VII. A COMMUNARD BASTION ERASED AND TRANSFORMED: THE OVERLOOKED 13TH...

MENU: 7. A Communard bastion

BECAME FRANCE'S MOST INDUSTRIALIZED AREA BECAUSE IT WAS...

• In the east where prevailing winds blow pollution. 
• Next to the river and a railroad.
• An outskirt with inexpensive land.

Adapted from a Google map

Once idyllic...

 Painting (detail) of an inn in the area toward 1820 (anonymous, at today's Auberge Ethchegorry) 

Raw capitalism made it the poorest part of Paris.  

Paris, 4 place Pinel "The Ragmen"  by Eugène Atget, toward 1900 / for more photos from the National Library, zoom 

Poverty made it a Communard stronghold, industrialization a place of crime, misery and revolt.

In brief

• The fight for the hilltop

• An epicenter of misery

• A Third-World revolutionaries' training ground

• "A lost district at the city's edge"

• A walk through an outskirt that used to be chilling

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Next,

V.II.

The fight for the hilltop