TAKE ANOTHER LOOK

CHEAP WARES MAKE BARBÈS THE MOST VISITED 

PART OF THE CITY

Vito

Illegal parking, pickpockets, crowds and a market whose exuberance comes from unbeatable prices:

Discover Walks blog, source Diaspora Blogspot (gone from web) 

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Boulevard Barbès, the dividing line between upscale Montmartre and La Goutte d'Or / Barbès:

Adapted from a Google map

• Vestiges of elegance and pleasure

Notice the balconies

A stage

Kata

34 rue Barbès

• A street for such deals as recycled phones and jeans

Jeans at the background, 25€

• People

I met these brothers by admiring the blue turban the younger is wearing, which he sold me. We corresponded for a time by email; he told me about his goats.

Struck by this young woman's braids I asked if I could photograph her, saying that it would contribute to the positive view of the neighborhood. She accepted in spite of the reticence you feel in the picture, an example of the graciousness one often meets here. 

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During Ramadan culinary specialties line the streets for feasts when the sun goes down:

• On boulevard de Rochechouart

• On rue de la Goutte d'Or (immediately behind the boulevard) 

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Across from the métro at any time :

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After dark, conviviality...

(Rue de La Goutte d'Or)

 Or the ambiance of a detective movie:

# # #

"Barbès don't panic!"

The mix, friendliness and vitality 

make one think of New York,

and Parisians themselves

may be changing their minds:

Sign at a bus stop in the 13th

  The print (highlighted and translated in yellow) is tiny, but still there.

End of this section.

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Next section,

III.5.

The unhailed energies of La Goutte d'Or