The Best Ghost Sign in Paris?

On the corner of the Rue de Belleville and the Avenue Simon Bolivar is perhaps the best example of a ghost sign in Paris today. Ghost signs are the traces of hand-painted wall adverts which are fairly common in rural France but comparatively rare in Paris, but this one for the St Raphael quinquina drink is an excellent model.

Saint Raphael was one of the most popular apéritif drinks in France a generation or so ago, but is very difficult to find today (although you can still buy it here). It is a kind bitter vermouths based on partially fermented grape juice (mistelles) and quinine, with orange, vanilla, cocoa and aromatic plants. It was invented in 1830 by a certain Docteur Juppet, with, as usual, proclaimed medicinal properties!

As this website shows, it was a brand that often used this kind of wall advertising. This site also explains why this sign in Paris must have dated from before 1940. By briefly reading up on the evolution of laws relating to alcoholic drinks, we can probably conclude that the sign here was added after the 1920s.

The sign here is also signed Affiches F.Hamet, not the artist, but surely the purchaser of the space - a kind of JC Decaux of the epoque!

In the UK, Sam Roberts is the co-ordinator of a huge project - http://www.ghostsigns.co.uk/ - seeking to document such adverts across the country. Nothing similar seems to exist in France, but the website does give a lot of details on the history of this style of advertising. What is perhaps missing though, and the question I ask myself when looking at this advert, is how long were such adverts supposed to last for? Were the owners of the building paid a certain amount of money for a certain period of time?

What is clear though is why there are so few examples in Paris. Hand painted adverts need brick to survive! Paris, with its the neat stone facades, limited blank wall space and the obligatory sandblasting of buildings could not expect to keep many traces. So this one is a true survivor, and an amusing anachronism today - adverts for alcohol are now forbidden on the standard advertising spaces of the city!

Something for the Weekend (30th July – 1st August)

What links an apéritif in a record shop and a midnight movie? As with my other recommendations this weekend, both activities are completely free!

Find the complete list on the Paris Weekends blog.

The Death of a Hospital

I was sad to read recently that Saint Vincent de Paul, one of the oldest and most famous children’s hospitals in Paris, will shortly close its doors for the last time. Last year I wandered around the already crumbling site and found it to be full of charm, but consolidation and rationalisation have proven to be more powerful words.

On a hot day almost exactly one year ago I walked past the entrance to the Hopital Saint Vincent de Paul, and felt compelled to stop and take a look around. Hospitals are always quiet places, but Saint Vincent de Paul was particularly calm that afternoon. I was attracted by the shady spaces and silent pathways, a respite from the noisy Avenue Denfert Rochereau I was walking along.

Entire buildings seemed to be empty, although doors remained wide open. I walked up steps and down staircases, along corridors and into deserted lecture theatres. I found a neat concrete war memorial, heroically symmetrical. On the main passageway, a spirited wall protest, messages scribbled from patients and families imploring authorities to keep the hospital open.

But nobody was around to hear those voices. Even the hospital chapel was closed. Alongside, a twisting staircase heading heavenwards. This was the hospice des Enfants-Assistés, a site dedicated to the safekeeping of children, but one that had confused its calling. In 2005, 351 foetuses were discovered here in a laboratory. No one knows who and no one knows why.

A place nevertheless where generations of children were born, their birth screams staining the floors and walls. Soon these will be torn down, leaving these children orphans of a birthplace. The services will move down the road to the Hopital Cochin and the Hopital Necker. Boxes will be filled with memories, but many others will be judged redundant and burned.

What happens to hospitals when they die? Saint Vincent de Paul is a 3.2 hectare zone of prime left-bank real estate. The site will be reborn but the name will be sent to the archives. The site will be bought, buildings raised to the ground and new developments forced upwards. Perhaps a new écoquartier in 2016, a ghetto for the rich, if the city of Paris has its way.

Invisible Paris Walks – download the iPhone App!

In collaboration with New Zealand based http://www.mytoursapp.com/, I have transformed my Invisible Paris walks into downloadable iPhone guides! The three tours currently available are the following:

• From Sainte Rita to Saint Lazare
• Contemporary architecture
• Street art in Belleville

All information has been updated and new photos have been included. Best of all though, with the integrated GPS and the built-in maps, you can now be sure never to get lost en-route!

Click here to download the walks.

This time the walks are not free downloads, but for just a couple of dollars or euros you get all three walks. And if you don’t have an iPhone, don’t forget that PDF versions of the walks are still available at http://www.freepariswalks.com

Something for the Weekend: 23 – 25 July

From now on, the Something for the Weekend posts will be published on a new dedicated blog - Paris Weekends - an official Invisible Paris spin-off!

See my suggestions for 23^rd to 25^th July.

I have been running this series for over a year now, and feel that it has outgrown its spot on Invisible Paris, and deserves a place of its own! What do I hope to achieve with it? Well, my objectives have always been to share my fascination with Paris, and to try and point out things that people may otherwise overlook. I will run the Something for the Weekend posts on the Paris Weekends blog, but I will also use the space to blog on anything else I come across that I think will help people to get the most from their time in Paris - even people who have lived in the city all their lives!

I have decided to seperate these subjects from my Invisible Paris themes because I have been getting large quantities of press releases that I simply could not use on this blog, as well as more and more offers for collaborations that I felt unable to honour. With Paris Weekends, I will be able to share more information with you, and hopefully pass on details of interesting offers and projects, whether you’re planning a trip to the city or just looking for something to do here.

Invisible Paris will therefore revert back to its obscure origins, and Paris Weekends will be its noisy younger brother! I will be relying on interaction from as many people as possible for this new project though, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch if any of the following apply to you:

• You want advice on getting the best out of your time in Paris.
• You have a service related to Paris that you would like me to promote.
• You have a Paris related blog or website and you’d like to exchange links.
• You have suggestions about how I could improve the blog!

Hope to hear from you soon!