How did The New York Times International Edition come to Paris?

How did The New York Times International Edition come to Paris?

The New York Times (NYT) is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper owned by The New York Times Company. As the name suggests, it is from New York City, founded in 1851 as the New-York Daily Times by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond (1820-1869) and banker George Jones (1811-1891), published by Raymond, Jones & Company. To November 2022, it has 9.3 million subscribers.

The New York Times International Edition was established for the global market. It was first published from 1943-1967 as a weekly news-sheet, and after a pause of 46 years, it re-commenced publication from 2013 to the present day. 

The NYT publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger visited Tehran, the capital of Iran, in June 1943 where he met Brigadier General Donald H Connolly in charege of moving Allied troops the the Soviet Union via the Persian Corridor. To improve morale among the troops, Arthur Sulzberger made the decision to produce an international edition of the NYT. It was an 8-page weekly tabloid containing selected items from the American edition, starting from 9 September 1943.  

It was popular during the Second World War, which ended in 1945, the year that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established it headquarters in Paris on 16 November ‘to advance peace, sustainable development, and human rights.’

During the third session of the United Nations General Assembly, held in the UNESCO building in Paris from 21 September to 12 December 1948, the NYT created a special daily United Nations Edition. It was 10-12 pages, printed in America and flown to Paris daily. It proved to be very popular, and the edition continued weekly, and from 11 December 1948, it became NYT International Air Edition. 

The United Nations broadsheet continued as stand-alone edition, but from June 1949, it was printed in Paris, ending its issue on 19 June 1949, before being inserted into the weekly Sunday edition of the International Air Edition. From 1952, printing of the International Air Edition shifted from Paris to Amsterdam in the Netherlands to reduce costs. 

In 1960, with new typesetting equipment, printing functions returned to Paris – to rue d’Aboukir in the 2nd arrondissement – and the name changed to International Edition of The New York Times to compete with the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune, which was also based in Paris. From 1964, NYT editors were based in Paris too.  

The New York Herald Tribune, established in 1897 The difference was that the New York Herald Tribune Europe edition, with advertisng, had a circulation of almost 50,000, whereas the International Edition of The New York Times had virtually no advertising and a circulation of around 32,000. But by 1967, the International Edition was not profitable and it closed on 20 May 1967, laying off all of its about 100 staff. 

 

For the next 46 years, the International Herald Tribune was published in Paris through a conglomerate of The New York Times, The Washington Post with Whitney Communications. 

International Herald Tribune was renamed The International New York Times after an announcement from the New York Times Company on 14 October 2013 – and so began the second phase of international news in Paris through NYT. In October 2016, it was renamed The New York Times International Edition and the Paris newsroom closed.  

Now, in Paris, readers will see a daily The New York Times International Edition and a 16-page weekend edition, headquartered out of London.

The French café: open ‘like a lighthouse in the night’

The French café: open ‘like a lighthouse in the night.’

A photography exhibition in Paris is a tribute to the women and men across France who keep cafés open ‘like a lighthouse in the night.’ 

Along the railings of the park next to the Town Hall of the 14th arrondissement in Paris is a photography exhibition paying tribute ‘to the happiness of Bistrots.’ The photographic exhibition, from 1 June to 27 August 2023, displays the photos of Pierre Josse and Pierrick Bourgault who followed the art of the café.

The photographs represent two different photographers and their studies of café bistrots; these ‘small universes’ – all unique and vibrant places – or, as French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) describes, ‘parliaments of the people.’

 

The photographic studies highlight the social bond created around a bistrot, a coffee bar, representing the ‘association for the recognition of the art of living in France’s bistros and cafés as an intangible cultural heritage.’ It aims to safeguard this café culture as a culture of social sharing and exchange – a ‘precious human value’ in the society of life.

Pierre Josse describes himself as a professional hobo. He has been wandering the world for 40 years as editor-in-chief of Le Guide du Routard. He loves to socialize, communicate, read, dream, and, of course, taste the ‘strangest beverages on earth.’ He says he never fails to immortalize all of his favourite cafés in his photography.

Pierrick Bougault is an author and journalist in the fields of agriculture and anthropology. He loves listening, observing, describing, and taking pictures. He says his photography uses the ‘light of the place and the moment’ in order to reveal the universe of a person, a world in miniature. 

From 2010 to the present day, cafés from Loire to Le Mans, and around the 20 arrondissements of Paris, the photographs are presented in colour and in black and white. 

 

Rosa-Luxemburg Garden, Paris: green corridor transformation

Rosa-Luxemburg Garden, Paris: green corridor transformation.

The Rosa-Luxemburg Garden in the 18th arrondissement of Paris is an example of the urban renewal of a transformed abandoned space – a green corridor transformation.

It is an active railroad space transformed from wasteland to a semi-open green corridor. The abandoned warehouse of 9,500 square metres has become a public library, a 300-bed youth hostel, seminar rooms, design shop, grocery store, café, a fabrication lab, and a restaurant-bar, with a garden and water feature.

In 1926, a long, metal warehouse in art-deco style met the needs for parcel transportation by rail until it came to an abrupt halt in 2002. Halle Pajol constructed the complex and garden in 2014. The vision for Halle Pajol was to build a safe neighbourhood on an old railway site, embracing new technologies and renewable materials. The site’s power demands are met with the production of 1,988 solar panels covering 3,500 square metres. There is also a power pipe system for the garden water feature.

The garden – green corridor – has a pedestrian pathway and street furniture, with buffer zones to mitigate noise pollution. 

The garden was named after Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), a Polish-German revolutionary and anti-war activist. Born in Poland, she became a German citizen in 1897 and settled in Berlin. She was assassinated in Berlin.

Poet Bertolt Brecht wrote a memorial poem in her honour in 1919, set to music:

Red Rosa now has vanished too,

And where she lies is hid from view.

She told the poor what life’s about,

And so, the rich have rubbed her out.

May she rest in peace.

Paul Auster: four years in Paris and high-wire reflections

Paul Auster: four years in Paris and high-wire reflections.

American author Paul Auster lived in Paris for four years from 1970 to 1974. He wrote an article about it in an introduction to French aerial artiste Philippe Petit’s 1985 book On the High Wire which was reprinted in The Paris Review on 3 June 2019.

Although most noted for his novels set in New York, Paul Auster (1947-), was a translator after graduating in literature from Columbia University. He moved to Paris in 1970 at the age of 23 and earned a living translating French literature into English – especially the works of Stéphane Mallamé and Joseph Joubert.

Stéphane Mallamé

Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallamé (1842-1898) wrote under the pen name Étienne Mallamé. Mallamé was an English teacher but wrote in French. His poetry included Afternoon of a Faun written between 1865-1867 which French poet Paul Valéry regarded as the greatest poem in French literature, and A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance (1897). His poetry collections include Poésies (1887) and Divagations (1897). 

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) was largely undiscovered and unpublished until after his death. His wife passed on his works to the diplomat François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) as Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was also, at various times, the French Ambassador to the Papal States, the United Kingdom, Prussia, and Sweden. Chateaubriand published Joubert’s notes under the title Recueil des pensées de M. Joubert – Collected Thoughts of Mr. Joubertin 1938. Paul Auster translated this publication into English.

In his introduction to Philippe Petit’s book On the High Wire, Paul Auster witnessed Petit juggling in the streets of Paris. A few weeks later Philippe Petit (1949-) secretly installed a cable between the two towers of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on 26 June 1971 at the age of 22. Petit walked across the high-wire juggling and dancing for three hours. The police arrested him when he returned to the ground – charged with disturbing the peace. 

Paul Auster wrote:

“This Notre Dame escapade made a deep impression on me, and I continued to think about it over the years that followed. Each time I walked past Notre Dame, I kept seeing the photograph that had been published in the newspaper [New York Herald Tribune]: an almost invisible wire stretched between the enormous towers of the cathedral, and there, right in the middle, as if suspended magically in space, the tiniest of human figures, a dot of life against the sky … my perception of Paris had changed. I no longer saw it in the same way … Danger, however, is an inherent part of high-wire walking. Working under the greatest possible contraints, on a stage no more than an inch wide, the high-wire walker’s job is to create a sensation of limitless freedom.”

Paul Auster added,

“There was another element of the Notre Dame spectacle that moved me: the fact that it was clandestine … No press conferences, no publicity, no posters. The purity of it was impressive.”

Two years later, in 1973, Philippe Petit walked on a high-wire, again without permission, and without payment and publicity, on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia – the largest steel arch bridge in the world. 

Auster left Paris in 1974 and returned to New York a month before Philippe Petit secretly walked between the two towers of the World Trade Centre. 

Philippe Petit, New York 1974 Source: hotcorn.com

Paris has inextricably brought Paul and Philippe together – two young men in their early twenties who eventually meet each other in New York City in 1980 in their early thirties. They were brought together in a kind of spiritual pilgrimage of life long freedom. 

Paul Auster

Paul wrote that the most important lesson he learned from Philippe Petit and his subsequent book On the High Wire was that:

“the high-wire is an art of solitude, a way of coming to grips with one’s life in the darkest, most secret corner of the self. When read carefully, the book is transformed into the story of a quest, an exemplary tale of one man’s search for perfection … anyone who has ever made personal sacrifices for an art or an idea, will have no trouble understanding what it is about.”

Paul Auster

Photographs of Notre Dame Cathedral: Martina Nicolls

French quiche to commemorate the British coronation of King Charles III

French quiche to commemorate the British coronation of King Charles III.

King Charles III of the United Kingdom will be coronated on Saturday 6 May 2023. The official coronation dish is the vegetarian Coronation Quiche – a traditional recipe of shortcrust pastry with a cream and egg filling of spinach, broad beans, and tarragon. The Royal Family website describes the Coronation Quiche as ‘a deep quiche with a crisp, light pastry case and delicate flavours of spinach, broad beans, and fresh tarragon. Eat hot or cold with a green salad and boiled new potatoes – perfect for a Coronation Big Lunch.’

But the quiche is French, isn’t it? Quiche is a savoury, open tart dating back some say to 1540 (others say 1605) in the Middle Ages in the German kingdom of Lothringen. The French renamed it Lorraine when the kingdom of France annexed the region in the north-east in 1766. Lorraine borders Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg. But what is its connection to the coronation?

It has long been a tradition in the United Kingdom to announce a new dish with a new monarch, and to have a bountiful banquet. King George IV was coronated on 19 July 1821, and celebrated with a banquest in Westminster Hall for 1,634 guests. The French chef, Antonin Carême, served delicacies such as les filets de poulards, sautés aux champignons(chicken sautéed with mushrooms), les cotelles d’agneau, panées, grillées, sauce poivrade (breaded, grilled lamb chops in pepper sauce), and le paté chaud de caille à l’espagnole (quail pie served hot). And that was just the first course.

King Charles III was four years old when his mother was coronated. When Queen Elizabeth II was coronated on 2 June 1953, her banquet included soupe de tortue (turtle soup), delices de soles Prince Charles (Prince Charles sole), and agneau à la Windsor, haricots verts et asperges (Windsor lamb with green beans and asparagus). She included Prince Charles sole, a fish dish, as an indication that Charles will inherit the crown. 

King Charles III is opting for a popular choice, a hearty common quiche – ‘a dish for sharing’ – as the coronation dish. He also adds food from around the world. On the Royal Family website, there are also recipes for Ken Hom’s coronation roast rack of lamb with Asian-style marinade and Nadia Hussain’s coronation aubergine. 

Some Lorraine residents would prefer that the Coronation Quiche be called something other than quiche, since it is the regional term. Perhaps Coronation Savoury Flan or Coronation Savoury Tart would be the better terminology. 

Nevertheless, one way or the other, since I am in France, I’ll be celebrating the coronation with an eggy quiche-like, tart-like, flan-like specialty of my local boulangerie – mushroom or tomato or even a Lorraine. 

Boulangerie, crêperie, fromagerie … just add ie

Boulangerie, crêperie, fromagerie … just add ie.

Many shops in France take the ending “ie” just as in English they take the ending “y” – bakery is boulangerie, laundry is laverie – but not every artisanal store in France has a direct “y” translation. 

La bijouterie = the jewellery store 

La blanchisserie = the laundry

La boiserie = the woodwork shop

La boucherie = the butchery  

La boulangerie = the bakery 

La brasserie = the brewery 

La brûlerie = the roastery 

La cordonnerie = the shoe repair or shoemaking shop 

La crêperie = the restaurant that makes crêpes (pancakes)

La croissanterie = the croissant shop

La droguerie = the drugstore 

L’ebenisterie = the cabinetmaking store 

L’épicerie = the grocery store 

La fromagerie = the cheese store

La glacerie = the icecream store 

La mercerie = the haberdashery store (the sewing store)

La laverie = the laundry

La marqueterie = the marquetry

La menuiserie = the carpentry store  

L’orangerie = the orangery

La papeterie = the stationery shop 

La parfumerie = the perfumery

La pâtisserie = the pastry shop 

La pharmacie = the pharmacy 

La plomberie = the plumbing store 

La poissonnerie = the fishmongery (the fish shop)

To make it easier to determine the gender of the noun, about 98% of words ending in “ie” in French are feminine. 

Abandoned Paris train tracks – now walking tracks

Abandoned Paris train tracks – now walking tracks.

To cater for visitors attending the first Paris World Fair in 1867, a circular rail route was established for train travel around the capital. Rail was already introduced in France since 1828, beginning with mining companies to transport coal, and from Paris to major cities from 1855. 

The Petite Ceinture – the Small Belt – is the former double-track railway line encircling Paris, at a time when the area was in the rural zone. It opened in 1867 and continued until competition from the Metropolitain line (the Metro), established in 1900, forced the closure of the Petite Ceinture in 1934. The train tracks were never removed. 

Over time, wild flora and fauna spread across the rail line – with more than 200 plant species and more than 70 animal species.

In 2007, one section of the Petite Ceinture in the 16th arrondissement – between Porte d’Auteuil and Muette Station – was open to the public as a walking trail. Other sections of the ‘green path’ have subsequently opened to the public. Former railway stations have been renovated as cafes, restaurants, and bars.

The Montrouge-Belt, part of the former railway network, situated in the 14th arrondissement, was open on 25 February 1867 and closed in 1934. Abandoned for 74 years, the Moutrouge-Belt railway station was rehabilitated in 2008.  It is now Poinçon.

Poinçon – Punch – opened in July 2019 as a ‘contemporary space’ for a café-restaurant and cultural programs, such as exhibitions and events. The old railway station, now contemporary space, overlooks the railway tracks.

Poinçon takes its name from the tool that the train conductor used to perforate a hole in a passenger’s train ticket to verify it. The small, hand-held poinçon de billet – ticket punch – was used in France for the Petite Ceinture and the Metropolitain lines until the 1960s.

Behind the Poinçon are stairs to the rail tracks. Near these stairs, on the rail platform is a painted transport container. It is Les Tontons Flowers, an urban, hyper-local, agriculture project. Les Tontons Flowers, which was locked when I viewed it, is a family business that produces micro-greens and aromatic plants using a chemical-free, plant substrate which replaces soil. Les Tontons Flowers also runs a participatory collective scheme promoting food resilience. 

DOWNLOAD FREE DOCUMENT – PETITE CEINTURE WALKING TRACKS