UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Sharing Paris: The Use and Ownership of a Neighborhood, Its Streets and Public Spaces, 1950-2012 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3v24h0q0 Author Toledano, Alexander Michael Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Sharing Paris: The Use and Ownership of a Neighborhood, Its Streets and Public Spaces, 1950-2012 By Alexander Michael Toledano A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Tyler Stovall, Chair Professor David Henkin Professor Stanley Brandes Fall 2012 Abstract Sharing Paris: The Use and Ownership of a Neighborhood, Its Streets and Public Spaces, 1950-2012 by Alexander Michael Toledano Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Tyler Stovall, Chair This dissertation examines a lively lower-middle-class, immigrant neighborhood in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, the Faubourg Saint-Denis, from 1950 into the twenty-first century, and explores the history of everyday life in its streets and public spaces. It connects the neighborhood’s evolution to larger changes in urban redevelopment policies and municipal politics in Paris. This study challenges a core assumption held by scholars about urban neighborhoods: that everyday life and communities are shaped primarily by residents. Residents have historically been the focus of neighborhood scholarship because they are easily accessible to scholars in most archival sources and because they have been viewed as the stabilizing force that keeps chaotic cities civilized. Since the 1950s and even during the nineteenth-century, however, non-residents have been found at the core of local communities in Paris, especially in its busiest neighborhoods. These parts of the city, often centered around marketplaces and market streets, such as Les Halles, have remained vibrant due to the important role played by non-residents, many of whom have commuted long distances to them every day not only to work, but also to shop, and to socialize. Scholars, however, have neglected their important role in shaping community life in cities. This dissertation is about these everyday users of Paris’s city center and its vibrant neighborhoods, many of whom have contributed to the life of a neighborhood far from where they sleep. These users do not leave many traces of their impact, though through the examination of a wide variety of sources, including tax records, television news reports, police records, classified ads, transportation statistics, and oral interviews, it is possible to find hints of their significant presence. Daily mobility in Paris has been crucial to the creation of community life. With the rise of municipal democracy in Paris since 1977 and increasing political decentralization across France since the mid-1980s, residents in Paris have gained significant new power in shaping the outcome of their neighborhood’s public space by working with their 1 local government. As these residents have increasingly become homeowners, often taking out expensive mortgages for their apartments, they have sought to use their lobbying and voting power to shape public space to cater more to their desires. Although many of these residents who moved to the Faubourg Saint-Denis between 1998 and 2012—a period of gentrification and a substantial rise in real estate prices in Paris—chose it because they liked its diversity and energy, their actions to make their neighborhood more green, livable, and pedestrian-friendly have often unwittingly worked against their desire to live in a vibrant area of the city. Despite this pressure to quiet the neighborhood’s public spaces, the Faubourg Saint-Denis has remained the daytime or nighttime home of its non-resident users who generally live in suburbs of Paris, where housing is more affordable and life is calmer. The city center of Paris continues to function as it has since the nineteenth century, animated and invigorated every day by people who live far from it. 2 To Susanna and to the entire community at La Ferme, without whom this project could not have happened and would surely not have been as much fun i Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii Introduction 1 Preamble 17 Chapter 1: Rhythms, pt. 1: Residents and the Private Spaces of the Faubourg Saint- 34 Denis, 1960 Chapter 2: Rhythms, pt. 2: Non-Residents and the Public Spaces of the Faubourg 63 Saint-Denis, 1960 Chapter 3: Collapse: How Paris Lost Its Faith in Urban Redevelopment, 1969-1971 103 Chapter 4: Passages: The Rise of Preservationism and the Remaking of the 133 Faubourg Saint-Denis, 1974-1998 Chapter 5: Cadences: The Separating Visions of Public Space in the Faubourg 173 Saint-Denis, 1998-2012 Epilogue 213 Bibliography 220 ii Acknowledgments This foolish project began under the guidance of Susanna Barrows, who suggested during the summer after my first year at Berkeley that I try to write the history of a small street in Paris. Little did I realize how complicated it would be. Susanna taught me and her other students that we should write about subjects that captivated us, not what she or others thought we should study. Were it not for her support, I would never have had the confidence to choose a period that historians have barely begun to study nor a neighborhood never considered important enough to merit scholarly interest. This dissertation is a token to her inspiration and the memory our friendship. I am very lucky that even after four years away from Berkeley I have been able to see my professors frequently and to continue to engage with them during their frequent trips to Paris. I am grateful to Tyler Stovall for everything that he has done for me since the beginning of my time at Berkeley and for all his indispensable support in directing this project. David Henkin has not only provided the best advice on writing a student could ask for, but he has also experienced the Faubourg Saint-Denis neighborhood with me over the last few years and has helped me flesh out my ideas over many a drink and soccer match. I am also indebted to the help of Stanley Brandes, who, on a handful of wonderful walks in Paris and its pet cemeteries, helped me conceive the ethnographic component of my project and think about space in the city. Anthony Grafton listened to various renditions of my ideas during his visits to Paris and continues to inspire me to think creatively. And, although we have not spoken much recently and I have moved far away from my previous work in art history, I must thank Al Acres, my undergraduate advisor, who has taught me more than anyone how to be a writer and scholar. The good graces of many people and institutions made the research for this dissertation possible. Mabel Lee and Hilja New in the History Department at UC Berkeley held my hand and made sure that I was not forgotten during my stay in Paris. I am grateful to Jocelyne Giordan, Christiane Grin, and Pierre Rouillard and all the other staff of the Maison René-Ginouvès and Laboratoire d’ethnologie et de sociologie comparative (UMR 7186 – CNRS, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) for welcoming me as part of their laboratory during my stay in France. Françoise Gicquel, Olivier Accarie-Pierson, and countless others at the Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris have gone beyond the call of duty in helping me access documents that were either protected or unknown to me. Agnès Chauvin and Catherine Herry at the Conservation régionale des monuments historiques of the DRAC Ile-de-France have been generous time and time again in allowing me to browse their archives in Paris. I gained access to the archives of the 10th arrondissement thanks to the kindness of Yves Robert, the Directeur Général des Services de la Mairie du 10e arrondissement. Gwenaëlle Belligon, the Secrétaire du bureau des Conseils de quartier at the Mairie du 10e arrondissement, generously made available to me all the records of the conseils de quartier in the 10th arrondissement. The staffs at the Archives de Paris, the Bibliothèque nationale française, the Institut national de l’audiovisuel, and iii the Médiatheque de la Maison de la RATP have also been welcoming during the months I have spent working under their roofs. I have been fortunate to have learned how to navigate these archives and libraries from a true expert researcher, Daniel Catan, who has gone out of his way to help me time and time again. Don Wolf, Guillaume Kling, and Darrell Halverson kindly shared their wisdom about the Paris real estate market. Claire Zalc and Cynthia Ghorra-Gobin brought me think more sharply about neighborhoods in Paris. Alain Lhostis, a municipal representative from the 10th arrondissement, kindly took time out of his busy schedule to speak with me about the Faubourg Saint-Denis. Georges “Jojo” Azenstarck not only shared his photographs of Paris with me but also spent many delightful days and nights recounting his long life in the neighborhood. Thanks to many others, including Jean Abou, Cara Black, Nancy Green, Christina von Koehler, Randianina Peccoud, Leonard Pitt, and Vanessa Schwartz, I not only learned much about Paris but was also introduced to many contacts crucial to the project. In the Faubourg Saint-Denis, Saïd, Nono, Redouane, Nadir, Djamel, and Marco and the rest of the family of what became my regular café, La Ferme (and its previous incarnation before 2010 at Le Château d’Eau), have welcomed me with open arms from the beginning and helped me meet so many people in the neighborhood.