canvass bag occupy with organic muesli procured from Naturalia , impeccably habilitate children swaddled in eminent - end strollers , clump of bicycles , and a corporate preoccupancy with brunch : these are some of the distinguishing characteristic of the social group known as bobos . More matured than hippy , the bobos – a portmanteau ofbohemienandbourgeois– are a gentrify military force that Parisians have come to link with the now - popular Canal Saint - Martin district . Take a amble through this neighborhood , and you ’ll receive shops and restaurants that supply specifically to bobo taste , from cafes that only serve locally roasted coffee to artisan jewelry makers who are also in the business of selling taxidermied computer mouse .
But just 10 years ago , this was n’t the case .
Before the bobo
The neighbourhood ’s gentrification may not even be plain at first glance . Graffiti , confused bottle , public urinals spill over in the summer , the episodic bum swimming through the canal – all these details make the Canal Saint - Martin seem robustious at best . Historically , there is nothing chic about this neighborhood , which grow around Napoléon ’s canal , contrive to functionally commune with the Seine by bringing fresh H2O to Paris , helping the metropolis avoid epidemic cholera and dysentery epidemics .
The neighborhood prominently features a 17th - century infirmary build for plague victims .
The most large historical features of the region are not precisely glamorous , either . The area features a seventeenth - century hospital build for plague victims , a nearby lazar settlement , and just down the street , thegibbet , a land site of public performance , which welcomed travelers with bodies hanging in aHollywood Squares - eccentric mode . After the channel became a major thoroughfare in the 19th century , it slowly fell out of party favor towards the 1960s , as truck get down to rival flatboat . Gentrification efforts along the canal banks were slow in the 1980s , as warehouses begin to be repurposed at a torpid pace . Today , the Point Éphémère , opened as a popular culture and concert venue in 2004 , embody this spirit .
bellena/Shutterstock
Over the course of the 20th hundred , the Canal Saint - Martin was never quite the " it " property , but in the 21st hundred , this neck of the woods ’s range has been thoroughly spay . The cheap rent , just northerly of the impossibly gentrified Marais , as well as a major transportation hub at nearby Place de la République , were among the early draws to this easterly district . Place de la République undergo a major refurbishment in 2013 , which made the territorial dominion seem a little more approachable to tourer and those who may have balked at the homeless encampments and premonition traffic patterns of the square .
" Five years ago , there was nothing at rue de la Grange aux Belles . "
As local Franco - American artist Marcus McAllister explained , he rarely picnicked or strolled the Canal when he proceed to Paris from New York in the belated 1990s . After the dear café Chez Prune opened in 1998 , followed by design bookshop Artazart in 1999 , however , the watercourse became more popular . " That ’s when the Canal start being on my radar , " he said .
Flickr/David McKelvey
Back in the heyday
Since the former 2000s , new shop and eating house have spring up , like the voguish Pink Flamingo , which delivers pizza to picnickers on the canal .
" Five age ago , there was nothing at rue de la Grange aux Belles , and that ’s where I see the boastful remainder , " McAllister explained . Today , this street is plate to Ten Belles and its excellent coffee tree , and the adjacent Bleuet Coquelicot , which put up an often barefoot florist and his immaculate flowers . By 2012 , Paris ’s first gluten - free bakery open right by the expensive weekend organic green goods grocery just one block from the duct . After living here for the preceding eight years , I sense like the guts and filth that pull the first wave of gentrify bobos is all but gone .
Over the past few yr , an barrage of cool coffee shops , restaurant , boutiques – even a German spaghetti ice pick shop ( you ca n’t make this up ) – have rig up around the canal . From April to October , it ’s the place to sit and eat , tope , caffeinate , and photograph . Teens and 20 - somethings can be found on its cement bank well past midnight . Canal Saint - Martin has become the place to be , and its image has run from scruffy to well-nigh voguish .
Flickr/when i was a bird
Since about 2009 , Afghan refugees have called the parks and bridges around the Canal rest home , and persist in to raise humanitarian care that contrast with the calendered side of the territorial dominion . While there has been a fair amount of outreach to these folks by the local residential area , dozens of refugee continue to camp out under bridges , make over open fires , and sleep in entryway – and their presence go along to do as a reminder that this neighborhood , and this city , need to also touch on itself with the chiliad of underserved who merit humanist support condition .
Noise , wish-wash , and graffiti have long been griping of the neighborhood ’s residents . However , this wintertime , the city drain the channel to cleanse 14 year ’ worth of debris pull in at the bottom . Of course , they discover a lilliputian bit of everything , including bikes , motorcycles , shopping go-cart , and tons of bottles from over a decade of picnics . It ’s not just the canal , though : this arena has get changing even more rapidly , and it seems like the entire neighborhood is putting on a fresh coating of rouge .
It seems like the entire neck of the woods is putting on a fresh coat of pigment .
Flickr/Guillaume Flament
For instance , a favorite restaurant among neck of the woods locals , Le Cambodge , recently pour forth its tired old décor for something new and modern , and La Marine , a staple café along the Canal , has been gutted and redesign . Everything seems a bit raffish , as well - clothe locals head north from the once - trendy Marais to sip their mochas at Craft Cafe , wait in telephone line for pancakes at HolyBelly , or line up to shoot the pastries at Du Pain et des Idées .
Rising prices and changing times
Now the Canal of past times is gone . Is it for the good ? For the family line and hipsters who inhabit the district , the changes are great … as long as they can give it . existent estate price have more than tripled since the 1990s , jumping to their highest in only the last 5 years . As McAllister said , " I do n’t experience how I would do it if I were moving now into this neighborhood . " The hippie and creative person who made the neighborhood so cool are being priced out of the locality , and the bobos who made the Canal chic will be supersede by the just bourgeois .
Such is progress , but I do n’t feel as though I can whine about the neighborhood gentrifying – after all , I like good coffee , Portuguese pastry , and precious shops , and arguably helped change this place from its old incarnation , as well . Still , I am a bit indignant at have to wait that much longer for bread at Du Pain et Des Idées ; living through change is frustrative , and nostalgia sets in until we move on to the next cool affair . The only trouble is that Paris is running out of spots that can sustain cool – that is to say , spots where hipsters , artists , bookman , and other creative type on a budget can congregate affordably .
Paris is running out of spaces where creative types on a budget can congregate affordably .
Flickr/Duc
generation before us have find like evolutions , most lately in the Marais dominion . Now shrine in the tourist guides , its circumstances as a destination is sealed for the foreseeable future . " The Marais has something for everyone , " harmonize to the Fodor ’s scout , doing little to spot it profoundly from the residual of Paris . The Canal Saint - Martin , a new feature in many guides , still gets lumped in with " Eastern Paris " or " Beyond Central Paris , " but the recentLonely Planetnamed it phone number nine of Paris ’s 16 top attractor .
This is great for local business , of course , but as the tourists come in with their selfie sticks , the last edge that the neighborhood had will be filed off . At least many of the raw shops and boutique are not corporate , aseptic , and soulless , but topically own smudge that are a pleasure to patronize .
Virginie Gonçalves , possessor of the recently open up Lusitanian pastry shop DonAntónia Pastelaria , secernate me that locals and other businesses in the dominion have been warm to welcome the unexampled shop . " We ’re super happy in this street , ” she said . “ The coffeeshop Ten Belles and other business , we get along well . There ’s a real exchange between us all , and we ’re inviolable for it . "
Donantonia Pastelaria
Sign up herefor our day-to-day Paris e-mail and be the first to get all the food / drink / playfulness in the City of Light .
