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| The Halte de Courbevoie-Sport has not been used since 1951, but the platforms still exist behind this walled up access point. |
The golden age lasted for barely 15 years, either side of the Second World War. The cynodrome opened in 1936, branding itself as the 'most modern and most beautiful track in the world', with races organised on up to five evenings a week. Although the racing attracted members of the high-society, it was actually probably more popular with those struggling in the difficult years of the pre-war period, for whom it offered cheap entertainment and the chance for uncontrolled gambling.
As is the case with dog tracks the world over, it also attracted some interesting characters. Andre Obrecht, the last executioner in France, worked as a bookmaker at this track during a wartime pause in his activities, before then going on to launch an ice-cream company. As war ended, he quickly returned to his previous job, becoming the country's chief executioner!
The cynodrome closed in 1951 after accumulating large debts, but it continued as a venue for other sporting events. The interiors were used as meeting rooms for local associations, but they never again attracted the fashionable to Courbevoie. More modern sporting facilities have now been built on the opposite side, and the venue continues as a home to rugby and athletics.
Note: although the Olympic rings are visible on the facade and can also be seen on gates to the rear of the facility, the stadium never hosted any Olympic events. The choice of this element in the design seems to come from the fact that the town of Courbevoie hosted the rowing event at the 1900 Olympics on a stretch of the Seine a few hundred metres from this venue.
Note 2: the local authorities originally planned to keep the art deco inspired facade, partly because they believed it was a listed building. However, after finding out that this wasn't the case, and after estimating the costs this preservation would entail, they eventually decided on complete demolition. In an interview with the Le Parisien newspaper though, the builder, GTM (Vinci group) promised to "récupérer des éléments du fronton, notamment les anneaux olympiques" (keep some of the elements of the facade, notably the Olympic rings). Where these will actually end up though is anyone's guess.
 I'm a firm believer in supporting local businesses, so I was delighted to see the renovations that had taken place in a neighbourhood café bar. 'Le Rubis' on the Rue Saint Maur looks like the kind of establishment that has been run by the same family for generations, but this atmosphere is actually the result of the hard work of the new owners. In Paris it is fashionable to be retro, but most bars or restaurants buy their nostalgia from flea markets. At Le Rubis, the retro decor is completely original, but had to be dug out from behind more contemporary trimmings. It is the rebirth of a 1930s relic, and is now a wonderful art deco environment. 
Finding a name for the bar was a simple job. 'Le Rubis' was the name of the original establishment and is still clearly visible, most notably on the door handles and on the magnificent lettering above the bar. It also gave the owners a theme to work on for the decoration, with the walls taking on the raspberry-red tones of the gemstone. I'm delighted that the structure has at last found a resident who respects its history and design. The bar is the street-level entrance to a wonderfully atypical building which looks a little like a vintage cruise liner. Signed on the outside by its architect, the seemingly little-known J.A. Fouchet, it dates from 1936.
 The inside is dominated by an island bar which echos the curve of the building and the road outside. The owners, three associates called Valérie, Marie-Caroline and Stéphane took the decision to cut off one end of the bar so that people could circulate around it. To one side, red bench seats add a slight American-diner feel to the place, a sentiment that is enhanced by rock-inspired decoration and music.
This love of music provides the only frustration for the new owners. The room is not soundproofed, meaning that live concerts would be impossible, 'except perhaps for some acoustic concerts from time to time' Marie-Caroline tells me.  I will come back regularly purely to drink in the atmosphere of the bar, but how do the owners hope to attract other regulars in difficult times and in a district where competition is legion? The choice has been to create a multi-functional space, with breakfasts in the morning, a limited but 100% homecooked lunch menu, goûters and tea in the afternoons, and a more traditional pub ambience in the evening.
  
"We really want to organise some regular activities" Valérie tells me, "perhaps some quizzes or even bingo!". The idea sounds like a good one to me, and somehow entirely appropriate. There is something a little out-of-sync about the bar, a slightly provincial feel that sets it apart from its noisier and more trendy neighbours on the Rue Oberkampf. This difference can also be summed up in one other word; it is authentic.
Le Rubis
140 Rue Saint Maur, M° Goncourt
 The evolution of a city is a gently flowing stream, turning over old stones and rolling them down to new positions. As fashions change and tastes diversify, buildings are transformed or pulled down and newer models spring up in their place. The city always wants to display its most modern face, but often clues are left behind which betray the past. Such is the case with the Theatre de Belleville.Little pictorial evidence exists of the original theatre built in 1826 on the Cour Lesage off the Rue de Belleville, but by all accounts it was a magnificent building both inside and out. This was a time when Belleville was one of the suburbs of Paris, a place of leisure where Parisians went to enjoy cheaper entertainment and more relaxed licensing laws, and the theatre became one of the most important in the region.It was particularly popular amongst the working classes, and the theatre repertoire reflected their tastes. Vaudeville, historical plays and melodramas were the most successful, keeping audience numbers high for many years. So popular was the theatre in fact that when it was badly damaged by fire in 1867, the necessary money for repairs was very quickly found.
 The theatre continued to thrive into the twentieth century until a new competitor came along that would prove more dangerous than fire - the cinema. The theatre stuggled to adapt and keep up with fashions, until in 1932, Paul Caillet, the owner at the time, decided to demolish the old theatre and put up a new building in its place. Using the most modern art-deco styles of contemporary architects, no longer could it be said that the Theatre de Belleville was behind the times. The new building incorporated not only a theatre, but also apartments, a dance hall and a garage. However, the new venture wasn't the success that Caillet had hoped for. The theatre was certainly one of the most modern around, but it lacked the charm that its regulars had always appreciated. Soon it found itself sharing the auditorium with film screenings, and by the end of the 1940s, cinema pushed drama out of the building forever.  However, even as a cinema it was not a great success. There was too much competition in the neighbourhood (there were upwards of 30 cinemas in Belleville and Menilmontant in the 1950s), and the theatre de Belleville was too large. The end came in 1962 when it was sold off and transformed into a supermarket. It hadn't finsihed its evolution yet though, and today the supermarket itself has become a chinese restaurant.
 So what is left today of the theatre? The attractive art-deco building still stands with its impressive central column. The two lowest levels still show the form of a cinema frontage, even if they have been decorated in a more chinese style today. What is left is one final clue. Although the theatre became a cinema, a supermarket and a restaurant, the pharmacie at the beginning of the street saw no reason to change. And that meant that there was no reason to change its name either.
 In the Flunch restaurant at the Place de Clichy there is a photographic shrine to a structure that is no longer standing. The building was the Gaumont Palace and it was situated where the Flunch itself stands today. The site overlooks the Montmartre cemetery, and if buildings can be ghosts and leave their spectral forms behind, this edifice will qualify as an eternal spirit.
I have already written of cinemas that have fallen into ruin, but one story deserves a topic to itself. On the eastern side of the Place de Clichy stood a truly stupendous structure, at one time the biggest cinema in the world. Named the Gaumont Palace in its later form, it really was a building fit for royalty. Although this castle has been now raised to the ground, like a modern day Temple of Artemis it has become an almost mythological structure.
Taking over the footprint today is a micro-shopping centre and a mega-hotel. A branch of the low-cost Flunch restaurant chain forms the heart of this 1970s structure, but do the coachloads of Slovakian tourists, groups of exchange students, busy office workers and penniless pensioners know what previously stood where they are sitting today? A wall is given over to archive photos of the building, old film posters and a memorial plaque, but does anybody stop to look or read?
  If they did, the plaque would inform them that they are sitting where a building called the Hippodrome was inaugurated in 1900. A glance at the photographs would show them that the structure was somewhat reminiscent of the Petit-Palais, opened in the same year. The Hippodrome was designed, rather logically, for equestrian spectacles, but it did not last long in this form. Leon Gaumont took over the establishment in 1911, and following public demand for the new moving picture artform, he rapidly transformed it into a cinema and renamed it the Palace. Its immense size though still made it suitable for other performances, most famously the first cubist inspired ballet, Parade by Erik Satie, which featured text by Jean Cocteau and costumes and sets by Pablo Picasso.
  Its true golden era began though in 1930 when the architect Henri Belloc transformed the building into a fantastic art-deco structure. It became a true cinematic giant, the largest such structure in the world, with over 6000 people regularly attending film screenings. The Gaumont Palace, survived in this form for over 40 years, with the major attraction being not only the elegant curved balconies and the tremendous screen (over 1000²ft!) but also live organ playing as the curtains opened. Only this organ survived when the Palace finally expired in 1972. Like the mammoth in prehistoric times, the building became a victim of its own size and inability to adapt to changing times.
  As people today take advantage of the ‘eat as much as you like’ vegetable bar at the Flunch, or purchase DIY goods at the Castorama store, they may conclude that you can have too much of a good thing or that construction projects are simpler if kept small-scale. The Gaumont Palace was a folie de grandeur, an empire to itself that had became a monolith in the modern era of television. Could it have been saved and restored, and could we have been spared from the horror film that has replaced it today? In truth, palaces are always the first to tumble when revolution comes, and us paupers have decided that what we prefer is to eat, drink and be busy.
There are many people who believe that beauty is simply the result of perfect symmetry. Psychological and sociological studies seem to suggest that we are predisposed to be more sympathetic to people with a mathematically pure facial structure, whilst physicists and chemists speak of natural symmetry dominating in other spheres. It is a sign of healthiness perhaps, or maybe just a symbol of comforting conformity.
 Personally, I find uniformity of form to be oppressive and tedious. I am no fan of French manicured gardens for example, and I prefer to see organic contrasts and juxtapositions working together to enhance the beauty of each other. I stopped to admire the handsome art nouveau building in the picture above, but I was only impelled to take a photo after noticing the hairdressing salon at ground floor level. The decay of the shop-sign against the pristine building is almost a definition of charm, with the reds smeared like cheap lipstick on the pale face of duchess.
 A little further along, another clash of two distinct styles; imposing masculine neo-classical solidity and feminine art-deco curves and decorative tiling. Both would be ordinary and non-descript taken in isolation, but dancing together they are Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. And in the middle, where the flesh joins, a final poignant and touching sight – a shared drainpipe!
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