ABANDONED RAILWAY WASTELAND 2 CRACK
ABANDONED RAILWAY WASTELAND 2 WINDOWS

“We want to see a return to a mutualisation of resources in an age where everything is thought of as disposable,” Liot says. The bric-à-brac style apparently appeals to the customers, as does the “eco-fun”, including the mini urban goat and chicken farm outside on the platform.

“Our objective was that nothing we use should be bought, but found,” says Martin Liot, a co-founder of Sinny & Ooko, the company behind the bar. Thanks to this community garden, over a decade down the line, the neighbourhood has experienced a second lease of life.Īcross the platform, La Recyclerie bar sits inside the Ornano station. Among the flowerbeds and allotments that run along the station platform people settle into chairs to read or play a game of Scrabble, while school children do their homework. Loubaton’s Jardins project has become a prime example of successful urban conservation: the garden, which comprises a chicken shed and beehives, is cared for by members of the association (now some 450-strong) and local schools – and the result is striking. Graffiti art on the disused tracks of the Petite Ceinture. “The problem is that this sort of rehabilitation isn’t a mineral one and risks minimising biodiversity instead of supporting it,” Loubaton says. The green space in the 15 th, with its wooden platforms and elevators, is more reminiscent of the New York High Line project than the grassroots Jardins du Ruisseau. While she backs the Petite Ceinture’s gentrification in the 15 th arrondissement – it is now a green space that lends itself to strolling and jogging – her ambitious plans could see the railway’s many tunnels turned into cinemas, aquariums and the like – against the wishes of Loubaton and his supporters. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has a more commercial vision for the land, however. The 20-year-old Association Sauvegarde Petite Ceinture (ASPCRF) also believes in keeping the track as one line, and is campaigning for the revival of public transport along the line to relieve the city’s overburdened metro system, stating on its website: “Our association considers that urban ecology doesn’t limit itself to planting trees, but must consider a broader approach to the city’s functions.” “We cleaned the entire area,” Loubaton says proudly, “before planting flower and vegetable gardens, and we organised all sorts of art events.” Established along one of the neglected platforms of the Petite Ceinture’s former Ornano station, the pioneering project has received worldwide acclaim.

So, in 1998, Loubaton founded the Jardins du Ruisseau (“garden of the creek”) association with other residents of Villa des Tulipes, an idyllic cobbled lane nearby in the city’s 18 th arrondisement.

ABANDONED RAILWAY WASTELAND 2 CRACK

It also suffered from acute prostitution and crack cocaine dealing something had to change to improve the area and to preserve this precious corridor of biodiversity.”

ABANDONED RAILWAY WASTELAND 2 WINDOWS

“It was a dumping ground – people would even throw rubbish from their kitchen windows onto the rails. “Back then, my neighbourhood, the Clignancourt section of the Petite Ceinture, was a real mess,” recalls Loubaton. La Recyclerie bar in the old Ornano station.

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