Are you looking for a part of Paris that lacks chain stores, still has cobblestone streets and has maintained that old world Paris ambiance? If so, I suggest that you spend a day wandering the Butte-aux-Cailles district of Paris in the 13the arrondissement.
This is an historically working class section of Paris that is wedged between the Chinatown area at metro Tolbiac and metro Corvisart. The primary streets are rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles and rue des Cinq Diamants which are the center of night life with lively bars and restaurants.
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In the seventeenth century this area began as a fenced in section outside of Paris that overlooked the Bièvre River (*). This river is now covered over and runs underground. The families that lived here during the seventeenth century worked in the limestone mines. The mines have long since closed but they have continued to have a positive impact on the neighborhood. The terrain was determined as too fragile because of the underground tunnels to withstand extensive building projects. This allowed the area to remain as one of the really quaint sections of Paris. (*The dye factories in the fourteenth century turned the Bièvre River into an open sewer so it was slowly covered over by new streets resulting in many sinuous roadways.)
In 1860 the Butte-aux-Cailles was annexed into Paris. It is probably most often associated with an important battle of civil insurrection known as the Paris Commune of 1871. A memorial to this organization can be found at Place de la Commune de Paris.
