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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2017 15:13:41 GMT
I'm glad I'm not the only person who has been there, breeze. Actually the transatlantic terminal wasn't much to look at for a very precise reason. The previous terminal was of course destroyed in the war, but once the war was over, the ocean liners resumed service. So a new terminal was built, but it was purposely designed not to look luxurious in the eyes of half of the population of the city still living in shacks or tents or ruins. The location is quai Joannes Couvert.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2017 15:30:25 GMT
While the work that Auguste Perret did in Le Havre is pretty impressive, it is absolutely nothing compared to the project that he designed for Paris in 1922. He wanted to ring Paris with 100 "maisons-tours" (housing towers) between 150 and 200 metres high (for comparison, the Eiffel Tower is 300 metres high). These would have been in the current location of the boulevard périphérique since there was the big circular empty zone where the defensive wall surrounding Paris had been torn down. On top of that, there was to be a line of 200 additional maisons-tours stretching from Porte Maillot all the way to the forest of Saint Germain-en-Laye, right through the heart of what is now La Défense -- which proves that the Louvre-Carrousel-Arc de Triomphe axis has always been an obsession in Paris.
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Post by htmb on Jan 23, 2017 17:13:22 GMT
I've enjoyed this thread very much. You've made Le Havre seem more interesting to me than I'd thought possible.
I also get a smile on my face every time you mention the France, since I had the priviledge of sailing on her twice in the Caribbean when she was renamed the Norway. This was the late 70s and early 80s and was the last time I was on a large ship. What a wonderful boat! I remember spending a lot of time down deep in the middle of the ship where there was a full-sized swimming pool and a decent gym. Of course, rather than sailing out of New York and Le Havre, we sailed in and out of the Port of Miami. Is that a personal photo of the France?
Your photograph of the Pont de Normandie is outstanding, too.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2017 10:43:53 GMT
K2, the photo near the end that happens to show the Wok Grill, are there a lot of these in France now? They are all over Spain in slightly different forms but are very popular because of the sea food they serve. I saw that this is a small chain with 7 locations spread over France, but neo Asian food is the rage just about everywhere in Europe now, so there are similar places everywhere. While not the same cuisine as wok style, one interesting thing about Paris is that home delivery of sushi is now greater than home delivery of pizza. Is that a personal photo of the France? No, since I was on the ship! However, the poor condition of that photograph probably matches that colour slides that I do have somewhere.
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Post by breeze on Jan 24, 2017 12:49:50 GMT
kerouac, my husband and I have enjoyed your Le Havre photos. We spent a few happy hours going down memory lane or rather lanes since our memories of our arrival in France diverge. We now aren't sure that the humble student ship we sailed on arrived at the main transatlantic dock.
We've had fun using remonterletemps to see old maps of the area but my clear memory and E's clear memory don't match so we'll let it rest.
Perret certainly dreamed big. Was each tower to be unique, do you know?
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Post by fumobici on Jan 29, 2017 2:20:35 GMT
Interesting report. When I was a young child, I remember poring over all the exotic ocean liner stickers on my grandparents' luggage (they loved doing Atlantic crossings) and asking my grandmother about Le Havre, which unlike most of the ports named I'd never heard of. She said it was nice before the war and that it was pronounced simply "lav". I inherited one of her trunks covered in those colorful stickers, but it was no longer practical luggage for me and was all worn and musty so I reluctantly threw it out at some point.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2017 15:26:13 GMT
Ocean liner stickers were wonderful, and I also liked the ones for hotels, even though they weren't as prestigious but I do remember being proud of a few such as "Inter-Continental Bali," "Méridien Dakar," or "Raffles Singapore." And I actually still have the two footlockers that I used to move to France in 1973 on the SS Michelangelo, arriving in Cannes. Oddly enough, I don't think they gave out stickers.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 29, 2017 17:02:41 GMT
I have one of those old wooden footlockers with wood and brass fittings that had made the voyage from France, but it had belonged to the former tenants of a flat I rented in what is now the trendy Plateau district but over 30 years ago, a modest working-class area (the part of the Plateau closer to Carré St-Louis was already trendy, but not the northeastern part). Many of the people in the area worked at the old Cadbury plant, which shut down not long afterwards. Sad for the workers, but a relief not to have the heavy chocolate aroma in summer heat. Even normally good-smelling substances such as chocolate and coffee can get overbearing under such conditions. The very old lady (who lived with her daughter or niece who was already retired) had made the crossing long before. There was a sequin flapper dress and some other treasures in the chest. I wore it a few times but it was fragile; I think I gave it to someone as a decoration.
Renzo used the chest to climb onto my bed when he was no longer to jump up at the end of his long life. Livia, of course, leaps everywhere.
R
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