THE SHOWS AT THIS CITY-SPONSORED CULTURAL CENTER ARE FINE, BUT ITS NAME AND EXTERIOR DO NOT DRAW OUTSIDERS
The name is hermetic: Barbara (1930-1997) was a singer well known when it was built, less so now and "FGO" is short for "Fleury Goutte d'Or," the small street that leads to it and that no one outside the immediate neighborhood has heard of.
*The founders could not have been thinking of foreign visitors: I still confuse it with "NGO," Non-Governmental Organisation. (The French term is "ONG," Organisation Non-Gouvernementale, so the problem does not exist for locals.)
And its exterior, at least to me, evokes the Bastille:
The FGO Barbara
1 rue de Fleury
The Bastille in the First Days of its Demolition by Hubert Robert, 1789/ zoom
It showcases French or neighborhood performers, as when an evening of slam let poets perform for the first time:
Waiting to enter.
"Magic Barbès, the word that slams"
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As important as the luxuriously renovated métro stop
for suggesting an international destination,
a private initiative opened in 2021 that the City backs.
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Next,
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