Goodbye Yuri Gagarin

[kerouac2]

Ivry-sur-Seine is one of the suburbs snuggled up against Paris, but there are a few details about it that sometimes make is seem like it is from the other end of the planet.  For one thing, it has been a major stronghold of the Communist party since 1920 and continues to have a Communist mayor.  It was the electoral district of Maurice Thorez, a great admirer of Stalin.  Thorez was general secretary of the French Communist party from 1930 until 1964, but Ivry was a revolutionary city before his arrival.  For example, in 1929 the city elected a woman to its municipal council to protest the exclusion of women from politics.  She was invalidated by government order.

Anyway, as a heavily industrial suburb, Ivry initiated vast housing projects and one of the biggest was the Cité Youri Gagarine in 1961.  The first man to make a space flight and actually orbit the earth will never be forgotten in the Red Belt surrounding Paris since so many streets and buildings bear his name.  And in fact, he made a special visit to Ivry in 1962 to receive full hnours from Maurice Thorez and see the glorious achievements of the city.

The Cité Youri Gagarine is finally going to be demolished this spring, just like so many other buildings before it, but I wanted to see it one last time.  Many families lived in the complex for over 50 years, raising children and grandchildren, and no matter how decrepit such buildings become, it is nearly always heartbreaking to be forced out of one's home.  Actually, the city began to relocate people starting in 2014 but from whay I read, there are still five flats occupied until the final moment.

I took the metro to Mairie d'Ivry.  A huge apartment complex was built right on top of the metro station in the 1970's.  It has such brutal architecture that it was one of the main filming locations of the movie Hunger Games 3.

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Things built in the 1930's have aged more gracefully.

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So, here is the object of my visit, the Cité Youri Gagarine in full solitary glory.

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There is quite a bit of street art in Ivry but almost no graffiti.  I have noticed the same thing in most Communist towns in France.

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In Paris, the bottom of the building would be absolutely smothered in tags and other graffiti.

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Naturally, just about all of the entrances have been totally blocked.

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Frankly, I think they took good care of the building for 58 years.

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This fire escape (or perhaps just faster access to the car park) looks like it was added at a later date.

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No, you're not sneaking into the building this way either, you urbex people!

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I still remember France before 1961, and it must have been so wonderful for people to move here.

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Nature makes its final attempt to take over before demolition.

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And then it was time to leave.  After all there wasn't really all that much to see, just a whole lot of atmosphere to absorb.

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The next time I see this building, it will be to see the implosion on television.

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back on the way to the metro

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There are quite a few communal gardens in empty lots.

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The chickens came running to me as I passed by.  I bet that a lot of people give them stuff when they see them.

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I think that a hen may have had an illicit affair with a poodle to produce this creature.

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And then the metro took me back where I belonged.

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[kerouac2]

Last autumn there was a photo exhibit with giant portraits of the residents under their apartments. I'm sorry that I missed it.

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[bjd]

Interesting. That housing block could have been lifted straight out of Soviet-era eastern Europe, except that it's in better condition.

Toulouse was considered a radical city (Parti Radical) but one of its main streets is still called Avenue de l'Urss. I don't think many young locals actually know what it means nowadays. (French acronym for the USSR)

[lagatta]

The old HBMs were very well built and often beautiful, but I think the rooms would be seen as too small for families nowadays. They seem to be kept up, though. Actually, that HLM building was in remarkable condition, though of course one can see some recent deterioration after most was abandoned.

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitation_%C3%A0_bon_march%C3%A9 The wiki article is in French only - no versions in other languages, but the photos are worth a visit by non French-speakers. Habitations bon marché - forerunner of HLM Habitations à loyer modique.

Part of the Paris European Social Forum was held in Ivry, but I wasn't working there - just at La Villette and St-Denis. We were volunteers, but our travel and some expenses were paid. The food was excellent as it was provided with members of the Confédération paysanne from different regions, trying to outdo each other. Though vegetarianism hadn't caught on much, so delegates from more veg-friendly countries were not happy campers.

Have you taken photo visits of more modern HLMs in Ivry? You've done many subjects in different suburbs, but I don't remember Ivry.

[questa]

Is there an organisation in France that does oral histories, interviewing (for example) the residents of this area and people who lived in those great buildings. What stories could those rooms tell. Even a TV doco of the history and people who made it would preserve some of the era.

(BTW Kerouac2, was there a place where the Indochinese leaders-to-be hung out? Is it remembered today?)

[kerouac2]

There is a brief glimpse of the building under construction in this short video.

[kerouac2]

Apr 15, 2019 0:02:55 GMT questa said:

Is there an organisation in France that does oral histories, interviewing (for example) the residents of this area and people who lived in those great buildings. What stories could those rooms tell. Even a TV doco of the history and people who made it would preserve some of the era.

(BTW Kerouac2, was there a place where the Indochinese leaders-to-be hung out? Is it remembered today?)

There are lots of documentaries about what was called "les trente glorieuses" -- the 30 glorious years of economic boom after WW2.  Many of those huge housing projects were built to help absorb the million ethnic French who arrived from Algeria in 1962 but also to house millions of ethnic North Africans who were recruited until the mid 1970's and who never planned to stay permanently -- but they quickly discovered that when you have children in a new country, the children don't want to ever leave, even more so if they spent some holidays in the "home" country which was dirty and didn't have indoor plumbing and no cartoons on television (and often no electricity anyway). So basically, the children trapped their parents. The wives didn't want to leave anyway (freedom, washing machines... hard to say which was more important to them) and even the men, who often had been scrimping and saving during their entire career to build a dream house back home would find themselves going to the dream house all alone because none of the family wanted to accompany them after a certain age.  And they too would finally realise that they had become French, because they liked sitting in a café drinking wine and playing dominos with their friends. I have known a few old Algerian men -- my grandfather's best friend, for example -- and none of them could ever imagine returning after a certain point.

The Indochinese were a different matter. Before 1975, just about all of them came voluntarily either to get an education or earn money and then return home. But some of them enjoyed the new life, while the others learned revolutionary politics. Many of them got their start in Marseille, because they arrived by ship -- either passenger ships or working on a cargo vessel. Marseille is where Hô Chi Minh arrived in 1911.  He got his revolutionary fibre by working at all sorts of shitty jobs -- gardener in Le Havre, streetsweeper, painter and bellhop in London, which is where he also met some Irish revolutionaries.  Back in Paris, revolution became a full time job and he met up with a bunch of like-minded Vietnamese.  After several years, he made his way back to Asia via Moscow.  In Hong Kong, he founded the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 with the help of someone called Mao who would rise to fame later.  Then the British threw him out for some reason.  Until the end of WW2, he spent most of his time in China... and the rest is history.

Apparently, this delightful place was one of Hô's favourite hangouts in Paris.  It was a communist coop café on the edge of the very first Chinatown in Paris in the 3rd arrondissement.  I checked the address on Google, and it is a supermarket now.  (49 rue de Bretagne)

www.parisrevolutionnaire.com/IMG/jpg/Bretagne_rue_de_49_Maison_commune_du_IIIeme_31_mini.jpg

[bixaorellana]

Absolutely fascinating social, political, & architectural history. I really love all the views of real Paris you give us.

Apr 14, 2019 5:54:04 GMT kerouac2 said:

The next time I see this building, it will be to see the implosion on television.

Do you know what will replace that building and whether or not the displaced residents will be moved back to the area?

[kerouac2]

There will be a ceremony for the destruction on August 31st, but there will not be an implosion.

It will take 16 months to deconstruct the building.

Obviously, all of the residents were rehoused months ago.

[kerouac2]

[kerouac2]

I will put the trailer for the movie Gagarine here just for the hell of it.



More in reply #2405 (page 81) in the movie thread -- anyportinastorm.proboards.com/thread/51/last-movie?page=81&scrollTo=369037

[htmb]

I’d never seen this interesting thread before, but do remember the title. Sorry I hadn’t taken a look back two years ago!