Paris- Where all the interesting people live

The last time Paris hosted the summer Olympics was way back in 1924. It was only five years after WWI had finished and Paris was, to use modern parlance, a hip city. In the course of the 1920s, it was frequented by a 'lost generation' of hipsters such as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein James Joyce, Ezra Pound, F Scott Fitgerald, George Orwell and others, too numerous to mention. What brought them here in the first place? Perhaps more than anything, they wanted a cheap place to live, eat and drink, (the latter especially applied to Hemingway), where they could move on from the horrors of WW1. Given that the north of France, not too far from Paris, was devastated by World War One, it was a kind of odd place to come in order to move on from the war! It was the Olympic Games in 1924 that helped make Paris hip amongst the general population rather than just a few creative types. To be honest the city wasn't an especially desirable place to live at that point of time. This documentary by Dan Snow might give you some insights into how ingrained the sanitary problems were in Paris. In places like the Latin Quarter, things hadn't improved much since the middle ages.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xiu79c
Paris has been on a program of constant self improvement since the 1920s and nothing better illustrates this process than La Defense, the modern high rise area on the outskirts of the city. It's so unParisian, sometimes it's hard to believe you're in Paris. The area is named after the statue La Défense de Paris which was erected in 1883 to commemorate the defence of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. The modernists moved in during the 1950s and started constructing high rise in an area that had previously been dominated by factories, shanties and a few small farms. I'm not in love with all of the construction in La Defense, but there is pretty much something for everyone here if you give yourself at least half a day to wander. It's been an ongoing stop start project since the 1950s and look above and you'll recognise the era of each building even if you're not an architect. There's some good brutalism and reasonable modernism, but the overall feel is post modernist, which might just be where it misses the mark in my humble opinion. Probably the most striking piece is the grand arch which stares down the Arc de Triomphe. It was commissioned by Mitterand and inaugurated in 1989. It's certainly not modest, but then neither was Mitterand. Anyway, it's an interesting idea and definitely worth a look. There's also an attempt to incorporate some public sculptures into the area. Again, it's a bit hit and miss. but one thing is certain, the civic fathers and mothers need to give some of the sculptures a good coat of paint. This especially applies to the Alexander Calder work which looks sadly unloved.

After a brief encounter with a transport police inspector, which also came with a hefty fine, we retreated back to our hotel. We then headed out this evening to check some of the houses inhabited by the lost generation of hipsters in the 1920s. Here's a few pics of those dwellings which sit modestly in the Latin Quarter, just behind where we are staying. It's a lovely neighbourhood full of bars and students from the Sorbonne. If you do a Google search, you'll find enough houses with a literary connection to keep you busy for day. There's also plenty of info on their interconnected lives and the places they frequented. Here's a little slice of the lives of Hemingway, Joyce and Orwell. I might add that when these guys lived here it wasn't exactly pretty, unlike today.

The Latin Quarter has a vital place in modern Parisian history. It's where some of the most serious students riots took place in the 1968 uprising. The area was all cobblestones up until the time of the riots, but given the students used cobblestones as weapons, along with the odd molotov cocktail, the authorities thought it best to pave the area which bitumen in case a future generation of students tried to bring down a president. At one point, President de Gaulle fled the country fearing for his safety. Not the bravest action from a WWII hero, but he was getting long in the tooth by this stage. One of the most interesting facts about the 1968 riots is that they didn't start at the Sorbonne, although they most certainly finished there! The riots had their genesis at the University of Paris where students protested against restrictions on dormitory visits that prevented male and female students from sleeping with each other. Check out some of the pics of the protesters with a Google search. There's also some good videos on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjyKJQ-oD5I
They don't look like your standard 1968 revolutionary. The boys wore collars and ties and had short back and sides haircuts. Most of them were good Catholic kids from the suburbs of Paris. It's hard to believe where this ended up. One expectation to this was Daniel Cohn-Bendit, 'red Danny' to his friends and enemies. Google his name, he's a fascinating dude who ended up as a Green in the European parliament.