In Russia, artificial “trees” offer a dedicated padlock area. Other cities have found ways to cope with the lock mania. Huff claimed the illegal vendors sometimes damage railings, prompting city crews to replace them for safety reasons - thus creating more space for the locks they sell. A vendor quickly folded up a sheet showing his padlocks for sale and fled as four police officers approached. A young woman cried with joy and wiped her eyes as a kneeling suitor shouted in English, “She said ‘Yes’!” to the applause of other tourists. On one recent day, Chinese women snapped photos of the Eiffel Tower from the bridge, then posed for one with the locks as a backdrop. “Is that going to be their memory of Paris?” “They just see the wall of metal,” she said of young children too short to see over the railings. “That’s the other sad part: People used to come here to look at the view,” Huff said. The city official said municipal architects have examined and generally discounted the alleged risk that bridge railings might not withstand the weight and could topple over onto tour-boat gawkers.Īnd now the locks have become an attraction in themselves. She and Anselmo make their case on, but some comments posted there show not all are favorable to their crusade. The petition has garnered more than 5,200 signatures so far, mostly by French people, Huff said. Some historians once felt the Pont des Arts itself - whose origins date to Napoleon’s wish in 1804 for a footbridge - impeded views of the Louvre, City Hall’s website says. What qualifies as an eyesore depends on the beholder. “If tourists aren’t going to be responsible by themselves, it’s up to the city to set the limits.”
“We really can’t blame the tourists for doing what they think they’re allowed to do,” said Huff, a writer who also works booking visitor reservations. New ones were going up nearly by the minute. “Do we want this to be the city of locks?”Īs the native of Hackettstown, New Jersey, spoke on the Pont des Arts, the bridge shimmered in the spring sun from thousands of rusting locks on its rails. It’s because we love the city,” said Huff.
We’re not heartless, celibate people with no love in our lives. Locks also cling en masse on a bridge near Notre Dame Cathedral and some have even cropped up on the Eiffel Tower. “We don’t foresee banning them, but we’re thinking about another form - an alternative - that tourists and Parisians can use to display their love in a way compatible with respect for city heritage,” she said.Īnselmo’s and Huff’s top complaint is the Pont des Arts, a historic pedestrian bridge near the Louvre with incomparable views of the Seine’s Ile de la Cite island.
And it shows tourists and Parisians are attached to the symbol of Paris as the City of Love,” said a City Hall spokeswoman, who declined to be identified by name because of protocol. Enforcement in a city where bikers regularly run red lights could be tricky.įor now, it’s the status quo - no restrictions. Options range from fines to signs encouraging tourists to be responsible. Her predecessor generally sided with freedom-of-expression advocates.
POSEIDON LOCKED HEART HOW TO
The government of Anne Hidalgo, Paris’ new mayor, is contemplating how to respond. Their petition, at, says “the heart of Paris has been made ugly” by the locks and the Seine has been polluted by thousands of keys. Others cite a recent Italian novel as the inspiration.Ĭampaigners Lisa Taylor Huff and Lisa Anselmo are denouncing what they call a padlock plague, warning of alleged safety risks and arguing the craze is now a cliche. Some say the tradition has its roots in 19th-century Hungary. In urban myth, it goes like this: Latch a padlock to a bridge railing and chuck the key into the water as you make a wish. City leaders say they’re exploring alternatives. They’ve launched a petition to try to get the city’s mostly laissez-faire officials to do something. Part of a global phenomenon, the craze has grown in Paris recently and now two American women who call Paris home have had enough. PARIS (AP) - Without love, what is Paris? And yet what is a trip to Paris without unfettered vistas of the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre or Notre Dame from bridges over the River Seine?Ĭoncerns about scenery are clashing with sentimentality in this reputed City of Love over a profusion of padlocks hitched by lovers on bridges as symbols of everlasting “amour” - locks that some decry as an eyesore.
0 kommentar(er)
