Paris red-light district 'losing its soul' to property boom
01-01-2014
The hostess bars of Pigalle are giving way to chic nightclubs and organic supermarkets, but not everyone is happy about it
The hostess bars in Pigalle are mostly closing down Photo: Lucas Schifres
Henry Samuel By Henry Samuel, Paris
Booming property prices are killing off Paris’ notorious red-light district of Pigalle as the area morphs into a sanitised but fashionable hangout for the upwardly mobile.
Long reputed as a seedy den of vice, the increasingly chic district has been rebranded “South Pigalle” or SoPi, a take on Soho in other major cities.
In a sign of the times, an influx of organic supermarkets bear testament to the rise of “bobos”, young, moneyed bourgeois bohemians who are invading the area.
Real estate prices have risen by 25 per cent in the past five years while the hostess bars have been closing one after the other, plummeting from 84 in 2005 to a handful today.
Rue Frochot was long the epicentre of Pigalle’s “bar à hôtesses”, where scantily-clad girls, watched over by a matronly “Madame”, offered clients drinks and much else if the price was right.
The girls were dubbed “les bouchonneuses” as they were paid according to the number of champagne “bouchons”, or corks, for which they managed to bill a client - at around €150 a bottle.
Today, there are none left on the street, with only the bars’ names offering a reminder of their recent red-light past. The mysterious black facade of the notorious “Dirty Dick” still stands, but inside, it has been transformed into an inoffensive Hawaiian cocktail bar.
Rue Frochot is in an area just south of the Moulin Rouge cabaret once known as “Nouvelle-Athènes” - a melting pot where all tiers of Parisian society mingled with the artistic geniuses of the mid-19th century, among them Frederic Chopin and George Sand, Alexandre Dumas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The former studio of Henri de Toulouse Lautrec is a stone’s throw away.
Rue Frochot had 14 establishments in 2010. The last to close was Le F’Exhib, where in late December workmen were busy transforming it into a trendy bar and nightclub in time for 2014.
The owner is keen to retain the risqué appeal, offering customers red blown-glass chandeliers from Rome, fake leopard skin sofas and erotic drawings on the walls. But upon closer inspection, these have been carefully airbrushed to blur any overly explicit areas that might “cause offence”.
In neighbouring rue Pigalle, Les Trois Roses is among the last hostess bars still standing. Surrounded by red velvet, a bored-looking, barely dressed girl perched on a high stool while Denise, the Madame, remained philosophical. “Like Bastille, Pigalle is getting younger and I have nothing against youth, they breathe life into a neighborhood,” she said.
Her clientele, she insisted, had remained the same: regulars, a few tourists and middle-aged provincial French wishing to experience Paris by night while at various salons and events.
“But ask the locals whether they’re happy with these new bars.”
Jean-Pierre, a resident in the neighbourhood for the past 20 years, said: “Since there are all these clubs, it’s a mess. Drunken youths turn up to the square up until 5am, shouting. Just look at the signs from residents on the windows above Dirty Dick - it’s written: ’The Right to Sleep’”.
“The hipsters stick together, they don’t mix,” said Johanne, whose hostess bar Fox shut earlier this year. “They all have the same face, the same beard, the same codes. Pigalle risks losing its soul.”
The change has been so abrupt that Pauline Véron, the local Socialist deputy mayor, wants the town hall to step in and buy up closing hostess bars to avoid the district ending up with wall-to-wall nightclubs and retain some of its “libertarian and roguish spirit”.
Volkan Sukan, 32, who recently bought the F’Exhib and owns another bar and bistro in the area, said the days of hostess bars were over for good reason.
“Most of the hostess bars were pretty archaic; there were girls of 16 or 17 years old who worked there without papers, often from Romania.
“Moreover, tourists came to buy a drink for 30 or 40 euros (and) ended up paying 500, there were complaints, so the police put a stop to it.”
Some of the hostess bars have moved to the Champs-Elysées area, while peep shows in the nearby boulevard are cleaning up their act, becoming lap dancing clubs for stage parties.
Sex shops are losing their opaque windows to become “love stores” for couples, while the three-floor Sexodrome looks like any other department store, with Christmas window displays.
“I don’t think Pigalle is losing its soul, the profile is changing but it’s still more risqué than other districts,” said Mr Sukan.
“There’s something for all tastes: gay and lesbian clubs, cocktail bars, discos, restaurants, theatres, concert halls, music shops, sex shops on the boulevard. But Parisians will always find something to moan about.”