A year ago  I asked whether they were any true examples of brutalist architecture in Paris. The example I eventually found in the 13th arrondissement was positively gentle alongside this multi-story car park in the suburb of Nogent sur Marne!
It was no surprise to discover that this rather impressive structure is condemned today and will [...]

Yesterday, as dinner cooked and the sun set, a group of gypsy performers wandered onto my street coming off thier daily train rounds. I smiled down at them because I’d seen them before – I guess that they live in somewhere in the neighborhood. They waved back up and me and started me a serenade, [...]

In 2006, the city of Paris installed 400 sanisettes — freestanding, free-of-charge public toilettes — around the city’s 20 arrondissements. That was something à aimer.
Now, however, there is a new trend in “public” lavatories, which I call “fleecing tourists par sanisette.”
“Point WC” is the culprit of this shady new business. [...]

Here is a pretty interesting sculpture in the 17th. It was designed by Wang Du, a Chinese artist who has been living in France for 20 years and who was commissioned by the city to create a monument dedicated to Paris firemen. It’s called the Exercise Tower, and it’s located in front of one [...]

My neck of Montmartre has gotten more upscale in the last few years, which brings more tourists and more trash. The neighbors in my building are incensed. One has taken rolls and rolls of pictures of trash in the cobblestone square in front of our building. She has developed the film, placed images in a [...]

Yesterday in the 6th arrondissement I did a quick about-face on my Velib when I saw some handsome firemen whiling away their time in the station by playing ping-pong and working out on mats close to the large open entryway. At dinner, Parisian friends lamented that the calendars sold door to door by firemen each [...]

On the corner of the Rue de Belleville and the Avenue Simon Bolivar is perhaps the best example of a ghost sign in Paris today. Ghost signs are the traces of hand-painted wall adverts which are fairly common in rural France but comparatively rare in Paris, but this one for the St Raphael quinquina drink [...]

Pierre: You call this a wave?
Jean-Francois: Staycations suck.

In collaboration with New Zealand-based My Tours App, I have transformed my Invisible Paris walks into downloadable iPhone guides! The three tours currently available are the following:

From Sainte Rita to Saint Lazare
Contemporary architecture
Street art in Belleville

All information has been updated and new photos have been included. Best of all though, with the integrated GPS and the built-in [...]