Paris - Boutiques - Champs Elysées - 8me

Plate LXXIV – Magazine Boutiques – Champs Elysees

Eager to soak up and appreciate the history of the city I was immediately taken by the well preserved state of the many cast iron magazine boutiques lining the paved boulevard sidewalks of the Champs Elysées. Surely of late nineteenth or early twentieth century design, each seemed to have been given a thorough sandblasting and fresh coat of paint. With many sections of its two kilometre stretch having become somewhat tawdry and run down over the nineteen-eighties, Paris had embarked on a massive refresh and renovation of its famous avenue. Vehicle parking had been banned, and pedestrian life was thriving, along with café society (Maison Alsace becoming a personal favourite stop). The project almost complete at the time of my visit, I was amazed to find out that these boutique shelters were a brand new addition to the city.

Having come to appreciate the offerings of Paris Match* during my student years, for the duration of my visit I would stop at the kiosk nearest the Arc de Triomphe to buy each week’s edition. Who would ever want to miss such salacious images and stories as Prince Charles Nu – ou Presque (which was the promise of one of the then current editions)?

(* a kind of French Hello or OK magazine - for the uninitiated)