100 years ago this week

A new year, a new resolution. Invisible Paris has certainly lived up to its name over the last couple of years, but it feels like a time when it would be good for all of us to be a little more visible. Exploring, wandering, researching - hell, even getting outside the house and inside other buildings – has been more complicated than we could have ever imagined in the past year, but can we still look at the unusual and uncelebrated sides of Paris in other ways?

I’ve decided to be more disciplined, and set myself a mission. In 2021, once a week I will publish a snippet from a newspaper from that same week 100 years ago. These newspaper cuttings will cover a wide variety of topics as I have no idea what I will find. It probably won't be the major topics of the day, but will instead – I hope – focus on the incidents, features, adverts, small ads and people that will give a flavour of life in Paris in 1921. The Invisible Paris of 100 years ago perhaps!

The structure will be simple; the newspaper cutting, the translation into English, a mini-analysis if necessary (why it caught my eye!) and any contemporary elements I think will enhance the story (photos, Google Street View…). Week one just below!

A very happy and healthy new year to everyone. May the year ahead be full of exploration!

Week One – an explosive start to the year

Gun fight, rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette

Monday evening, in a bar situated on the corner of the rue Saint-Georges and the rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, a man named Maisonneuve was standing at the counter drinking a coffee. Outside, some shady individuals were observing him. As soon as he left the establishment, they shot at him with revolvers, something he was no doubt expecting as he replied immediately.

Projectiles splattered haphazardly against the facades of neighbouring buildings, notably the Hôtel des Annales. The windows of the bar were smashed to smithereens.

At the sound of gunfire, the police ran to the scene and the attackers took off.

Maisonneuve, who had his left leg fractured by a bullet, was arrested and taken to the Lariboisière hospital.

There, the police inspector who had come to seek information on the identity of the attackers, received this reply:

"It's none of your business"

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Stepping 100 years back into the past takes us to the 1920s - les années folles! Immediately we think of art, music, dancing, art deco architecture... I'm not sure if this Paris will appear during this year of newspaper archives, but immediately I find a different Paris - one that seems more like Chicago! Described here n the pages of Le Petit Parisien, the incident - a gunfight in the centre of the city - appears banal, ending with a touch of absurd humour.

The scene of the crime

This neighbourhood in the 9th arrondissement of Paris is today chic and wealthy. It is though just a street or two from Pigalle, and we can quite easily imagine a different atmosphere 100 years ago when criminal gangs controlled much of the area. There is still a bar/restaurant at the location mentioned in the article, but the scene of the crime was certainly much more rudimentary. The only other location mentioned no longer exists in its current form. The Hôtel des Annales (on the right of the photo) – struck by bullets and shrapnel that evening – became the theatre Saint-Georges in 1929, and no bullet holes can be seen on the façade today!