Like a beautiful iron balcony on a Haussmann building, the Pont des Arts crosses the Seine linking the rive gauche to the Louvre.
On this day in 1984, Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac christened the newest version of the bridge.
The first bridge or passerelle dates back to 1801 and was ordered by Napoleon. Engineers Lacroix and Dillon would design the first metal bridge in Paris, take that Eiffel. At the time the Louvre was the Palais des Arts, so the delicate passerelle was given the same beautiful name, bien sur. Originally with nine arches it was constructed to look like a hanging garden stretching across the Seine.
Lined with orange trees, rose bushes and flowers one could sit on one of the benches and contemplate their day. There was a small toll to cross it of 5 centimes until 1848, imagine that helped pay for the floral upkeep.
With it’s nine narrow arches the bridge was the constant victim of bumps and bruises. In 1852 they removed an arch on the left bank adding a little more space. During WWII German bombings continued the damage. In January 1961 when the levels of the Seine were at their winter height the mast of a tow boat ran into the bridge damaging 30 feet and the fifth arch. Ten years later a barge destroys the sixth arch and damages two more. Patched and repaired each time until 1979 when the final blow was too much. A barge hit it so hard, 195 feet of the bridge collapsed. This time it couldn’t be repaired.
The bridge was finally demolished, but pieces of the origin arch can be found in Nogent-sur-Marne. The passerelle des Arts de Nogent has the surviving arches of the 1804 span.
Architect Louis Arretche was asked to design a new bridge, however he kept it very close to the original. Reducing the arches to seven to avoid the past damage, the beautiful garden has been removed and today just a few benches line the center of the bridge.
The Mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac stood on the bridge on June 27, 1984 and inaugurated the new, just as beautiful as the old bridge. Today it is the spot I must walk over every day, no matter the time of the day it is one of the best views in all of Paris.