ABANDONED TRAIN
STATION IN PARIS
G'day folks,
You might think I'm obsessed with abandoned buildings. Maybe. Here's another one; right in the middle of Paris.
On the outskirts of Paris proper, at the back of a parking lot down
a side street in a quiet residential neighbourhood of Clichy, there sits
an old forgotten train station; crumbling at the edges, blackened in the
corners and scarred on its facade.
But it wasn’t always sitting here, hidden away and withering in an
inconspicuous corner of Paris. La Gare Lisch once had a very prestigious
placement in the heart of the city of light, proudly standing at the foot of
the iron lady of France, its trains rolling into the station giving passengers
a front row seat to the gargantuan arches and pillars of the tallest
structure in the world of its time– last stop, the Eiffel Tower.
In March of 1878, a new Parisian train station was born. The Gare
Lisch, named after its architect, Juste Lisch, who built several other stations
in the city (including the currently standing Saint-Lazare station), was
debuted for the World Fair of 1878, the third time Paris would be hosting
the expo. The station served as a terminus for four stations
connecting passengers commuting from the Western suburbs to Paris at
a time when public transport consisted of little more than horse-drawn
buggies.
Equipped with four platforms (including one for welcoming boats on
the Seine), decorated with colorful tiles and an intricate glass facade, the
station was proudly flaunted in the press for the World Fair, praised as
the station that helped build the expo, transporting the construction materials
as well as the spectators that came to see it. Unlike most of the
buildings constructed temporarily just for the world fair, Lisch was saved
from the post-expo demolition and went on to play a pivotal role in the
next expo again in 1889– the very same one that saw the Eiffel Tower go
up.
There’s Lisch to the right, looking on at the iron giant rising
before it ↑. For the eight months of festivities in 1889, commonly
regarded as the most impressive of the world fairs with the opening of the
Eiffel Tower and its electric lights (the first time electricity was used at
the expo), the Gare Lisch was once again connected to the
fairground by railways as the main supplier of goods and construction
materials for the exhibition. A lot of the materials used to build the Eiffel
Tower would have arrived at Gare Lisch. More than 2 million travellers
passed through its doors during the exposition and on June 10th 1889, more than
70,000 arrived at the station to see the Eiffel Tower.
As the next Paris world expo approached however, the city was
ready for a new station at the foot of the Eiffel tower, with plenty more
platforms than Lisch could offer. She wasn’t demolished but was taken
apart brick by brick in 1897, moved up the river and rebuilt in its new
location, where it currently stands in Asnières-sur-Seine.
Although situated
in a less glamourous location, for a few years there it had a good run as a
terminus station for the new electrical trains that were replacing steam
engines and starting to run regularly through, to and from Paris. But as
the railway network expanded, newer, bigger and better stations were built and
Lisch once again lost its purpose in an ever-expanding city of the future.
By 1983, left abandoned, Lisch was ready for demolition but
thankfully saved at the eleventh hour by a campaign lead by the Parisian
newspaper, Le Figaro,
initiated by a local who lived nearby the historic building. It was added to
Paris’ list of protected historic monuments in 1985. For a moment there, things
were once again looking up for this old station of the Belle Époque.
But twenty five years later and Gare Lisch is still a sorry-looking
building, sitting lifelessly at the back of a dreary parking lot, a distant
memory from its days alongside the Eiffel Tower, now the most-visited
paid monument in the world.
All attempts to revive the building (there were apparently quite a
few) failed to get off the ground and in 2012, the building was declared
entirely off-limits after a fire broke out, further damaging parts of the
already decaying roof.
After countless failed attempts to save Lisch and find it a new
purpose, perhaps 2014 might finally be the start of a new beginning for the
forgotten station. Enter “Operation Renaissance“.
Bringing together local residents and lovers of Parisian heritage, the
organization is proposing to restore the station into what they’re calling a
“Cité du Voyage”, a sort of cultural centre dedicated to travel, adventure and
exploration. With 1000 square meters, they would hope to welcome the public
with social activities, exhibitions, a library, a world travel boutique, conference
centre, concert space, restaurant/ café and host festivals and all sorts of
travel-related events.
What makes these guys different and the likelihood of the project
succeeding more credible this time round, is that they’re not waiting around
for the government to help. Relying on their pretty savvy social networking
skills and internet crowd-funding.
They’ve already smashed their goal of €2000 to get the project on its
feet, but looking at the state of the place, I’d say they’re going to need
all the extras they can get.
Clancy's comment: Man, what would the land be worth?
I'm ...
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