Shopfronts and bars around a Sunday market square, with a brick church and courtyard housing behind the street front.
What Wazemmes looks like
The Sunday market fills the place de la Nouvelle Aventure, which also hosts it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Covered market halls run from the square toward rue Gambetta. Bars and restaurants ring the square, and their terraces are out in summer.
The church of Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul stands on the market square, a brick building with a tall spire above the shopfronts. The street fronts around it are two to four storeys of red brick, with rendered storefronts at ground level. The Mairie de quartier is a two-storey red brick building with arched windows and a sign naming Wazemmes.
Courées are the courtyard housing of the district, mainly on rue Racine, rue des Sarrazins and rue d'Iéna. Some have been destroyed. Each is a group of small houses facing each other across a narrow passage, entered through a dark corridor from the street. Five houses at the end of rue d'Iéna have been walled up for around ten years and sit inside the national urban renewal programme.
Shot in Wazemmes
Street shows on the parvis of the Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul church were filmed for the 2003 documentary En direct de Wazemmes, during the Wazemmes l'Accordéon festival. Other scenes were shot in the neighbourhood's cafés. The film also covers the Louche d'Or festival.
En direct de Wazemmes, 2003
The 2003 documentary filmed street shows on this forecourt during the Wazemmes l'Accordéon festival. The shopfronts along the square sit at the foot of the church front in the frame. Street View
What Wazemmes can double for
Épeule in Roubaix, France
Roubaix's courée housing is the same type. Small houses face each other across a narrow passage and are entered through a dark corridor. Prouvost's 1969 survey of Roubaix names l'Épeule among the districts with courées. Courées are hidden from passers-by behind the street houses, so a camera has to stand in the passage or corridor, not on the street. The shared toilets sit at the back of the courtyard and the water tap by the street, which a wide shot shows. Try searching courée narrow passage now.
The Cité Hellemans in the Marolles is a working-class complex of yellow and red brick, built from 1912 to 1915 with arcades linking its alleys. Its yellow and red brick and its arcades give the same working-class texture as the Wazemmes streets. At 272 housing units, the complex is far larger than a Wazemmes block, so a wide view shows the wrong scale. A tight frame of one alley arcade holds the match better. Try searching yellow brick alleys now.
