Paris at a Certain Age

Another Félix Potin building layered with history

The Monoprix with a mass grave underneath isn't the only former Félix Potin store layered with history. This building at 140 rue de Rennes is another example:

It might register as just another Zara chain store as you walk by. Or you might raise your eyes a tad above the Zara sign and spy a little flowery detail and take a second look. Then you would notice the older signage:

I have a font fetish and am always on the lookout for interesting typography. The Art Nouveau lettering "Patisserie" demanded a closer examination of the building.

You can't see it in the photos, but there is a sign at the very top, under the netting, that says "Félix Potin". This store was an early 'Grand Surface' or Hypermarché establishment. Its interior was a confection of Art Nouveau details.

 

After the Potin period, the building faded in status and Tati, a cheap discount store, opened there. In 1986, it became a site of tragedy. If you examine the building closely, you'll find another sign:

 

You might not remember the Paris terrorist attacks of this period. Eight people died during an attack at Orly airport in 1978. Four people died when a Paris synagogue was bombed in 1980. Carlos the Jackal devised an attack on a train going between Toulouse and Paris that killed 5 and wounded 77 people. 1982 saw the famous grenade attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the Marais which killed 6 people. Another Orly airport attack in 1983 killed 8.

On September 17, 1986 the rue de Rennes Potin/Tati building was attacked. It was a wednesday afternoon when children in France are out of school. The Tati store was crowded with women and children when a bomb went off, killing 7 people and wounding 55.

photo: rté news

The plaque was affixed in 1989 to commemorate this attack, a reminder that the Charlie Hebdo shooting was not the first modern terrorist attack on Paris. And a reminder of the many layers of history in Paris buildings.

 

Historical Mille-feuille

You probably read the news coverage about the discovery of eight mass graves under a Monoprix store in Paris (Monoprix is very much like Target in the US). There is more to this story than that covered in most press accounts. But first a little recap:

Monoprix was remodeling this branch, specifically the lowest level of the basement. Management knew the store was built on the site of a former cemetery (that of Trinity Hospital) and had expected to find a few bones. The hospital operated from 1202 through the Middle Ages up to the French Revolution. They called in Inrap, France's Institute of Preventive Archeological Research.  Their team began excavating 2 months ago and thus far have found 200 bodies in 8 graves. They have 2 more weeks to complete the excavation.

Cemeteries in medieval times were not orderly plots with caskets below and tombstones above like we have today. Most were common graves with a few individual burials of the high ranking dead. All of the cadavers merged underground in huge egalitarian pits filled in with bodies until they rose up to 3 meters above street level. These foul-smelling and disease-ridden mass graves produced a cadaverous stench that clung to churches and the surrounding area. No wonder churches had to use so much incense. Sometimes the basement walls of adjoining buildings collapsed with decomposing bodies tumbling out.

Finally, in 1786, the city began transferring the bones from cemeteries to the 300 meters of tunnels in underground quarries that had produced the limestone to build the city of Paris. The huge cemetery of the Innocent Saints was the first to be emptied and later the others were emptied as well. There are over 6 million bodies in these catacombs.

You can understand why the archeologists were surprised by finding so many bodies after they were supposed to have all been moved out centuries ago.

You don't notice much at street level when you walk by this Monoprix (located at rue Réaumur and Boulevard de Sébastopol). From the bus, however, you can see that it's a magnificent building.

 

It was constructed in 1912 for Féliz Potin who was a famous and innovative grocer in this era. He established set prices for his goods and posted them. He developed the concept of loss leaders where he sold some commodities like sugar and coffee at low prices and made up the profits on the sale of luxury items. He built his own factories for processing sugar, coffee, and chocolate. He canned and bottled products like jam, mustard and vegetables under his own brand. Potin was recognized and much appreciated for his critical social contribution during the Siege of Paris in 1870. Rather than profiteering on the sale of foodstuffs during the extreme shortages, he organized a rationing program and made food available in national cafeterias.

Check out the butcher department of the store. It looks more like a museum display than a meat counter.

 

This little plot of Paris at 95 Boulevard de Sébastopol is an amazing mille-feuille of history!

Remembrance

Remembrance Day...Arnistice Day...Veterans Day...

Veteran's Day began as a remembrance of the end of the First World War on the Western Front...at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. We don't do a very good job in the United States of remembering. It's a different story in France which was devastated by that war.There are memorials everywhere. Most small towns have a monument in their center square listing the names of those lost in that war, often with the addition of those lost in subsequent wars.

 

Did you see the recent coverage of Hubert Rochereau's bedroom in Bélâbre, central France? He was a soldier who died in WWI on Flanders fields in Belgium on April 26, 1918. His parents kept his room exactly as it was when he left for the battlefront. Subsequent owners of the home have continued this remembrance.

Paris buildings are studded with historical plaques, especially ones noting where fighters were killed during WW2.

This is the one that affects me the most:

I think it's because of his age, 21, and because they included his nickname. I kept wondering about Fifi Feferman and finally researched him. His family fled anti-semitism in Poland when he was 2 years old. He was said to be gifted and wanted to be a journalist and poet until the war intervened. He was active in the Resistance, commiting many acts of sabotage against the Germans and French collaborators. Fifi was felled at 58 rue des Petites Écuries in the 10th arrondissement where you can find this plaque.

FiFi

In the spirit of remembrance, I offer you this link to a fabulous film, Royal Cousins at War, about how WWI came to be:

Part 1

Part 2

 

A Secret Obsession

Since the post-election news is so depressing, I thought I'd provide a diversion via my secret obsession. First, a question: when you review your Paris photos, do you find any surprising themes? I have the usual photos of beautiful buildings, musées, window fashions, fabulous pastry and chocolate and bread, dogs, doors and statuary. But I also have a huge stash of photos like this:

Can you find my obsession in the photo? 

 

 

Here it is:

 

This is a chasse-roue. It's a guardrail or guard stone that protects the porte-cochère, the carriage gate or entrance, from damage by the wheels of coaches. Once you start looking for them, you can find lots in Paris. And when you do, your mind's eye fills with visions of carriages and horses and the city of old.

There are many variations of these.

Plain

 

Ornate

 

Round

 

Oblong

 

Pastry-shaped

Religieuse, anyone?

 

Beehive shaped

 

Fern Frond

 

Serpent shaped

 

Stone

 

Stone and metal

 

Templar Era 

 

and one of my favorites:

a fireman chasse-roue!

So in these depressing days, let yourself drift back in time and take a little respite.

 

Don't let the world move backwards! (reculer)

"You Don't Own Me" PSA - Upworthy from The Department of Peace on Vimeo.

 

The End of an Era

Roger Stewart MD

Roger Stewart was a phenomenal physician, a true gentleman, a vigorous citizen who remained engaged with US and world issues until the very end and a close friend who I admired greatly. He had an old-time general practice in Forestville, a small Sonoma County town, where he did everything from attending births and deaths to surgeries, large and small. He also practiced in England and even on a cruise ship. Not to mention his years at Kaiser. Roger had a talent for establishing deep friendships and knew his friends, coworkers and patients intimately. He told wonderful, riveting stories that I will never forget. He lived long (into his nineties) and well. I am so grateful to have known him. Thank you, Roger, for everything....... I love you.

Paris to Paducah, part deux

Most of the quilts featured in the main hall at the AQS Quilt Show were relatively traditional with exquisite and meticulous workmanship.

The auxiliary halls held more modern, creative and artsy quilts, like this one by the incomparable Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry.

Notice how the quilting adds to the design and color selection. 

However, the real standout for me was the one that won the Moda Award for Best Wall Quilt:

This is Judith Phelps with her quilt, The Value of Gears. It's densely thread-painted with white thread on black fabric on one side and black thread on white fabric on the other side and ombre sashing. 

The center block has real gears incorporated in it.

This quilt has an amazing backstory. Judith is a member of the Cover to Cover Book Club Quilters. For fourteen years, members have been choosing a book to read and then creating a quilt inspired by the book. "Gears" was inspired by the book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick, which was in turn inspired by the pioneering French filmmaker, Georges Méliès, and his fascination with mechanical figures called Automata. An Automaton carries out a sequence of operations and was a precursor to today's robots. Martin Scorsese's film "Hugo" was based on the same book.

Méliès lived in the 10th arrondissement and you can still see the building with its "M" on the lintel.

Saint Day

May 21st is the feastday of Eugène de Mazenod, the Patron Saint of Dysfunctional Families. He was born in Aix-en-Provence to minor nobility who lost their wealth during the Revolution. He preached in Provençal to the common people and eventually became bishop of Marseille.

Who knew there was a saint for families like ours, that put the 'fun' in dysfunctional !?!

Have You Found "Finding Vivian Maier"?

"Finding Vivian Maier" is a documentary currently showing in art house movie theaters that you should rush out to see before it disappears.

 

The theme of disappearance is especially pertinent here. Vivian Maier was a talented street photographer (and nanny) whose work almost disappeared. The film is the story of how her work was discovered and the subsequent search for the story of the artist and her mysterious and massive body of work. It works on the level of a biopic, a detective story, and a treasure hunt, but it is also a musing on showing art versus making art, outsider art versus mainstream art and the power of curiosity. This is a perfect movie to see with friends as you will want to discuss the many issues it evokes in the viewer.

 

 

John Maloof bought a box of her negatives at a storage auction and these photographs represent a treasure trove unlike any you will see on TV's "Storage Wars". When he first googled her name, Maloof found nothing. He later returned to the auction and contacted people who purchased other boxes of hers. He was hooked and his meticulous detective work eventually untangled much of the history of this complicated, mysterious, private, eccentric and immensely woman whose work is being embraced around the world. You can see many of her works in the video below:

 

 

 

The French Connection

In the film, people who have met or heard recordings of Vivian Maier argue about whether or not she is French. The filmmaker visits a small village in France to uncover the truth. While photography experts may debate her merit, her work has been enthusiastically received around the world. Last year she was exhibited at Les Douches La Galerie, a gallery of contemporary photography in a former public bathhouse located in the trendy tenth arrondissement of Paris. The 10th is a mecca for modern photography with a growing number of photo galleries.

Don't miss this narrow window of opportunity to see one of the year's best movies: a great fim about a great artisit.

Have Hipsters Ruined Paris?

Have you read the already infamous Sunday New York Times op-ed piece "How Hipsters Ruined Paris"? It's been tearing up the internet all week. Written by Thomas Chatterton Williams, the biracial author of the memoir "Losing my Cool: Love, Literature and a Black Man's Escape from the Crowd", it tells of his disappointment with the changes around his neighborhood in the north of the 9th arrondissement, south of Place Pigalle. He bemoans the loss of 'grit' and character amidst the rise of gentrification. The area even has a new Manhatten-style monicker, SoPi (for south of Pigalle) and the "hostess bars" have almost disappeared, replaced by trendy restaurants, clubs and coffee bars spawned by hipsters. He laments the "banal globalization of hipster good taste" and the loss of "authentic Paris".

The author has been thoroughly lambasted by those who accuse him of being a newby (he moved to Paris in 2011) hipster author himself who wants to freeze Paris in his own favorite era. Not to mention glorifying prostitution as somehow more picturesque than good ole sex trafficking. 

His wife and daughter are Parisian and he's apparently spent a lot of time in Paris before moving there. I can understand his sadness as the sense of place disappears in favor of the new global urban lifestyle. And this is more of an urban phenomenon. As an author, he could move to Paris without leaving much of a footprint on it. Other young people move there, have to make a living, and start restaurants and coffee bars. It's important to note, that Parisians themselves are part of this trend, as they have fallen in love with all things Brooklyn and have opened and are patronizing Brooklyn-style establishments all over Paris.

The bigger problem however, is what comes next: the rise in rents, the big chains like Starbucks, and then big developers. Some areas in Paris have successfully fought this trend. In the famously BoBo (French hispster) area of the 10th arrondissement, Jardin Villemin, the only large park, would have been substantially smaller and less attractive had local residents not fought back against the city which had already sold a big chunk to developers. And now it's a heavily used verdant area close to busy Gare de l'Est. The residents of charming Place Sainte-Marthe are solidaire as the French say and have an active community group resisting developers and profiteers who would move out longterm renters. Yes, hip restaurants have moved in, but the old-timers have not been ejected.

In my area of Northern California, some small communities have restrictions against big chains. Others have surrendered and now have the homogenized look of the rest of America. It's too bad that Americans have not retained the soixante-huitard (sixties hipster and politico) habit of taking it to the streets and resisting like the French are prone to do. Or organizing, like the Place Sainte-Marthe quartier.

Jardin Villemin