Les Passages Couverts

Friday, 1/9/09

Some passages were lighted for the holidays:

lights lights

The covered passages, which today instill a sense of privacy while also managing to smell a bit like subway halls, made a lot more sense a few centuries ago, when they were first built, than they do now. Back then, roads were far more chaotic than they are today. Sewage systems and road drainage were lacking, as were city cleaning and traffic lights. On a rainy day, a walker would at best get soaked head to toe by a passing car, and at worst get run over by a reckless driver. The covered passages were a nice way to avoid the rain and dirt and drivers. Thinking to make these passages profitable, boutiques lined either side. They became roads of respectable commerce during the day, and became rather more profitable and questionable at night. Thus was flânerie born—strolling for pleasure while stopping perhaps to look inside a store window. The covered passages, which have ceilings paneled in glass to permit sunlight, don’t serve much functional purpose anymore, but they are still lined with boutiques selling clothes, books, food, or more interesting things like canes or stamp collections.

K.B.

The inside and an entrance to covered passages:

passage title