Crop The Block: How Parisians See Paris

Launched this autumn, Crop The Block is both a website and a collective of video artists. Their point in common? A love of Paris.

"At Crop the Block, we adore Paris" declares the team on the website. Not just any Paris though, and certainly not the caricatural 'ville musée' seen in thousands of You Tube clips. The Crop The Block ethos is the promotion of "a vibrant Paris, where each district has its own life, style and personality."

Three Imaginary Homes

Over the last few months social networks in Paris have been gently humming with tales of a fake building in the city. A strange situation, because not only is this story rather an old one, but it is also far from being unique. Here I look at the building in question as well as two others, each of which is unique in its own way.

The Tunnel de Napoléon

The last thing you expect to see when visiting a site during the annual Journées du Patrimoine is a dead rat, but then the Tunnel de Napoléon is not a typical heritage site. 

The tunnel is the second place linked to Napoléon III I visited during the weekend, but it has very few similarities with the Cité Napoléon. Whereas that site, an experiment in social housing, was concerned largely with the hygienist ideals of light and air, this storage tunnel near the Parc de Bercy is tenebrous and fetid. But it is also apparently worth preserving.

The Cité Napoléon

The recent Journées du Patrimoine (heritage days) event gave me the opportunity to explore two places usually closed to the public - both of which are linked to Napoléon III.

The first, the Cité Napoléon is the better-known of the two. Situated on the Rue Rochechouart in the 9th arrondissement, it was the first attempt to create decent housing for the working classes in Paris. 

Place Fréhel: the Missing Tooth on the Rue de Belleville

The Place Fréhel, I recently discovered, is an excellent example of a 'dent creuse.' The Place is a mysterious little parcel of land with some interesting stories to tell, but this additional piece of poetry is both pleasing and apt.