A Geezer's Lament

Here is an example of how French politicians—and architects, who are their regular handmaidens—ruined a wonderful part of the Parisian landscape.

I rode my bicycle out of the city along the Seine, eventually reaching the Île Saint Denis.  It is an unusually long and slender crescent of land, between the once industrial edges of the river.  The community of St. Denis and its famous Basilica are nearby, as is the great port of Gennevilliers.

Proximity to overcrowded St. Denis was one reason people settled this island in Medieval times. Among its earlier purposes was to hold fortifications against Norman invaders, blocking the Seine and the greater treasures beyond.

Later, barge operators and maritime artisans settled the island, with their families.  You can still find traces of buildings from that era—the 1800s—and there is even a more or less solid ship-builder still working there, although he seems mainly to be in the business of dismantling old tubs for scrap.

The impressionist Alfred Sisley painted on the Île Saint Denis.  The community has dedicated anatelier to his memory, apparently used to stage art classes for children.  Some small streets and shoddy low-rise housing developments also carry the Sisley name.

It is difficult to imagine a present-day painter taking any interest in the place, except with spray cans and a penchant for vulgar words and images.  Much of the island is defaced by huge, grimy public housing projects, freeway flyovers and a mammoth abandoned factory.

I spoke with a man old enough to have been there when the Île Saint Denis was still a village.  He said the island residents all knew one another when he was a boy.  The place was dotted with small cafés and restaurants projecting out over the river, much like the ginguettes along the Marne.  Many small stores and shops served those who lived there (there are none today) and community parties were a regular feature.

Boys worked on barges, he said. They fished, rowed in small wooden barcs and swam in the placid water.  Most people raised vegetables and kept fowl.  Everyone had small boats and shanties.  That was in 1965 or so.

Then along came the great French social housing programs, the highways, and the accelerating pace of (doomed) state-backed industries.

Communist mayors in surrounding suburbs fueled the frenzy, with a building industry quite happy to serve their interests.  Modern housing for all!  High-speed motorways!  Jobs!  Out with the old!  Make way for the workers' paradise.

The Île Saint Denis is mostly a dreadful place now. A linear park at one end of the island was deserted, even on this unseasonably warm and sunny weekend.

The public housing—balconies festooned with satellite television dishes, the unmistakable badges of North African immigrants—is hopelessly degraded. Youths from these projects now hold sway over all aspects of the island’s life.  There is little work involved, and certainly no vestige of civic alliance.

What little is left of the “old” patterns may yet give way to developers, keen to cash in on views of the river and the island’s proximity to the big city.  Politicians are certainly looking at this potential.  If handled in a certain way, that might be a good thing.

But a “good” outcome is doubtful.  Just look around.