Lunch Al Fresco

Richard Erickson's Paris Journal - Freelance Correspondent to the Paris Pages
All images copyright (c) 5 April 1995 Richard Erickson - used with permission

Paris:- Wednesday, 5 April 1995 - To the delight of property developers, most of the world's cities permit the demolition and periodic rebuilding of their downtown cores. At one time, in the early '70's, Paris was inflicting itself with this too. An expressway was slashed into the right bank of the Seine; with one planned for the left. Practically the entire western part of the 14th arrondissement, Montparnasse, was torn down in order to put up some really ugly, really high, buildings; for reasons that nobody can remember. The western edge of the 15th got the same treatment. But, odd as it may seem to residents with short memories, Presidents do come and Presidents do go; and every President's departure is followed by the arrival of a new policy. Except for the President, the whole rest of the old gang is still in place; but boss is boss and the boss in France is really The Boss. The demolition of downtown Paris stopped.

There is a sort of barbell 'bar' line running more or less east and west through Paris on the right bank. On it can be found Bercy, Tolbiac, the Bastille, the City Hall, the Louvre, the Place de Concorde, the Champs-Elysees, and the Etoile - now named after a former President. Beyond Etoile, the former last heavyweight on the 'line', there is the rich suburb of Neuilly, administered by the 'department' of Hauts-de-Seine; not Paris.

Neuilly has too many political campaign supporters to risk disturbing. Beyond the Pont de Neuilly, there are a trio of presumeably defenseless, out-of-favour, communities and New, Big, High, Paris, was carved out of them. Right. A bit was ripped off Puteaux and a bit from Courbevoie, and a bit from 'red' Nanterre.

And it is called La Defense.

It is all, every last bit of it, all reinforced concrete and granite and zillions of square metres of every kind and colour of glass that you can think of. It is under construction; sorry for the inconvenience forever. It has its own ring road. Train station. Now it has Metro too, added to the RER that is even further underground; that is a direct line to, where else? to Disneyland, way, way, out east.

So, there is La Defense, on a line with everything else heavyweight, and at the end of La Defense, sits, La Grande Arche. Truly heavyweight; yet, yet airy at the same time. But really colossal.

Taking in the sun on the steps of the pedestal of the Grand Arche

Its 54-step pedestal, faces east to La Esplanade, an ultra-large concrete desert, that runs back towards Paris, almost down to the Seine at the Pont de Neuilly. Thousands upon thousands of people work in the shops and high, very high and ultra very high office buildings of La Defense. Other thousands work not so far, far, and further underground.

Escalators lead from the Esplanade level down to the Métro/RER station and underground shopping area.

There are hundreds of restaurants, snack bars, fast food frozen-burger places, bars, wine-bars, cafes, pizzarias, sandwich bars, and company cantines.

On the vast Esplanade there is nothing. Except wind, and in winter, rain. Oh there is a little carousel, and there is a little airstrip for skateboarders, but there is nothing like a Paris cafe even though the postal address is 'Paris-La Defense.' So, for the French, it is a little bit like downtown Albania. In other words: not in France.

View from the base of the Grand Arch - looking East toward the center of Paris

Today, on the 5th of April, it was not windy; it was not raining. The sun was not shining very hard, but shining it was. And those steps are there, all 54 of them. The view is elbows-out wide. On a clear day you can see....well, Etoile on its slight rise, at least. Bring sunglasses, bring a sandwich, bring a friend. Today was lunch al fresco at La Defense.