Quote:
Originally Posted by mousquet
When you come back, you'll probably have a hard time recognizing the things you've known by that time. Even the eastern arrondissements are massively gentrifying these days, so grit has gradually disappeared. There's nothing affordable left either. Everywhere in the central city is pretty expensive, hence the need for subsidized housing to maintain a bit of social diversity.
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Paris, like every other desirable city, has become the playground for the super rich.
There were things I saw in '79 and '84 that were definitely gone even by 1989, when I spent a month there for the Bicentenaire.
In 1979 there were men with pushcarts on the streets who sold "limonade" in glasses...made from glass...that you had to give back to them when you finished drinking. Also, they still had the "Première Classe" Métro cars in the middle of the trains and the seats in all the cars were made from wooden slats.
In 1984, there was a dark, scary slum area just southwest of Tour Montparnasse that was filled with squatters and Nigerian drug dealers and no electricity so it was pitch black at night. I believe Place de Séoul and surroundings replaced that. La Villete was still a mercantile center. Bastille was pretty rough. Parc des Buttes-Chaumont was a beautiful park even then. Canal Saint-Martin was charming but not yet trendy. Les Entrepôts de Bercy was still active with giant barrels of wine.
Also, in 1984, the only place to find a public phone that hadn't been smashed for the coins inside was at the PTT offices.
There was no graffiti yet inside the Abbesses Métro stop spiral staircase.
Oh, yeah, the Boulogne-Billancourt area still produced films and Renaults!
I could go on and on. I haven't been in almost 20 years.