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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2011 21:07:15 GMT
Quite a few people find metro stations fascinating no matter what. Just the whole concept of a subterranean transportation system is pretty exciting, whether you live in Paris, New York, London, Berlin or a multitude of other places. Basically, this underground business is meant to be principally efficient, and that should be enough. But you know how we are. We get bored, we want something better. The French are such complainers. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because it leads to things being improved. It was President De Gaulle who first had the idea that the country needed a Minister of Culture in 1958, and since that time, the Ministry of Culture has always been one of the most important ones in the country, even if its budget is only about 1% of the national budget, usually less. De Gaulle named a cultural giant -- André Malraux -- as the first minister of culture. The Minister of Culture since then is often the most popular politician in the country, because he is in charge of pretty things. Anyway, Malraux did not exactly force the metro authorities to create the magnificent decor of the Louvre station in the early 1960's, but he very much hinted that it would be a good idea. And so the Louvre station (now Louvre-Rivoli) (line 1) was the first station to get a special cultural makeover. I shouldn't show any photos of it, because it is in the middle of renovation, has been stripped bare, and on top of that, the renovation is late, because it was supposed to be finished in July and wow, no way! It is supposed to be filled with replicas from the museum of the same name. Just awful, but I promise to get back to it as soon as it is beautiful again. Since the 1960's, lots of other stations have benefited from special decoration, and many of them look quite nice. I go through Concorde (line 12) every day on my way to work. Its tiles reproduce the entire text of the declaration of human rights. Strangely enough, my destination to go to work is the Franklin D. Roosevelt station (line 1), which is the most recent station to get a complete makeover. Its previous version was very popular, and people were outraged when the stained glass decor was dismantled. They knew that they would have to impress with the 21st century version. I never thought I would see such things in the metro. (more coming)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2011 21:40:54 GMT
The name of the Argentine station (line 1) used to be Obligado, which commemorated a Napoleonic victory against the Argentine navy (what the hell were they doing there?). When Eva Peron came on an official visit to France in the 1950's, the name of the metro station and the corresponding street were changed. Meanwhile, Hôtel de Ville (line 1) glorifies the history of Paris and the celebrities who gave their names to the stations.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2011 4:22:21 GMT
It's a surprise the first time when you are sitting on the metro minding your own business and you discover that it has stopped in the middle of the jungle. Also on line 14, which is the newest line, the Madeleine station has a nice tribute in stained glass to the Moscow subway.
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Post by fumobici on Aug 14, 2011 5:07:29 GMT
What a wonderful thread. Such whimsy! I first was enticed here by a Kerouac thread on Paris Metro stops and this is fascinating to me. I do hope there'll be more.
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Post by bjd on Aug 14, 2011 5:57:30 GMT
Are they just renovating the Louvre stop? It seems to me that there have been reproductions of art works in there for years.
As for the other stations, thanks for showing all this. I only saw a few of my usual suspects recently and they are the same. Except that I saw that Line 1 is slowly becoming automatic, like like 14. At Reuilly-Diderot, there are already doors, but no renovation of the walls.
These all look nice, but I rather miss the old bathroom tile stations with their advertising and distinctive smell. Have the smells in the subways changed in the new stations?
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Post by nycgirl on Aug 14, 2011 14:03:37 GMT
Great thread! Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I'm really interested to see how the Louvre one turns out. Do you know how long it might take?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2011 16:06:36 GMT
The Tuileries station (line 1) commemorates 100 years of history in France since the metro was built, decade by decade. Special attention is given to the evolution of the metro itself over those years -- the stations, the tickets, the advertising campaigns... Cluny-La Sorbonne (line 10) was a "phantom station" for about 50 years. It is one of about half a dozen stations that were closed in 1937 either because they had too little traffic or because they were too close to another station. This station was given a new lease on life when the RER B was built and it was decided that a connection to line 10 would be useful. The decor concerns the signatures of famous people (I'm sure that at least 99% of them but more likely 100% are men) probably of great interest to students of the Sorbonne. Meanwhile, most people going to the Varenne station (line 13) understand why Balzac and The Thinker are already waiting for them. The Rodin Museum is just up the steps.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2011 16:51:44 GMT
There is more metro stuff coming up, but I should briefly mention the RER also. It is basically the "regional express metro," operated partly by the metro authorities and partly by the train authorities. I don't recall seeing any art in the RER, but they have certainly spent quite a bit of money on the architecture of the stations built in the 21st century. RER stations are at least 4 times bigger than metro stations because the trains are much bigger. Here is Magenta (line E) at Gare du Nord. First, the access corridors. Down to the tracks... And here is the station itself. I hopped on a train to Haussmann-St. Lazare, where the scale is just as grandiose. These stations are quite deep since they are under the sewers, the metro and lots of other things. Exiting requires a bit of legwork, but the tunnels and hardwood floors are impressive.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 14, 2011 17:27:52 GMT
Do any people just hang out at the Gare de Lyon line 14 station just to rince their eyes on a dreary winter day?
I've always liked the Arts et métiers station as well.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2011 19:11:32 GMT
(I'll get to the questions a bit later.) Liège (line 13) is one of the least used metro stations. In fact, it was closed from 1939 until 1968 and was closed in the evening and on weekends and holidays until 2004. On top of that, the original name of the station was Berlin. It was renamed in 1914, along with just about every other name of German origin in Paris. (Unfortunately, old names never seem to return, which leaves Paris pretty much German free, even though Germany is now considered to be the closest friend and ally of France.) The name Liège was chosen due to the heroic resistance of the Belgian city to German attacks. It is amusing to note that the artistic decoration is mostly due to the fact that it is one of the rare stations where the platforms of the different directions are not directly across from each other. In this day and age where the advertising posters are changed every week, it was too complicated to keep advertising on the inaccessible panels. Just a couple of blocks away is the Europe station (line 3). All of the streets of the area behind Gare Saint Lazare honour major European cities. Rue de Berlin Liège is one of the streets that meets at Place de l'Europe. In this station, there are video screens showing short films from various EU countries. I saw that Finland and Estonia are being highlighted in August 2011.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 14, 2011 20:32:51 GMT
It's about time they named something after German places, German culture, after three generations of peace. I can think of Rhin et Danube, though of course those great rivers also pass through other countries.
As for women, I've found George Sand and Marie Curie looking up signatures métro Cluny-La Sorbonne. If I recall, there were also the apocryphal "signatures" of Héloise and Abélard...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2011 20:57:34 GMT
Another 'German' station that lost its name in 1914 was "Rue d'Allemagne," now "Jaurès."
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Post by fumobici on Aug 15, 2011 0:09:16 GMT
Fantastic. That Magenta station really looks more like a proper train station than a metro stop. In fact it looks very much like the station underneath Schiphol one takes to go into Amsterdam, right down to the escalator.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 15, 2011 0:42:53 GMT
Well, the station beneath Schiphol serves the same function - mostly for regional trains, though I think there is also a train to Brussels (don't take that for a fact). Obviously Paris is a city many times larger than Amsterdam, but a lot of Dutch do commute between the cities in the Randstad - the conurbation including the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, Utrecht and many smaller places. I have friends (a gay male couple of a certain age) who bought a nice flat in Rotterdam - one commutes to the Hague where he is an interpreter at the Parliament and other institutions - the other to Amsterdam where he is a librarian.
The Netherlands has brought in a successful bikeshare scheme called OVFiets (public transport cycle), which might seem strange in a country where there are more bicycles than people (you know, the old bicycle for the city, not too attractive to thieves, the sporty bicycle for weekend exercise or touring, perhaps a folder...) but there is actually a problem with people who buy clunker cycles for the work end of their commute and leave them chained at railway and coach stations. I think OVFiets is one way they are addressing this problem.
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Post by fumobici on Aug 15, 2011 4:24:08 GMT
The main traffic at the Schiphol station is to Amsterdam no doubt but you can catch a Eurostar right to Paris there as well.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2011 5:03:48 GMT
Yes, the Thalys from Paris stops at Schiphol.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2011 5:34:06 GMT
Some of the stations are more educational than visually impressive. For example, Saint Germain-des-Prés (line 4) is devoted to the publishers who were traditionally all located in the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, the Parmentier station (line 3) is devoted to the glorious potato. Antoine Parmentier was a pharmacist, but his fame lies in the popularisation of the potato in Europe. It was considered unfit for human consumption in the mid-1700's, but the authorities were searching desperately for a new food item that would prevent the population -- and particularly the armies -- from starving to death. Even though he had dinner parties where potatoes were served to guests such as Benjamin Franklin, the population still mistrusted this weird new item. However, he had a brilliant idea -- he planted a big field of potatoes at Les Sablons just outside of Paris. During the day, it was "guarded" by the army but it was not guarded at night. Parisians would come to "steal" the potatoes, ensuring their popularity.
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Post by tod2 on Aug 15, 2011 11:20:03 GMT
I am enjoying this so much! May I ask a question? I always have my Le Petit Parisien next to me on the table and notice that Line 8, 12, 13, 4, 7 in that sequence - crosses over the T3 ( a black dot within a circle). Does this mean there is an interchange between the two in the same station? Or one above and one below ground? I only remember the RER B in Parc Monsouris. The tramway above it in the road.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2011 13:54:57 GMT
Réaumur-Sébastopol, on both line 3 and line 4 proposes a small tribute to the past of rue Réaumur. This used to be like Fleet Street in London, the home of all the national newspapers. And just like all of the London newspapers left Fleet Street in the latter part of the 20th century, all of the Paris newspapers have left rue Réaumur. The line 4 Réaumur-Sébastopol station also publicizes the nearby Centre National des Arts et Métiers, which might have preferred the station that bears its name, but those walls were taken up already. The Pont Neuf station (line 7) pays tribute to the old mint, La Monnaie de Paris. Montparnasse-Bienvenüe is one of the major transportation hubs of Paris, with the mainline train station and 4 metro lines. However, the metro lines were originally built by competing companies -- the Métropolitain and the Nord-Sud -- and two of the metro lines were built very far from the other two lines. When the companies merged in the 1930's, a connecting corridor was put in, a very very very long connecting corridor. Moving walkways were installed in later years to help out with 200 meters of the distance. From 2002 to 2009, there was even a high speed moving walkway, which started slow, picked up speed and then slowed down for arrival. But it broke down too often, scared too many people, and it really did feel weird when it was doing transitional stuff under your feet. So now we are back to the traditional walkways and it is still a madhouse. It was a blank and boring tunnel for decades, but now it is decorated, with different motifs every couple years. People still don't have time to look at any of it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2011 14:49:26 GMT
Okay, time for a question pause. Are they just renovating the Louvre stop? It seems to me that there have been reproductions of art works in there for years. The station was first decorated with art reproductions in the mid-1960's. It has been refreshed a number of times over the years, but it looks like it's going to be a long makeover this time. Here is what the last incarnation of the station looked like. All of the doors are up on line 1 now. The first automated trains will start running at the end of the year. The current trains will move to line 4. They are also installing doors all along line 13. There are no particular plans to change the decor of any other stations on line 1. The white tiles are the standard model and will remain in most stations. In fact, lots of stations that were renovated in the 60's, 70's and 80's have been changed back to the traditional white tiles. The ceramic frames of the advertising boards are recreated as well, with the CM design on the CM lines and the NS design on the NS lines. (CM = Compagnie du Métropolitain NS = Nord Sud)The odour of the metro from my childhood was the electric ozone burn from a lot of sparking. Now that I live in Paris, the odour of the cleaning products changes from time to time. I have even replied to RATP surveys about the preferred smells. I'm really interested to see how the Louvre one turns out. Do you know how long it might take? It's at a standstill at the moment. The renovation of Franklin D. Roosevelt took more than two years, but I read that it was due to a labour dispute. Might be the same problem at Louvre. Do any people just hang out at the Gare de Lyon line 14 station just to rinse their eyes on a dreary winter day? No, it's just too busy. No way to relax there! It's about time they named something after German places, German culture, after three generations of peace. I can think of Rhin et Danube, though of course those great rivers also pass through other countries. As for women, I've found George Sand and Marie Curie looking up signatures métro Cluny-La Sorbonne. If I recall, there were also the apocryphal "signatures" of Héloise and Abélard... It takes a major reason to remove a current street name, so until some new streets are created, Germany will have to wait. " Rhin et Danube" was a Polish batallion of the French army, so actually it is another "anti" German name. I confess that I have never spent time looking at the signatures at Cluny. I was just being cynical. I always have my Le Petit Parisien next to me on the table and notice that Line 8, 12, 13, 4, 7 in that sequence - crosses over the T3 ( a black dot within a circle). Does this mean there is an interchange between the two in the same station? Or one above and one below ground? I only remember the RER B in Parc Monsouris. The tramway above it in the road. It just means that when you come out of the metro station, there is a corresponding tram station just outside. You would even have to use a second ticket if you are not using a Navigo.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2011 17:37:55 GMT
Bastille is obviously worth some historical commemoration. The station on line 1 has a fresco of a variety of elements from 1789. Nobody ever looks at this stuff, though. Since the station is partially outside, just about everybody looks out over the Canal Saint Martin. The station on line 5 is much more historical, but unfortunately it is one of the stations undergoing renovation. It just reopened after being closed for a couple of months, but they have not yet reinstalled the informational panels about the remarkable sight that is in the station. In the line 5 station, you can see part of the foundations of the Bastille. Normally there should also be signs to tell you that the marks on the floor mark the walls of the Bastille. The Cadet station (line 7) might surprise certain Americans who think that the French do not love the United States. The tiles reproduce the first American flag.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2011 17:55:30 GMT
It must be admitted that the metro authorities are not completely immune to certain mercantile considerations. The famous Galeries Lafayette department store begged for years for a slight name change of the Chaussée d'Antin metro station. Sure, everybody knows that the real metro station to go to the department stores on Boulevard Haussmann is Havre-Caumartin, which is right between the two stores. But if you happen to exit at Chaussée d'Antin, the only store that you will immediately see is Galeries Lafayette. It is right there on the corner of rue de la Chaussée d'Antin but also at the beginning of rue La Fayette. Galeries Lafayette said "surely it would be more convenient and helpful if the name of the station were Chaussée d'Antin-La Fayette!" The metro people obviously understood the point of this and said "what's in it for us?" So Galeries Lafayette completely paid for the ceiling decoration of both Chaussée d'Antin-La Fayette stations in exchange for the new name.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2011 5:30:04 GMT
A little bit of stained glass was added to the Jaurès station (line 2). Oh course, photographing it in full sunlight instead of in the evening when some of the city lights can illuminate it from behind was not my brightest photographic idea. Havre-Caumartin is one of the remaining examples of the more colourful style used in renovations at the end of the 1970's. Almost every station that was done in this style has been " re-renovated" back to the classic white tiles. The Cité station has no special decoration, but it has an impressive height (perhaps so that it will take longer to fill up with water if the Seine breaks through? ). The exit columns are solid bulkheads like on a ship. You will save yourself from grief if you wait for the elevator instead of charging up the stairs at top speed. This station is a lot deeper than you think.
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Post by mich64 on Aug 16, 2011 16:05:58 GMT
What a wonderful choice for a thread Kerouac. I am thoroughly enjoying the photos and commentary. I have been to many of those shown but I am looking for to #14 Lyon when we come in September as we are staying quite near there.
Over my trips to Paris what I have discovered is how much I love the logistics of this system and the surprises down below at each stop as they are all quite unique. One thing I do have difficulty with is the stairs out of some of them.
We are going to try the bus system this visit.
Wonderful thread.
Cheers, Mich
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Post by tod2 on Aug 16, 2011 17:48:10 GMT
This has been really marvellous - I love the fact you have included some historical facts! That makes it even more interesting apart from the wonderful interiors. I quickly switched on my other computer to compare your photos of Bastille metro with mine. I see you have a small portion of images that I don't but remember there was something behind a boarded up section, so it could have been incomplete at the time I was there. Thank you so much for putting me in the final picture!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2011 17:52:10 GMT
I'm happy to be informative when possible -- not often with my limited means.
I am starting to make a list of other stations that I need to visit. Unfortunately, I am away most of next weekend.
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LouisXIV
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L'estat c'est moi.
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Post by LouisXIV on Aug 16, 2011 20:37:53 GMT
Yes, thank you Kerouac. Since my first trip to Paris in 1996 I became a big fan of the Metro. Yes the Metro has the smell of ozone, I remember that and I also remember the smells of all the different perfumes while riding on the Metro.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 17, 2011 6:33:20 GMT
You really outdid yourself this time, Kerouac! Absolutely fascinating & incredible pictures. There must be aficionados who visit the metro over & over, just to look.
How long does it take to cross Paris at the longest stretch on the metro?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2011 7:34:04 GMT
Well, I think the longest line is currently the Balard-Créteil line which reaches into the suburbs (with a new station opening at the end of the year to make it even longer). It's 22 km long at the moment and it takes 1h13 to go the full distance, with 37 stations. The main drag for tourists and a lot of Parisians, though, is just line 1 from La Défense to Château de Vincennes. That's only 16.5 km in 36 minutes and 25 stations.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 18, 2011 14:58:21 GMT
I don't think I've taken any of the lines their current length: I did take the (then new) Line 14 from Bibliothèque François-Mitterand to Madeleine, but it has been extended since then at both ends. A friend lives not far from the library, and we were actually going on to the current end at Gare St-Lazare. I have been all along line 7b, though that scarcely counts - I was staying near one of the stations of that very short spur.
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