At 370 metres, Passage du Caire in the 2ème arondissement is the longest of Paris’s passages couverts, and also one of the narrowest. It was opened in 1798 during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, and the name reflects the subsequent fad for all things Egyptian and Oriental. From 1840 onwards it was mainly occupied by printers and lithographers (which drove away the fashionable flâneurs) and thereafter by manufacturers of shop window dummies.
Being right at the centre of the Sentier quartier, it is nowadays taken up with fabric and garment wholesalers. Information from French wikipedia.
Le Passage du Caire is currently part of an “Opération Programmée d’Amélioration de l’Habitat” (Programme for Improvement of the Habitat) in the 2ème arrondissement, one of the objectives of which is to “mettre en valeur le patrimoine architectural, notamment celui des passages” (develop and enhance the architectural heritage, especially that of the passages).
So if you want to see Le Passage du Caire in all its dilapidated glory, now is the time to visit.
CAT
See also:
PARIS ’77
MULTIGLOM 
My heart says it’s quite appealing in a sort of ‘shabby chic’ way and should be documented before it is destroyed, (doubtless the rents will triple when the work is done and the character of the place will vanish as the current shopkeepers are forced out.)
My head says there is a lot of nasty late 20C additions to the shopfronts, and as one very long compartment with limited access it would be horrendous if a fire were to break out during the night.
I did try (albeit briefly) to find some pictures/prints of it when it was at the height of fashion, but my French is just not up to the task.
Just a personal observation (and you can tell me to go ‘boil my head’ or even worse! for saying this), a few lines of background adds a huge amount of context. Something that Les Empires….. (as nice as it is), doesn’t have.
[Before you ‘shoot daggers’ at me, a lot/most/the majority of the photos on LEdL are entire in themselves (the sunsets and street scenes), but when the image is of an iconic or interesting object/building/location just a few lines would……….
I can’t find an neat end for that sentence, but in terms, viewers who have no knowledge of Belgium, its history and culture would understand both better.]
*Wanders off to see if my bonce will fit into the ‘jam pan’*
Oh, I pretty much agree with you. Writing comments, though, takes up time, which I don’t have much of right now – you’d be surprised how much time a seemingly very basic post can take. Posting photographs, on the other hand, is relatively fast.
I should really have kept my mouth shut, it’s your blog, you are it’s Queen and hence it is none of my biz. Major faux pas on my part, badly phrased, (While your words/insights would be the best, I was just thinking of something like a link to Wiki page or something that is just cut and paste.)
{Short of time, have you tried using the Auto-wartermark feature in Acorn, set it up and it does it all automatically. Just point it at a folder of images and bingo!}
There are already links on there! Maybe they’re not prominent enough.
Could be this small screen (and not my eyesight, Oh no. “I can see perfectly, I can see perfectly, I can see……… that pin down there” *falls over cat*)
I’m covered in embarassment now, (I really should stop digging this hole for myself.)
They are there, but in my defence they are teeny tiny and the pale grey underline is almost invisible. Seems to be a normal ‘feature’ of the Ryu theme that has been raised before.
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/ryu-theme-links-in-comments-same-as-text-and-links-are-hard-to-tell-apart
[I did have a quick scooch through the CSS file but I couldn’t find where they had declared the function that makes then behave like that, but oddly the links in the tags section behave normally.]
Having pressed ‘Post Comment’ I’m now worried that my comment might look rude/pushy which was not my intention. Sorry.
It’s true the links in Ryu are inadequately marked. Had I known this in advance I might have selected a different theme, though it’s a shame because I otherwise like Ryu a lot.
I may yet switch, but not right now, because – like writing longer posts to accompany the photographs – it would require time and energy and decision-making.
I like the clean uncluttered look of ‘Ryu’ and the way you have used it.
It would be a shame and a faff to change it all, just because the links are a bit vague.
If just making the underscore darker would help, then I probably know how to fix that.
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