East Side Story Part 1

Once upon a time, the east end of Paris was considered to be of a lower class than that of the west end. So while beautiful boulevards and parks were built around the Louvre and Trocadero, the east end got stuck with industrial factories and vast expanses of railroad tracks. One of the most prosperous industries was the wine industry, which had prospered in the Bercy Commune before it was an official part of Paris back in the 1800s. Because there was a heavy toll to pay for bringing goods, especially wine, into the city, many wine growers simply sold their wine outside the city walls. Parisians flocked to the bistros and floating barges called guingettes in Bercy to profit from the inexpensive tipple. Even after Bercy had to adhere to the Parisian laws, it still prospered as the top market for French wine. During the 1900s, this industrial center slowly died out, leaving wasteland and abandoned buildings full of squatters. The neighborhoods surrounding the industrial sites were filled mostly with blue-collar workers, immigrants, and artists. In the 1980s, the Paris government, along with a few other interested parties such as the RATP (those nice people who run the Metro when they feel like it), began working on redeveloping this area, with two separate but linked projects: Bercy on the right bank and Rive Gauche on the left bank. Hop on the new Meteor line 14 (sit in front, there's no driver) and spend a day exploring!

Bercy, Land of Wine and Grass

Get off at the Bercy stop on line14, and you'll be at the Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy, a strange looking molehill covered in grass, built in 1983. Really, it's a stadium used for everything from music concerts to sporting events. I'd like to see how they mow the grass on the almost vertical walls outside. From here you should also be able to see a monstrous, important looking building. This is the Ministre de Finances, which was formerly housed in one of the Louvre wings from the 1700s until the late 1980s when the museum was refurbished with the Pyramid and whatnot. Heading east, upriver, you'll find the Parc de Bercy. Sometimes it's referred to as Les Jardins de Bercy. I'm not sure why it's called a 'parc' at all, since that word in French typically means car park. I'm sure there's an expert out there who can clear this up for me.

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