When I was taking an Eastertime short Paris break this year, I found the Samaritaine flagship store by the Pont Neuf to be closed. Galleries Lafayette was closed too, but the Samaritaine building had a sign up saying something along the lines of closed indefinitely for security reasons.
I was back in Paris last week for a few days and guess what – it’s still closed.
Any idea what’s up with this grand old Art Nouveau / Deco building next to the Seine? On one of my recent Paris breaks I noticed that it still looks spectacular at night from the left bank, all lit up except for the giant letters of the name Samaritaine.
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Experienced the same thing back in November, unable to visit. Real shame.
On June 27 while passing by, some of the windows were open at la Samaritaine. It appeared that work was going on inside.
By 2 p.m. on June 28, apparently about 40 people from the CIP-IDF organization that represents unemployed and part-time theatrical individuals took over the roof to display a banner. The organization is one of many whose members work in Paris and need housing but can least afford it.
On another note, the department store was closed because it was so dilapidated! The experts said the iron work would catch fire within 15 minutes. http://www.colleensparis.com/blog
Samaritaine will be closed until 2011, due to structural weaknesses and fire hazards. It’s owned by LVMH and the employees’ salaries will be 100% paid in the interim. Nice work if you can get it, huh?
Well…I just arrived from Paris last Sunday and guess what…
Still closed!
My consolation prize was Printemps.
My daughter and I took the underground to Pont Neuf just to go to Samaritaine – quelle horreur ! It was closed. The internet site on best department stores in Paris make no mention of this!
I was in Paris on vacation in the late spring of 2006 and Samaritaine was closed then. I took a picture of the sign in the window about being closed for security reasons. I just ran across it and it included their web address. I went to the website and it still has a statement about being closed for security reasons. I’d love to know what made them close and why it has taken them so long to reopen. See: http://www.aces.edu/~hartljo/Samaritaine.jpg
I visited Paris between 25th and 30th December 2008.
I couldn’t believe that Samritaine was closed- the very weak and un-specific reason od “Closed for security reasons” is beyond belief!
Can’t the owners have the decency to explain what’s happening?
Galeries Lafayette is a fantastic building but La Smaritaine is the most unique department store in the world.
The interior design and quality will never be matched and the rooftop views were spectacular!
The owners should relaise how valuable a desgn mastepece this building is and with that in mind, let people know what’s happening and then re-open the place as soon as possible.
It seems very odd that a great department store like this can be closed for several years. I visited Paris three years ago and it was closed then as well as the last weekend when I was there again. It closed in June 2005 and, as Phyllis stated, will be closed until 2011. How the h-l can it take about six (!) years to refurb this place? Even if it has old interiors that need special care it sounds unbelivable that it should take this long. You can bulid a place like to this from scratch in half that time.
The information about the progress is very bad.
Still shut because they’d like to turn it into a shopping complex/hotel/luxury flats! Plans were rejected last Dec after:
Staff from the mayor’s office have asked the group to provide proof that a modern incarnation of Samaritaine on the same site is not possible. “When, on 15 June 2005, LVMH was forced to close the store because of its age, the group assured us that it would continue to be a department store,” one representative told Le Monde.
(Guardian article )
I called LVMH and asked why ther is no information which is up-to-date and honest with regard to what’s happening?
The simple, bland response was exactly as per everyone else’s findings- “Closed for security reasons”!
Only the French would get away with not having the decency to inform people about the truth behind this fantastic buildings closure.
Phone LVMH and ask them- perhaps if more people phone they’ll wake-up???
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Paris is not the only left-wing city where this would be possible. On a much smaller scale, the same thing happens here in San Francisco. The so-called “progressives” forced through a rule against “formula retail” stores, so any successful chain of stores with more than 11 branches needs to get special approval from the Planning Commission. They turned down a very “green” store for Valencia Street, a rough neighborhood which has 23 empty store fronts, because it was “formula retail.”
Last week however, after much carrying-on, they did allow a subsidiary of Brooks Bros., a great “preppy” men’s store to open on Fillmore Street, in Pacific Heights, the most expensive neighborhood in SF. It is a perfect match, since the people who live there can now shop in their neighborhood. But they warned that now that there is a Ralph Lauren and a Brooks Brothers that future “formula retail” however desired by the neighbors, may not be allowed.
Paris of course is watched more carefully by the whole world, and LVMH is owned by one of the most sophisticated men in France, so it is surprising that he is derailed by these people so thoroughly.
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