What is it about this place?
The 15th arrondissement of Paris has no major monuments, there are no hills from which to view Paris while you kiss, the few museums it houses are known only to a few lost Parisians, it's not in the guidebooks. The 15th is not gritty like the 10th, or romantic like the 18th. It's not glamorous like the 8th or snobby like the 16th. Intellectuals live across the border in the 6th and the few aristocrats who have held on to their money share the neighboring 7th with rich Americans and blue-suited ministers. There is nothing emblematic about the 15th.
I was born in the 15th. My brother and sister were born in the 15th (Gabriel and I were born in in
Sainte Félicité, Inès in
Necker a few steps up the rue Lecourbe). My older siblings walk every school
day morning to the École Normale Catholique Blomet while papa gives them hand hugs and reassures Inès that everything she needs is in her heavy school bag. After school we play in Square Blomet where we chase the same friends we have just seen in the classroom. On weekends we play in the Square Saint Lambert and endlessly travel on its manège.
We know all the shop owners who have watched us grow, call us by name, and give us lollypops. We have our bakeries, our fishmonger, our butchers, our bookstore, our newsstand, our honey store, our
fruit and vegetable stand, our gift shops, our pharmacy, our favorite pizza place, and our supermarket where papa spends hours talking to the Cuban security guard.
Clara, lives up the rue Lecourbe. Alix, Marine, Jojo, Fanch. Cyriac, Constance, Hadrien are a few short paces away. Gongo's heartthrob Appoline, with those transparent blue eyes...
So is papa crazy? Why would we ever want to leave the 15th? I know what's going to happen. We're going to do what all kids do, adjust. But we'll never adjust to papa telling us how great the 15th was and how much he misses it, endlessly. He'll miss it all, the ladies next door who equipped us with birthday presents before the party, and the two pudgy sales ladies at the cheese shop across the street, the taramasalata from Lecourbe Marée, the Greek guy who always waves hello through the window and sells great olives, meeting our friends on the street, running down the parking ramp screaming, the pharmacy that took care of mama and walked her home when she fainted, the wooden oven in Pichard, walking thirty paces to Pietro for a Parma, Calabrese, and Margarita with basil, l'Attelier du Cartier, Dojo, Badia and his genius, the
homesick Spanish guy in Bio C' Bon, skating on up avenue de Breteuil, seeing everyone you know at the Square Blomet, the merry-go-round in Square Saint Lambert, Monsieur Crevelière the erudite kiné, Chawarmas at Noura after mass, the
passage secret, the occasional lunch with mama at the Roi du Café, the Cinema Chaplin on a rainy Sunday, huge entrecôtes
from the butcher up the street, Dr. Vacquier's lack of excitement, shoe guy, the Kermes at the ENC, the hardware store that has everything you need, the world under our balcony.
Suddenly, Switzerland seems so far away...
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| Bye bye rue Lecourbe. We love you. |
Want a few snaps of the 15th, the ones no tourist has? Check a few out here:
Leaving Lutetia is for losers.
