The Coulée Verte: A Green and Gentle Promenade in Eastern Paris
Sixteen years before New York's instantly celebrated High Line opened, Paris inaugurated its own planted promenade, a strip of green cutting east-west through the 12th arrondissement along the path of old train tracks. The 3-mile long path of greenery called the Coulée Vert René-Dumont flows from near the Bastille to the Paris beltway, offering views of urban architecture along the way.
What’s THAT at Versailles? Anish Kapoor and “The Queen’s Vagina”
Despite the fact that Louis XIV dragged every artist he could find to Versailles in the 17th century, bringing contemporary sculpture to the palace in the 21st century has been fraught with controversy ever since the domain instituted an annual summer exhibition. Case in point, the work of Anish Kapoor presented in the palace gardens June 9 to Nov. 1, 2015.
April in Paris
April in Paris. Sing along with it, get in the mood, take it smooth, croon with it, snap your fingers to it, take a long draw of it, stroll with it along the boulevard, cry yourself a River Seine of it. However you like it it's here.
Film Review: Suite Française
Suite Française by Irene Némirovsky took the literary world by storm when it was first published in France in 2004, followed up with an English translation in 2006. The sensation had to do with the quality of the work itself in conjunction with the backstory, the sidestory and the epilogue relative to the author herself and her daughter Denise Epstein. Now comes the movie.
Do the Rooftops of Paris Have “Outstanding Universal Value”?
Looking out over the rooftops of the city the view is romantic for some, lusty grey for others, a commercial dream for roofers—altogether Paris. In recent months the most attractive view over the capital has been from District Hall of the 9th arrondissement, where District Mayor Delphine Bürkli is spearheading the committee to present the rooftops of Paris as a candidate for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Paris Takes Center Stage on International Jazz Day
Paris has been selected to serve as the 2015 Global Host City for the fourth annual International Jazz Day organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and celebrated around the world on April 30, with Herbie Hancock serving as Goodwill Ambassador.
La Toilette: The Invention of Privacy
In a delightfully exhibitionistic exhibition running February 12-July 5, 2015, Paris's Marmottan-Monet Museum examines French personal hygiene (and lack of) through the ages. (Spoiler alert: Lots of dirty pictures!)
On the Rising Edge of Paris: The View from Batignolles
Journalist Corinne LaBalme, a resident of the Batignolles Quarter of Paris’s 17th arrondissement, puzzles over the construction of a 525-foot glass tower that will house the Tribunal de Grande Instance (TGI), the centerpiece of a 123-acre development on the northeastern edge of the city.
Editor of France Revisited on Lecture Tour in NJ, PA, DC
While the recent terrorist attacks in Paris caused some travelers to push the pause button on their immediate European travel plans, we can all be armchair travelers this month when New Jersey native and award-winning Paris-based travel writer Gary Lee Kraut explores France during a tour in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. from Feb. 16 to March 2, 2015.