For the past few days I have taken to walking to and from Cité des Arts and Eglise Saint Merry. Although I have a monthly pass for the bus and metro, I suddenly felt that waiting for a vehicle to take me to a destination is somewhat uninspiring. Besides St. Merry is but one station away by Metro on Line 1 (M Hotel de Ville) and three stops of the Bus No. 67 (rue de Rivoli) They say that Paris is a walkable city and as an avid pedestrian, I testify to this.
My route is simple with a few variations. Avoiding the busy rue de Rivoli - a stretch of busy road from the Bastille and ending at Concorde - I take the quieter street of rue Geoffrey d'Asner and go to rue de Pont Louis-Philippe through a small alley next to the Memorial de Shoah. This Memorial is a museum for Jewish art and culture and its Le Mur de Justes, bearing names, is said to be an echo of the wailing wall in Jerusalem. Rue de Pont Louis-Philippe has a few interesting galleries and couture shops, which are plentiful in other side streets in this area called Le Marais. I cross rue de Rivoli to access a parallel road rue de Verriere, which goes all the way to Forum Des Halles, the underground mall. I stay on this road because St. Merry has an access door along here, in the area of Beaubourg. I only have to make two crossings, a small road crossing that leads me to the rear of the big Bazar de Hotel de Ville or BHV, and another traversing rue de Renard where a Mc Donalds is a clear landmark on the other side. A Vietnamese restaurant HC3 is in the same row as McDonalds and I once ate Pho there, very good but also a bit pricey (I could get two orders of this beef flank soup in a mall back home).
Before I go into St. Merry I often buy some snacks at either MonoPrix or Franprix and on occasion, Carrefour City. I also take a look at the books at the Mona Lisait shop, where I have purchased five books to date. This shop carries cheaper (4€ for a monograph on Fra Angelico) books but the catch is they are all in French and there are only a few titles on English. But if one just buys for the illustrations, then by all means this is a nice resource for references. Some galleries are just nearby and one in particular JB Galerie has some works by Chinese contemporary painters (Min Yue Jin, Fang Li Jun)
The western portal of St. Merry has three doorways, the side doors leading to the offices and the residences and a large wooden door providing access to the church through a chapel that was built in the 18th century. I go down to the cellars to work via the office which has a very narrow stairwell that descends to the basement. The cellars are very well lit and are used by resident artists as studios and as a stockroom of sorts. The walls are of rough limestone and it can be cold in the area but not as chilly as the open air. The floor is made of patches of stone, cement and even dry soil. The walls of this cellar used to be lined with saltpeter and were at a time scraped off by Napoleon's troops for the production of gunpowder. As I have mentioned before, the church is currently undergoing restoration and cleaning and often not a pretty site compared to other churches of the same scale, like Eglise Saint Severin or Eglise St Julian de Paure. It does not also have a park in its periphery - quite uncommon in Paris - but its east side overlooks the fountain of Jean Tinguely and Nikki Saint-Phalle where skaters, teenagers mostly, and a bit of a number of tourists hang out. The eastern side is also the only area that is good to photograph as the facade is covered in protective netting and its rear is hidden by tall apartment buildings. This side also opens up to the Centre Georges Pompidou, museum of modern and contemporary art, and an architectural enigma by Renzo Piano. On weekends the sloped open space facing the museum is teeming with people, street performers and street artists.
But once in the cellar that busy world is shut out. The only noises I hear is the gurgling of the waterpipes and the hissing of the heating system. My work area looks like the building's old boiler and kiln but its recesses and chutes are filled up with scrap wood and even sculptures. Insulated here I work for five hours straight, often three. I leave every 7pm, when the church above shuts its doors. I can work anytime and even stay the night in the cellar, although I might never need to do that. My progress is good, and in three days I have defined a torso our of a splendid block of wood with a set of marvelous carving tools.
When I exit the church, darkness has fallen and the restaurants are full of people having dinner or beer or coffee. I walk past these and walk to a road that leads to the rear of Elise St. Gervais-St. Protais. From this church I once more go to rue d'Asner and find the gate of Cité often still open. (It closes at ten). By this hour the homeless are already preparing their sleeping bags along the corridor of Cité. They do not bother anybody and seem to be content with their camp-out habitat. I assume they use the free toilets near the bridge and I do hope so.
By 11pm the tourist boats that ply the Seine are gone. The river is at peace and the night is quiet. Tonight rain falls and the wind picks up speed. A few people walk down the streets and buses fly swiftly by.
Paris has fallen asleep, with one eye open.
My route is simple with a few variations. Avoiding the busy rue de Rivoli - a stretch of busy road from the Bastille and ending at Concorde - I take the quieter street of rue Geoffrey d'Asner and go to rue de Pont Louis-Philippe through a small alley next to the Memorial de Shoah. This Memorial is a museum for Jewish art and culture and its Le Mur de Justes, bearing names, is said to be an echo of the wailing wall in Jerusalem. Rue de Pont Louis-Philippe has a few interesting galleries and couture shops, which are plentiful in other side streets in this area called Le Marais. I cross rue de Rivoli to access a parallel road rue de Verriere, which goes all the way to Forum Des Halles, the underground mall. I stay on this road because St. Merry has an access door along here, in the area of Beaubourg. I only have to make two crossings, a small road crossing that leads me to the rear of the big Bazar de Hotel de Ville or BHV, and another traversing rue de Renard where a Mc Donalds is a clear landmark on the other side. A Vietnamese restaurant HC3 is in the same row as McDonalds and I once ate Pho there, very good but also a bit pricey (I could get two orders of this beef flank soup in a mall back home).
Before I go into St. Merry I often buy some snacks at either MonoPrix or Franprix and on occasion, Carrefour City. I also take a look at the books at the Mona Lisait shop, where I have purchased five books to date. This shop carries cheaper (4€ for a monograph on Fra Angelico) books but the catch is they are all in French and there are only a few titles on English. But if one just buys for the illustrations, then by all means this is a nice resource for references. Some galleries are just nearby and one in particular JB Galerie has some works by Chinese contemporary painters (Min Yue Jin, Fang Li Jun)
The western portal of St. Merry has three doorways, the side doors leading to the offices and the residences and a large wooden door providing access to the church through a chapel that was built in the 18th century. I go down to the cellars to work via the office which has a very narrow stairwell that descends to the basement. The cellars are very well lit and are used by resident artists as studios and as a stockroom of sorts. The walls are of rough limestone and it can be cold in the area but not as chilly as the open air. The floor is made of patches of stone, cement and even dry soil. The walls of this cellar used to be lined with saltpeter and were at a time scraped off by Napoleon's troops for the production of gunpowder. As I have mentioned before, the church is currently undergoing restoration and cleaning and often not a pretty site compared to other churches of the same scale, like Eglise Saint Severin or Eglise St Julian de Paure. It does not also have a park in its periphery - quite uncommon in Paris - but its east side overlooks the fountain of Jean Tinguely and Nikki Saint-Phalle where skaters, teenagers mostly, and a bit of a number of tourists hang out. The eastern side is also the only area that is good to photograph as the facade is covered in protective netting and its rear is hidden by tall apartment buildings. This side also opens up to the Centre Georges Pompidou, museum of modern and contemporary art, and an architectural enigma by Renzo Piano. On weekends the sloped open space facing the museum is teeming with people, street performers and street artists.
But once in the cellar that busy world is shut out. The only noises I hear is the gurgling of the waterpipes and the hissing of the heating system. My work area looks like the building's old boiler and kiln but its recesses and chutes are filled up with scrap wood and even sculptures. Insulated here I work for five hours straight, often three. I leave every 7pm, when the church above shuts its doors. I can work anytime and even stay the night in the cellar, although I might never need to do that. My progress is good, and in three days I have defined a torso our of a splendid block of wood with a set of marvelous carving tools.
When I exit the church, darkness has fallen and the restaurants are full of people having dinner or beer or coffee. I walk past these and walk to a road that leads to the rear of Elise St. Gervais-St. Protais. From this church I once more go to rue d'Asner and find the gate of Cité often still open. (It closes at ten). By this hour the homeless are already preparing their sleeping bags along the corridor of Cité. They do not bother anybody and seem to be content with their camp-out habitat. I assume they use the free toilets near the bridge and I do hope so.
By 11pm the tourist boats that ply the Seine are gone. The river is at peace and the night is quiet. Tonight rain falls and the wind picks up speed. A few people walk down the streets and buses fly swiftly by.
Paris has fallen asleep, with one eye open.
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