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This is one of the more pleasant little squares in the Latin Quarter, 5th arrondissement.
The American author Ernest Hemingway used to live nearby, and he described the square in his short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, first published in 1936:
[...] Place Contrescarpe where the flower sellers dyed their flowers in the street and the dye ran over the paving where the autobus started and the old men and the women, always drunk on wine and bad mare; and the children with their noses running in the cold; the smell of dirty sweat and poverty and drunkenness at the Cafe' des Amateurs and the whores at the Bal Musette they lived above. The concierge who entertained the trooper of the Garde Republicaine in her loge, his horse-hair-plumed helmet on a chair. The locataire across the hall whose husband was a bicycle racer and her joy that morning at the cremerie when she had opened L'Auto and seen where he placed third in Paris-Tours, his first big race. She had blushed and laughed and then gone upstairs crying with the yellow sporting paper in her hand. The husband of the woman who ran the Bal Musette drove a taxi and when he, Harry, had to take an early plane the husband knocked upon the door to wake him and they each drank a glass of white wine at the zinc of the bar before they started. He knew his neighbors in that quarter then because they all were poor.
Around that Place there were two kinds; the drunkards and the sportifs. The drunkards killed their poverty that way; the sportifs took it out in exercise. They were the descendants of the Communards and it was no struggle for them to know their politics. They knew who had shot their fathers, their relatives, their brothers, and their friends when the Versailles troops came in and took the town after the Commune and executed any one they could catch with calloused hands, or who wore a cap, or carried any other sign he was a working man. And in that poverty, and in that quarter across the street from a Boucherie Chevaline and a wine cooperative he had written the start of all he was to do. There never was another part of Paris that he loved like that, the sprawling trees, the old white plastered houses painted brown below, the long green of the autobus in that round square, the purple flower dye upon the paving, the sudden drop down the hill of the rue Cardinal Lemoine to the River, and the other way the narrow crowded world of the rue Mouffetard. The street that ran up toward the Pantheon and the other that he always took with the bicycle, the only asphalted street in all that quarter, smooth under the tires, with the high narrow houses and the cheap tall hotel where Paul Verlaine had died. There were only two rooms in the apartments where they lived and he had a room on the top floor of that hotel that cost him sixty francs a month where he did his writing, and from it he could see the roofs and chimney pots and all the hills of Paris.
(From this text it appears that Hemingway had a bicycle when he lived in Paris in the 1920s.)
48°50'39.86" North; 2°20'58.32" East
Vélib' 5016, 1 rue Thouin
Updated Jul 1, 2011
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After being demobilized in 1919, American writer and artist John Dos Passos stayed in the apartment of a friend, and even started "Three Soldiers" here and sets part of the book on the "quai". Quai de la Tournelle serves also as part of "A pushcart at the curb" from 1922.
The building now houses the offices of the Public Assistance museum next door.
Nearest metro is Maubert-Mutualité.
Written Nov 7, 2009
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Last Xmas I was at a bookstore with a friend & she came across a great little book: "The Beat Hotel" by Barry Miles. Tells the story of the Beat writers/poets & when/how/where they lived in Paris. I later gave the book to her as a gift & I've since ordered it for myself - just have to pick it up at my favorite bookstore... no, wait, I have to REMEMBER to pick it up at my favr bookstore!
The address of the Beat Hotel is 9, rue Git-le-Coeur in the Quartier Latin. It's a short & narrow street not far from the Place St. Michel. All you gotta do is start at St Michel, facing the river. Turn left, walk along the Seine on the Quai des Grands Augustins for one block & you'll hit rue Git-le-Coeur. Turn left, & look for #9 on your left.
I'd like to believe that it was a seedy fleabag of a place when the Beats lived there, merely a place to flop or write in btwn excursions to underground jazz bars, sex clubs, restaurants, bars & bohemian events they may have attended.
Then again, I should probably read the book, I'm picking it up tonight, fortunately the bookstore is right near my laundromat...
Updated May 20, 2008
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Beat Hotel
9 rue Git-le-Cœur, Paris 75006
Métro: St-Michel
Formerly known as the Hôtel Rachou, now known as the Hôtel de Vieux Paris, Beat writers/poets Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs & Gregory Corso stayed here during the 1950s when it was a mere flophouse above a bar. Jack Kerouac, father of the Beats, never stayed here but he did visit; he stayed around the corner at 28, rue St-Andre-des-Arts.
How ironic that the hotel is now, at the very least, a 207€/night room (for a mere deluxe, mind you) with a 13€ breakfast. Oh my!
Here I took photos of the various Beats' pictures hanging on the wall and also of the drawings & photos inside the hotel register; but, alas, there were none of Kerouac. The last known Beat entry was of Corso's in the early '90s shortly before he died. Note the poem in the photo he wrote for the hotel:
Alchemy
a blue bird
alights upon
a yellow chair
-Spring is here!
Madame will be most happy to show you various Beat items.
Photos: April 2003
Updated May 2, 2008
Phone: 33 (0)1 44 32 15 90
Website: http://www.vieuxparis.com/
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Well, Shakespeare and Co. in the heart of Paris was a must see for me. It was at the top of my list ever since I found that Hemingway had spent a lot of time there and it was one of the only bookstores in Paris where you could find English books at the time. It's crammed full of books and great for those of us who dwell in literary places. But, hands down, the best trip I made was the climb up the steep, rickety stairs to the upstairs where there was a ton more books, little nooks to sit and read and a couple of offices where people would sit and talk about literary matters. Study its history before you go and then sit and read and partake in one of the richest holes in Paris
Written Apr 6, 2007
Website: http://www.shakespeareco.org/
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Ernest Hemingway is just one of the many famous writers to have lived in Paris. Hemingway came here in the 1920s, after serving in WW1, and his first house in Paris was in the Rue de Cardinal Lemoine. The house still stands today at No 73 and is a private residence. There is a plaque on the wall outside the house acknowledging that he lived here with a nice quote from "A Moveable Feast". This was one of his last books, and is a memoir of his early days as struggling writer in 1920s Paris.
Updated May 20, 2006
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2 rue Auguste Bartholdi - 15th arr
This was the home of Henry Miller, the American expatriate writer famous for his book Tropic of Cancer, when he lived with Richard Galen Osborn. Miller credited Osborn with saving him from starvation while he waited on money from his wife, June, as noted in the above-mentioned book.
If you've seen the movie, Henry & June, you'll recognize Osborn's character as played by Kevin Spacey.
You may read more about Henry Miller in the superb Parisian expatriate guide Expatriate Paris: A Cultural & Literary Guide to Paris of the 1920s.
Just a few blocks from Le Village Suisse.
Updated May 8, 2006
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A 200-year-old 'landmark' !
Once a publisher of the first English-language newspaper in Paris as well as a book publisher, and a reading room until the end of the 19th century, and still in the hands of the Galignani family.
This bookshop has been at the same address since 1845.
It is now specialized in—and celebrated for—international ART books; you can find all the best books about the arts and fashion, but you may also find artists and fashion designers browsing too.
224, rue de Rivoli, Paris 1st
Phone: 33(0)1 42 60 76 07
Metro: Tuileries
Open 10:00 to 19:00
Closed: Sundays
Updated Apr 23, 2006
Website: email: galignani@wanadoo.fr
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Patricia Wells' apartment
10 rue Jacob, Paris 75006
Patricia Wells is the author of the definitive foodie texts Food Lover's Guide to Paris and Food Lover's Guide to France as well as being an internationally-known American critic of French cuisine for the Herald-Tribune. Apparently, she is the only American food critic to whom the French will pay attention. I dub her the hallowed gastronomic grande dame.
For several weeks throughout the year she hosts weeklong cooking classes in this home. As they are every OTHER week somehow I manage to miss it each year. Classes are now being offered for 2006 which must mean that all 2005 classes are filled. :(
During my visit April 2003, Madame next door pushed the door code buttons for me and I was able to see, but not gain entry to, the courtyard but I took a picture of Patricia's mailbox. How creepy, you say!
I had the great pleasure of meeting Mrs. Wells last June when she was promoting her newest foodie tome The Provence Cookbook. I explained to her that I tracked down her Paris abode and took photos of her mailbox. She responded with a "how charming!"
She states that she still refuses to step foot in Bofinger due to their lacksadaisical service and opines that Starbucks burns their beans which produces that bitter taste in their espresso which is unknown in France.
And I'm sure she's changed the door code by now! ;) But you can e-mail me for that anyway!!
Just steps from the site of Natalie Barney's apartment and not too far from the historic H?tel d'Angleterre.
Photos: April 2003
Updated Mar 21, 2006
Website: http://www.patriciawells.com/
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Natalie Barney's literary salons (20, rue Jacob ~ 6th arrondissement) rivaled Gertrude Stein's. Due to the long-lived enmity between James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, Joyce opted to hang out here instead. This was also the preferred salon for poet, Ezra Pound.
In the garden there is reputed to be a well leading to a tunnel under the Seine to the Louvre but the garden was locked & overgrown; I could see nothing, not even the famed Greek Temple.
Just a few doors down at 10 rue Jacob is American food critic Patricia Wells' apartment in Paris; this is where she holds her cooking classes (reserve WELL in advance). Around the corner on rue Bonaparte is the divine salon de thé, Ladurée, which serves the most wondrous macarons (not those hard coconut-infused macaroons one finds in the US) in a plethora of flavours.
You can read more about Natalie Barney, this story and expatriates in Arlen J. Hansen's inimitable Expatriate Paris: A Cultural & Literary Guide to Paris of the 1920s.
Photo: April 2003 & Feb 2006
Updated Mar 16, 2006
Website: http://www.natalie-barney.com/
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Write a ReviewNatalie Barney's literary salons (20, rue Jacob ~ 6th arrondissement) rivaled Gertrude Stein's. Due to the long-lived enmity between James Joyce and Gertrude...
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