July 2013 ~ Invisible Paris

The Morrison Hotel Mystery

The death of Jim Morrison is not the only mystery in the Rue Beautreillis. On this street where the leader of The Doors spent the last few months of his life and where he (probably) died, another door stands curiously alone. But what is it?

The last bastion standing

Today only one significant element of the city’s 19th century fortifications remains standing. Where is the Bastion n°1 and what purpose does it serve today?

The World's Oldest Surviving Basketball Court

How did a game invented by the YMCA in America cross the Atlantic in the late 19th century, and why has this Paris court survived so long?

The Longest Street in Paris

An attempt to find the soul of the city's longest thoroughfare.

Belgium by the Seine

A trip to Elisabethville on the trace of old postcard locations leads me to abandoned beach resorts and experimental 1950s architecture.

Wednesday, 31 July 2013

Concrete Paris: A new Invisible Paris walking tour

Now available on Apple and Android smart devices, a 20th century architectural tour of the city’s 16th arrondissement.

This new walk, created in association with Pocket Guide, takes you across the the city's westernmost arrondissement, but is also partly a walk through two villages that stood just outside of Paris until the middle of the 19th century; Auteuil and Passy.

The Paris Archives: Died on the 4th of July

At around 10.45am on July 4th 1905, a young policeman succumbed to a gunshot wound he had received earlier that day. This was not the first such incident that year in Paris - or even in the previous 30 days - but several elements were reunited this time to make the case particularly memorable.

Reported in breathless detail by the press the next day, the incident itself was as banal as it was pointless.