Bateau lavoir

Now turn left up the rue Berthe until you get to the place Emile Goudeau. There is a fountain here and a house just further on with the words bateau lavoir on it. Go right to this house.

PRESS PAUSE

You are now standing on a square named after Emile Goudeau, a local singer-songwriter and the man behind the famous cabaret Le Chat Noir, one of Montmartre’s late 19th Century hotspots.

In 1792, there used to be an enormous pear tree at the center of this square which someone cleverly used to make money by setting up an open-air dance-hall or guinguette around it. There was even a table up in the tree itself at which at least a dozen people could sit. You can imagine what a great success this cabaret was in such a frivolous part of Paris. But the tree was cut down in 1814 as it had become too old and unsafe.

The building you are standing next to with Bateau Lavoir written on it, is the site of the original Bateau Lavoir, where all those famous artists lived at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Let’s explain a little bit about it. Though if you want to move on, you can skip the rest of this section and go to the chapter called “Little Streets.”

Back to the Bateau Lavoir:

It was an old piano factory that was transformed into artists’ studios. They were very basic and people used to say complain that although they had no gas or water, they did have bugs on every floor.

The building owed its name to its peculiar layout, which resembled a ship’s gangways, and maybe also to its single tap (lavoir means “wash house” in French).

Many artists such as Van Dongen, Vlaminck, Picasso (during his Rose Period and while painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon), Braque, Juan Gris and Modigliani, to name only the most famous, lived here. The Bateau Lavoir was also home to writers like Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob. The second of these two, born in Brittany and of Jewish descent was known for his bohemian lifestyle in Montmartre. In 1909 Jacob had a vision and converted to Catholicism. In 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo and died in the Drancy detention camp near Paris.

But while he was still living in Montmartre, the story goes that Jesus appeared to him on the screen of the Gaumont cinema. He went to tell the vicar of Montmartre who was convinced that dark movie theaters were dens of sin and greatly disapproved.

Following a fire in 1970, the Bateau Lavoir was restored and still houses artists today. In the window, you will see old photographs of how the Bateau Lavoir looked at the beginning of the 20th century.