The painter Gustave Caillebotte and his brother, photographer Martial Caillebotte, loved balconies. They frequently painted and photographed people standing on ornate balconies overlooking wide boulevards, gazing down at the passing scene below. And sometimes they set up an easel or a camera on a balcony and captured what they saw from that viewpoint. One of my favourite pictures is the one that Gustave painted of the view from his balcony on the boulevard Haussmann in 1880 – a tiny view into the everyday world 130 years ago.

On our most recent visit to Paris, we rented an apartment with a balcony, and like the Caillebottes, we spent a lot of time on it, watching people come and go. However, our apartment did not overlook a wide boulevard, but a narrow, one-way street, and the first thing we saw when we looked out was not a tree and a bench, but…a Velib’ stand.

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