Notre Dame’s New Spire – Feb 2024

Notre Dame’s New Spire – Feb 2024

Wrong monument. I realize today I thought it’d be fun to go check on Notre Dame. I haven’t actually been down to see the church in a while. Like, I was down there when I did my citizenship interview, but I didn’t really

Look around. I want to see the new spire. I just want to see what the updates to the exterior are, what the history that they’ve added to it is just kind of show you what to expect. And also because I’m curious, how’s it coming along? I gotta finish my run first.

I actually checked the weather app for once and it said like a 7% chance of rain. All right, already a spire and it’s exposed. This is cool! It’s just going to rain for this hour. The 1 hour that I’m —the one—

Right when I came down here. So instead, let’s grab lunch at Chanceux right here. It’s really, really good spot just around the corner. It’s their second location. We’ve seen the spire. That’s exciting. We’ll go see the rest after we eat. I was going to eat after, but I don’t want to walk

Around and film in the rain. What can I say? The other mission that we have today is to match photos! So you might have noticed – merci! – you might have noticed in the video where we got the old film back fromthe, disposable camera #2

There were two shots, one from this batch and one from that batch from the back of Notre Dame. And I’m just kind of curious to see if we can match that today while this spire is now exposed. So we’ll go do a

Walk around Notre Dame. I’ll kind of show you what to expect as far as, like, if you come in near future, what it looks like, and then hopefully within six months. It’s just a historical document of what it looked like, you know, in February

Of 2024. But after we eat, which is a good idea to eat first because I haven’t had anything to eat yet. We’ll just go for a stroll. See Notre Dame. I miss it. I miss it a lot. I really do. We won’t have to miss it for long.

Nothing like a hot sandwich on a cold, rainy day. Honestly, if it was a nicer day out, this would be the perfect spot to grab a sandwich to go and then go sit on the river and look at

The church. All right, so we’re approaching from the south side or the left bank, as it were. If you’ve never been to Paris before, or France, they don’t talk about north and south, east and west so much as they talk about the left

Bank and the right bank of any given river, which… you have to know the river is flowing that way. To know that this is the left bank, but you’ll figure it out. I can already see the spire. I don’t know which

Camp I fell into as far as recreation or something new, but it is nice to see it back in place, considering that there was a gaping hole there just a couple years ago. Let’s go check it out. So, Pont au Double, this is one

Of the first things that I’m noticing that’s different. This has been blocked off for years, and I haven’t been down here for a few months. So forgive me if this is not news to you, but it is to me. We haven’t been able

To cross this bridge and walk around the church for a really long time. So it’s really nice to have this open because the other bridges were getting a little bit crowded and it’s a bit annoying to walk around them.

There’s a guy playing the accordion here. There’s some benches you can sit and you can actually check out the construction. This is really nice. They had this closed off for a while, so it’s nice to see that it’s available again. This is really nice. These graphics

Are incredible. These I haven’t seen before. There’ve been a whole different smattering of them over time. So I’ve come down and seen a couple different ones. But it’s nice because they give you an overview of what the church has inside of it

Over here. In case you’ve never seen it before or you’ve just forgotten, this one gives you a little bit of the history of how they built it. And then this one shows you how they ended up going about restoring it. They spent two

Years, it says, defining the best way to restore it. They put a ton of work into putting this place back together, and it shows. I haven’t come at it from this angle, though, in years because this has been blocked off.

So this is really nice. Then they have some photos of… it looks like the restoration work. Some of the gargoyles, and then some of the people that are working on the project over here. Like crane operators, dude, the crane operators. That part’s

Insane. Like, they had to actually lower people down to remove the melted, broken down scaffolding, like, one piece at a time to make sure that it didn’t all collapse and ended up destroying the rest of the church. Portraits are really nice, though. This is really cool. So the photographic

Style that they’re using here was chosen by, I guess, Thomas van Houtryve. Sorry, I don’t know how to say your last name, Tom. And the portraits that we just saw were actually inspired by portraits of Viollet-le-Duc. One of the guys that restored some of the craziest stuff in France, did some

Amazing work. And so this guy used that photographic technique to do basically the same thing. And you can see some comparisons along with the methodology of how they produce the photos. It’s really cool. They’ve taken advantage of this space

To show different stuff. Every time I come down here, it’s different. While they put the bleachers back up. I actually think these things have been here forever. If you need to take a break, like sit down and just look at the church,

You actually get a decent view of it over the barriers and the containers and all that. Not the same as going in, obviously, but it is nice to be able to sit down, freeze a little bit. It is cold today. It’s not the best. I remember coming and sitting and just

Looking at it. And one of the fun things that I like to do when looking at this church is actually noticing the inconsistencies in the symmetry. Because when you look between left and right and different windows in your mind,

You think, oh, it’s going to be perfectly symmetrical. But in reality, there are a lot of imperfections that are introduced intentionally, and then others that I don’t know the story behind them. Like, if you look below the bell

Towers on each, there’s two different sets of windows. One of them super simple, like, they kind of forgot to decorate it. And the other one how it was supposed to be. And there’s still, like, some really decorative windows above the tall slit windows on the left. It’s just so interesting to

Me how they wouldn’t be exactly the same. And one of the ways you can really notice these things is if you stop and draw them. So if you ever want to sit down, sketch a little bit, it’s a good way to spot a

Lot of things that you might not otherwise notice in the process. It actually feels pretty spacious. And the funny thing is that the barriers with all the infographics on it feel really low when you get just far enough away.

You can obviously see a lot of the work being done. But just seeing the spire poking out between the towers right now, that’s a view that has not been seen, that I haven’t seen in a really long time. And it’s actually really, really cool to see for the first time here.

There’s something genuinely magical about this church. It’s really, really old, obviously. I missed the smell. Like, it has a very specific smell. It’s a symbol of France, and it’s one that I’ve always loved and one that I definitely miss. This is a section that I’ve seen before that I

Don’t think… they probably updated it, but it hasn’t changed a ton, which is highlighting all the work that went into this, like how the actual materials that have gone into it, the specialties, just a lot of stats, starting with the fire over here, which is. Man, it’s nuts. I actually

Live streamed it. You can go back and watch my live stream. I don’t know that you should do that. It’s very long and probably kind of emotional, but from the fire, through salvaging it, cleaning it and prepping

It, I’m interested to see where it ends down here. But if you walk alongside Notre Dame, you get to see it while being underneath the church itself. It makes it feel a lot taller with these barriers here, to be honest. Like, it feels tall and inaccessible. It’ll be accessible soon.

Holding out hope. Maybe 2025, but it’ll be accessible soon. The crane operators definitely get an amazing view. Wow. It’s really nice. It’s so cool to see how much love has been put into this place. Been a long time since I’ve been up there. All right, a couple

Of notes. Walking around here, it’s definitely crowded and it’s not even that busy of a day. Like I can imagine as the season ramps up, as it gets warmer and as more people come here, this will be insane. So be aware

That this is probably not the spot to go if you want to avoid crowds. And while these infographics are really nice, and actually there’s so much to learn, like from how they source the trees for the lumber to build the framework. Like the history behind it, the skill,

The genuine passion that went into all this, I think it’s genuinely inspiring and I would recommend that you come check this out and take some time to walk around it because it’s also going to be gone. This is hopefully a once in a lifetime experience to see the church

And everything around it like this. But at the same time, you’re gonna have to deal with crowds pushing past you as you try to read, and it’s very loud and it is a construction site and just never

Know who’s gonna end up standing around behind you, staring at you. The experience is still a little touristy around here, but that’s alright. We can all be tourists from time to time. Even little cold Cooper, he’ll never be

Allowed in the church. I don’t think this is as close as he gets. Alright, so I’ve got two photos that… I would like to recreate one of them, because one of them is going to be impossible. Let’s see. Older one.

I believe it’s the older one, at least the one from the most recent camera. Camera number two is this one, which is from the park just over here. You can actually see the spire in the park in the midst of all of

The construction offices. That’s an area that’s not going to be available for, like, another year. So this one’s going to be impossible to recreate today. However, we do have one more. This is from disposable camera question mark.

I’m not sure which one, but it still has the spire. And I know exactly where I took this photo and I’m pretty sure we can do something about it. Of course, the real question is: is this a photo from an upper level or a lower level? And thanks to today’s

Patron, producer, Tekela Tarvin. Tekela? Thanks Tekela! And all my patrons for keeping the interest and the curiosity of Paris alive. I just want to go back and revisit some of the oldies, you know? Check in on these guys, because for all I know, they’re about to fall over

And I don’t want to miss out. If that interests you as well, let me know. I’m planning on reinstating the monument polls. Let you pick where I go every week to do a little bit of investigative work. So, final thoughts? Well, they’re making progress! It’s really nice to see, like, I’m very ready

To go back in that church. Maybe that seems a little odd. I know a lot of people that live here that never go in there. And I think if you’re not a tourist or maybe you’re not religious or maybe you don’t feel motivated

To go in, but I would say that of all the major attractions in Paris, especially the free ones, when it comes back available, it’s really worth it for the history, for the art, the beauty, the feeling of it. There’s just something really, really special. And then you

Get to tell people all about flying buttresses. How often you get to talk about flying buttresses? Like, literally never, except on a very rare occasion. Did you find a stick? You’re not so sure about this ground, are you? Just got to add a new foreground element. Wait.

There it is! Good boy. All right. Good job.

Notre Dame’s spire is up and visible from afar! I thought I’d go check out the progress from the outside and see what you might if you decide to visit it sometime soon. Get access to my guide to Paris at https://parisinmypocket.com/ and help me make better videos at http://patreon.com/jayswanson 🥳

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My name is Jay Swanson – I’m an American writer living in Paris on an artist visa. Paris (yes the one in France) has been my home for years now and I have every intention of staying here for as long as they’ll have me. I write science-fiction and fantasy, vlogged daily for 3+ years, and love pizza a little too much. Now I make videos about visiting Paris, traveling in Europe, and try to share what I’ve learned along the way. I hope you enjoyed what you found.

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