II.4.4.k. TOMORROW'S DESTINATION?

MENU: 2.4.4.k. Tomorrow's destination?

WHAT SEEMS TO MAKE NO SENSE OFTEN REVEALS AN UNSUSPECTED REALITY. IN BARBÈS AND LA GOUTTE D'OR TWO ANOMOLIES SUGGEST A WORLD-WIDE DESTINATION TO COME

That the City has long-term plans for the overlooked neighborhood is not officially said, but...

• Renovating the Château Rouge metro station, at the heart of the territory, was indispensable. But why make the stop, which has no connecting lines and that leads only to the distant, run-down neighborhood, the city's most luxurious? (In 2015-2017) 

Vito

Hand-painted tiles from Louis XV's Sèvres National Manufactory (founded in 1740).

• Why build a second center for world and urban music? 

Opened in 2008

The FGO Barbara

1 rue de Fleury

 

Establishment web site

Opened in 2021

The 360 Music Factory

32 rue Myrha

A private initiative that the City backs.

# # #

The infrastructure exists already

and a long-term perspective

would explain the many innovations.

• A métro station's unprecedented face lift

• The Barbès metro station: accessibility and spaces for the arts

• A 1920's cinema

• The wash-house that literature immortalized

• The City-backed couturiers' cooperative

• The Institute of Islamic Culture 

• World and urban culture for the planet?

• A portal toward the music of the outskirts

*    *    *

Next,

A métro station's unprecedented face lift

A MÉTRO STATION'S UNPRECEDENTED FACE LIFT

RENOVATIONS AT THE 309 STATIONS HAVE BEEN FUNCTIONAL AND SPARTAN. BUT HERE...*

Roots refer to the diversity of  residents' origins.

Zoom photo and article (in French)

 Cameroon's Barthélémy Toguo has lived in La Goutte d'Or. The National Library exhibited his work in 2024.

That decor evokes immigration

in a way that is welcoming, prestigious and reassuring.  

It is directed to outsiders.

*     *     *

Next,

The Barbès métro station's accessibility and spaces for the arts

THE BARBÈS MÉTRO STATION: ACCESSIBILITY AND SPACES FOR THE ARTS

THE INTERSECTION OF TWO IMPORTANT LOCAL LINES AND A REGIONAL EXPRESS LINE MAKE BARBÈS EASY TO REACH

The site also combines an industrial monument, a neighborhood symbol, unique areas for exhibits and performances and a walkway waiting to be put to use.

Adapted from an official map

Zoom

• Paintings can hang from the ribbon of steel under the rails:

Les Intruses ("The Women Intruders"), by the photographer Randa Marufi for the Institute of Islamic Cultures, 2020 / zoom

• It overlooks a painted path that is adapted to skateboarding, bicycling, training,  performances and exhibits:  

The Compagnie Gaby Sourire and Faun Arts,

 

Installation by Ange et Dam

# # #

Planned as an "urban promenade" uniting the Barbès, La Chapelle and Stalingrad stops, a press hostile to the municipality called it "Le grand gaspillage." (the great waste) and "a court of miracles of peddlers, delinquents and migrants." The project was abandoned.

    Map obtained through the link above

1.28 kilometers, launched in 2019

A court of miracles? The space in August 2022

The space calls out 

to a future imagination.  

*     *     *

Next,

A 1920's cinema

A 1920'S CINEMA

LE GRAND REX, ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE BARBÈS MÉTRO, A CENTURY AGO AND NOW:

Zoom

For many pictures 

please click.

The main gay discothèque of the 1980's, 

 abandoned in 1988, 

almost sold to the Tati department store,

restored by the City in 2013

and now a movie theater again.

 

*    *    *

Next,

The wash-house that literature immortalized

THE WASH-HOUSE THAT LITERATURE IMMORTALIZED

WRITTEN ON THE FACADE: "MADAME MINISTER OF CULTURE, PROTECT THIS THEATER"  

For 20 years a developer tried to obtain the site where Zola set "The Drinking Den's" key scene. When the Socialists won municipal elections, the City acquired it instead.

(In 2020) 

The Lavoir Moderne Parisien

35 rue Leon 

The novel

Woman ironing by Degas, towards 1869 / zoom;     Poster by Augustin Daly, 1869 / zoom

 

The scene that begins the story 

Anonymous, 1877 / zoom

For the complete fight in Gervaise by René Clément with Maria Schell, 1956, please click.

After an epic combat the heroine joyously spanks her rival on her bare backside. She will take revenge...

# # #

The second floor is used for events. On the ground floor, a bar, a salon and a theater rather than a place a developer owns...

A singer rehearses

Maya, a voice, a musical in French and English: the story of writer Maya Angelou with Ursuline Kairson 

Program at the end of March, 2023

Because the City stepped in.

*    *    * 

Next,

The City-backed couturiers' cooperative

THE CITY-BACKED COUTURIERS' COOPERATIVE

IT PRODUCES PROTOTYPES AND SMALL SERIES UNDER THE LABEL LA FABRIQUE DE LA GOUTTE D'OR ("MADE IN LA GOUTTE D'OR")

It has existed since 2000. The City helps since 2012.

Chaussettes orphelines

Its window can show French, Muslim and African cultures: 

Figure invented for Nuit Blanche ("All night," a City-sponsored event) in June 2023

Kitty Hartl, artistic director of the event, makes the figure in the cooperative's workshop.

"I'd seen this Yeti at an artistic event in Nantes, and furnished the model. I wanted 200 for Nuit Blanche. Finally there'll be 20 ... I'd first asked fashion schools but they did not answer or said it was impossible. Then I found this marvelous workshop. It was unhoped for.  

# # #

During the first lockdown the cooperative produced a million masks with filters, which the Mayor ordered when they were still rare:

# # #

Orders include the costumes for Opera productions: 

Fadel makes coats for a performance in 2020. "What was that show?" I asked. "I don't remember," he answered. "I've made costumes for six productions since then."

# # #

A meeting

  

 "The cooperative is not for money alone,

but to show that we are useful."

-- Fadel

It also shows the vitality

of a production rooted in the neighborhood.

*    *    *

Next,

The Institute of Islamic Culture

THE INSTITUTE OF ISLAMIC CULTURE

A CENTER ON TWO SITES PRESENTS MUSLIM REACTIONS TO THE WORLD

At rue Leon

At rue Stephenson

# # #

Exhibits present reactions of Muslim artists living in France toward their cultures of origin. In 2019 and 2020:

2019 / zoom

2020 / zoom

2020 /zoom

# # #

The exhibits of March 31 to July 31, 2022 :

• Persian miniature or modern portrait? And silences, taboos and the forbidden

   

Cyrus and the Odor of Lilies by Iran's Ryan Yasmineh / "Family Photos" by Oassila Arras, French of Algerian origin

Mounds of tangled threads around which one must tread carefully.

 

• Paintings evoke uprooting by linking a Syrian poet's verses to symbols of the sky

Dialogues by Irak's Himat L. Ali

 

# # #

A place to appreciate North African cuisine

# # #

The Institute follows Islam's command for charity:

Please click back.

*    *    *

Next,

A site for neighborhood arts built twenty years ago

WORLD AND URBAN CULTURE FOR THE PLANET?

THE PARIS 360 MUSIC FACTORY FOCUSES ON URBAN AND WORLD MUSIC

It also proposes cultural events of all kinds if they are excellent and principled. 

Space for popular culture

Ethical Fashion Days

During Paris Fashion Week in February 2022 it presented designers from the African diaspora and emphasized sustainable production.

32 rue Myrha

The web site explains its mission.

Other events have included dance, stand-up comedy, workshops for children, performances by residents, readings... a few appear below.

# # #

Bankers' replies to loan requests :

(In 2008)

• "We'll lend money for a six-story office building, but for a music center, it would be mad!"

-- Podcast, So Sweet Planet

• "We can't assure your security against those drugged-out hoodlums."

-- The police, same source

# # #

Yet a decade later Saïd Assadi, a refugee from the Khomeiny regime and organizer of trans-cultural concerts founded "The 360" in La Goutte d'Or.

He had no experience of administration or of talking to bankers, but finally persuaded a bank specialized in ethical investments. Other banks and the City, which contributes 15%, followed. 

# # #

Pharaonic projects fail when the population rejects them, as happened to the 13th's Olympiades Towers. But Monsieur Assadi integrates the establishment into the neighborhood by a sidewalk terrace and a salon whose huge windows look out onto the street...

During the "Fete de la Musique," the night for music throughout the city

Neighbors watch the dancers in the background.

A bar and a restaurant whose excellent ethnic cuisine is made on the spot, at prices that are no higher than elsewhere.

Bartender Abou and a client

Meknet from Ethiopia and Raphael from Senegal, an outstanding chef who lives nearby.

Free events, such as...

An afternoon of Haitian music and literature led by Charles Sadrac, a Haitian poet who lives in the neighborhood.

Music by Espoir Lumineux, an association of student engineers that installed solar panels in a school of Burkina Faso.

Talk by Dominique Vidal, a former editor of the highly respected Le Monde diplomatique and writer on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

# # #

Attention to local energies includes...

• Monsieur Assadi attending the couturiers' meeting described above, where he spoke of openness to residents' projects and of his wish to collaborate with the area's couturiers.

• Evoking the Sapeur movement, which a shop of La Goutte d'Or had introduced to Paris and that is seen in the street:

The exhibit accompanying Ethical Fashion Days and a client at the shop shown below

That shop ("Connivences")

In front of the shop, a landmark that unfortunately closed with covid. 

Monsieur Assadi is personally accessible. One often sees him on the terrace, and can easily speak with him.

# # #

Residents respect the 360:

• A poster in a popular restaurant a few steps away

• An irrefutable sign of approval: no cigarette butts in the plant containers

# # #

Monsieur Assidi comes from a culture where illiterate taxi drivers recite 11th-century poetry, which is passed down orally. 

He says of modern Western culture, "You see yourself in the mirror, and realize you're getting fat from standardized food. But that you're also getting stupid from standardized culture doesn't show."

In promoting not-packaged arts, he makes his contribution to France.

*    *    *

Next,

A portal toward the music of the outskirts