27, Rue Tholozé

The sloping roof of my top floor room and balcony.

I’ve tried staying in other neighborhoods, but I know now it’s hopeless.  The only place I feel at home in Paris is in the closest possible proximity to my first home there in Montmartre, on rue Tholozé, in 1966.

The tiny studio apartment on rue Constance I rented for a week in 2012 was the closest I’d stayed, about 3 blocks away from my original lodging at 27, rue Tholozé, Paris 18.  On the cinquiéme étage, the 5th floor, really the 6th, my room was at the top of the stairs with a sloping bed, an armoire and a bookshelf running lengthwise above the bed.  There was a sink and hotplate behind a curtain in the corner, no fridge.  I, and most people then, shopped every day, the leftover milk and cheese went out on the window sill or balcony overnight to keep cool.  The shared toilet was half a flight down on the landing and the shower was on the ground floor, adjacent to the concierge’s apartment, probably so we wouldn’t fail to pay the few francs we were charged to use it.  The room was cheap, passed on to me by a co-worker who was leaving his job as I was starting mine.

The best thing about it was the balcony.  Big, probably half the size of the room, and from up there I could see the old Moulin de la Galette, very near, just visible above the trees in the first picture on this page.  Above the buildings across the street I could see the top of Sacre-Coéur and to the right was the most astonishing view of rooftops and most of Paris, Eiffel Tower and all.  In the 60‘s the neighborhood was solidly working-class and has since gentrified, but #27 is still readily recognizable as home.

The local shopping street was, still is, rue Lepic.  Back then, it was a nuts-and-bolts sort of food shopping street – boulangeries, boucheries, greengrocers, fromageries and working people’s cafes.  I remember the moment clearly when I realized, at 5’6”, I was taller than most of the local population.  The street slopes 3 blocks down, from rue des Abbesses, where I was standing in a crowd, to Place Blanche, and I could see clearly, over the heads, all the way to the bottom.

Cafe des Deux Moulins, named presumably when there were deux moulins, 2 windmills, up the hill, was where I had my morning grand créme, every morning I was there in 2012.  The barman gave me a second cup, on the house, each morning from the second morning, trés gentil.  

Rue Lepic

Cafe des 2 Moulins, 1970 above, 2012 below.

Rue Constance, below, 2012

Another top floor apartment, behind the blue door and up the stairs.

The tiny bed in my tiny apartment, 2012.

I stayed on rue Tholozé for maybe 4 of the 6 months I was in France, moving to an apartment, half of the upper floor of an elegant house set in a garden with a live eagle tethered to a post, in Suresnes.  Complete with a huge bathtub, sheer luxury.  I drove to and from work through the Bois de Boulogne in an old Renault, bought for the purpose with borrowed money.  My landlady was English, married to an Indian gentleman whose name I never knew and who was almost never there, she told me, because he traveled around Europe, lecturing.  Occasionally I’d see his Mercedes caravan parked in front and I’d know he was home.

Postscript:  I’d walked by the house again once, years ago.  Recently, prowling streetview, I found it and the address and googled it.  23, Rue de la Tuilerie in Suresnes is the headquarters in France for Sufi Order International and my landlord downstairs had been Pir Viliyat Inayat Khan, head of the order until his death in 2004, having succeeded his father, the founder.  You can read about him here.

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