Untapped went on a Père Lachaise adventure, beginning at the Philippe Starck-designed hotel and bar, Mama Shelter in the 20th arrondisement, situated across from music venue La Fleche D'or. It has some of the best cocktails in town and with rooms running at around 110 euros per night, it's my top recommendation for hotels in Paris.
These bikes are real (although upon investigation, many ARE missing). The bikes, painted white and chained to street furniture, serve as a memorial to those that have died in cycling accidents in those locations. In June, the city's Sanitation Department announced a plan to remove bikes deemed "derelict" (with missing parts), and even went as far to call them "eyesores."
I've walked and drove past the Arc de Triomphe countless times, fearing for my life while traversing the roundabout by motorcycle. On June 18th, I took the walk up the famous arch, coincidentally on the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's BBC radio appeal marking the founding act of French resistance against the Nazi regime.
Before I went to visit La Defénse, it remained in my mind’s eye as a looming, monumental structure–an abstract, geometric form with no relationship with its external surroundings apart from its linear correlation with the Arc de Triomphe. I was inspired to take a trip there after seeing the photography of Ryan Southen. In a rarely seen perspective, Ryan captures the monumentality of the Grand Arch from below.
Nestled between the new W Hotel and an abandoned lot a few blocks south of the World Trade Center, a Neo-gothic building at 103 Greenwich Street has a history as incongruous as its architecture. Now an Irish pub, the building began as the home of Dutch immigrant Ryneer Suydam and his family in 1799.
Today’s post is about prisons, something that the average city dweller doesn’t think about. But what is fascinating is that many of New York’s prisons are right in our midst — we walk and drive by them without noticing.