Friday, December 17, 2010

Coming Attractions

I wasn't aware until I saw it on this blog (which, by the way, is quite wonderful) that there was an actual name for those green, twirly column thingies that advertise movies and shows in Paris.  And doesn't the term Colonne Morris sound so much more refined and sophisticated?

Of course, learning the term merely piqued my curiousity about the name Morris and I let my fingers do the walking to find out that M. Morris, a printer,  first constructed them back in 1868, copying a similar structure in Berlin.  The company was purchased by JCDecaux, the French advertising giant, back in 1986.  As of 2006 (the last statistics I could find), there were 790 of these columns in Paris.  Several of which do double duty as either phone booths or public toilets although happily not both.

6 comments:

Genie -- Paris and Beyond said...

Great research and you have added to our knowledge of Paris... love the options on the toilet versus phonebooth. Hopefully, it is labeled!

Belle fin de semaine,
G

debbie in toronto said...

Love this...one of the many things that just screams..Paris

have a good weekend Anne

Jane, Naples, Florida said...

Thank you for this! Another thing
to love about Paris!

Jane
Flora Doora

Starman said...

These things can be found all over Europe. I like them.

Cécile Qd9 said...

the link to the "wonderful blog" leads to a page and nothing more. Can you give me the name and link of the "page d'accueil" please ?

Anne said...

Try again Cecile...and thanks for letting me know of the problem.

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