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For those of you too young to mourn or celebrate the disappearance of the famous Les Halles market, immortalised by Emile Zola in 'Le Ventre de Paris' (the gut/belly/stomach of Paris), you've got another chance to be part of destructive 1st arrondissement histoire.
I went looking for a strange and rather secret little park area to other day to see if I could finally get a good shot of some arboreal elephants (I'll tell you about them one day) and this is what I found.
A building site, a disaster area, a scene of utter carnage and deconstruction: it's time to mess around with Les Halles again folks.
Many years in the contemplation, the plans were finally agreed a couple of years ago, with completion pencilled in for 2012 I believe.
It's true that over the years certain parts of the complex became less than salubrious, but I thought it was ok. The powers that were didn't though and we're now watching the emergence of a new, hopefully improved Les Halles, with the aim being to regenerate the area which had become a bit run down, it's true.
The first sign of progress is a fancy new children's playground which has already sprouted up, and I'll have to have a scout round the back to see what's going on; the last time I passed by there I discovered a sort of old benches and uprooted lampposts graveyard, which was rather bitter-sweet, as I'm very fond of Parisian street furniture, and for all I know my leafy proboscidean pals have joined them.
Out with the once-new and in with the future-old... you can always be part of something, I guess, if you just look around a bit.
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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.
1 comment:
Les Halles mall has become very dilapidated and it was high time that they renovated it. I know the mall well because I go to the cinema there to watch films in v.o.
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