
I googled Parc de stationnement de la Porte de la Chapelle and got lots of hits: S.A.P.P. Porte de la Chapelle Tel. (0) 1 40 35 72 75 Accès véhicules : 56-58 Boulevard Ney 75018 PARIS
The tourism sites wisely advise visitors not to attempt to drive and park in Paris proper, unless they know where they are going.
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2011 14:51:20 GMT
Some guy on the Thorn Tree today asked about parking a 23 foot camper in central Paris. ;D
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Post by lagatta on Apr 19, 2011 16:15:23 GMT
Did people laugh him off the board?
I have a rich aunt in California (she married an American guy) and she and second husband (first guy died, leaving her with a full share of pots of money) were crisscrossing the continent in one of those damned things, spurring an invasion of a new petroleum-producing country every time they set off on holiday. They travelled here in the damned thing and had to set up camp in Laval, a suburb on the island north of Montréal island. No place in Mtl for it. I can't even imagine in Paris.
By the way, rich aunt is stingy. Years ago, my uncle (her baby brother) was falsely accused of a serious white-collar crime by a shady business associate and she didn't contribute a bloody cent to his defence. I'd be very surprised indeed if I inherit anything whatsoever, and certainly don't expect to.
Uncle was vindicated, but being caught up in the wheels of such a thing cost him years of grief, legal bills and lost income. And that could happen to anyone, alas.
I'll have to look up the Thorn Tree thing...
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Post by bjd on Apr 19, 2011 16:37:08 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2011 17:12:57 GMT
Without clicking on the link yet, I know at least 4 places where it can be done -- one of them within 10 meters of the Champs Elysées.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2011 17:17:15 GMT
Okay, I went and took a look and absolutely every knows about the Bois de Boulogne campground, one of the most popular in Europe. But it is not really convenient and certainly not central.
As for the places I know about, I wish people would stop using them, so I will certainly not publicize them. In any case, they are good for about 48 hours maximum before the police tell people to get the hell out of there.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 18, 2011 16:38:54 GMT
Here is an article with several maps of existing tramlines in Greater Paris and those under construction. I'm jealous! Article is in French, but you needn't know French to consult the maps. www.stif.info/IMG/pdf/TramwayT5-3.pdf
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2011 16:52:16 GMT
I think I am going to have to do a progress report soon. I've been through a few of the areas, and some of the changes are amazing.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2011 20:54:01 GMT
Just a little update on the tramway progress. These photos are from the 19th arrondissement, between Porte des Lilas and Porte de Pantin.
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Post by tod2 on Aug 31, 2011 5:48:02 GMT
Thanks so much for the update - I can't wait to try out the T3 route next year. (I think it would be wise to write a 'T3 Trip' in notes from your post to guide me) .
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Post by Deleted on Feb 29, 2012 20:27:26 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2012 17:55:23 GMT
I'm still keeping an eye on the tramway progress. I think that all of the rails are now in place, and the test runs are supposed to begin during the autumn. There's still plenty of work to do, but hundreds of workers are working hard on it. Apparently, the two halves are going to be called 3a and 3b.
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Post by tod2 on Mar 27, 2013 14:24:19 GMT
Wondering how work is progressing - It's almost 9 months ago since you last sent us a progress report Kerouac! I'm thinking the extreme winter experienced in the beginning of 2013 must have set them back somewhat?
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