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Paris — Bar Le Cotton Club

Parallel 38°
2 min readJun 11, 2018

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Bar Le Cotton Club is located in 25, Rue Victor Masse’, 75009 Paris.
Le Cotton Club Bar is walking distance from Place Pigalle and Pigalle Metro station.
Originally the street was named Rue Laval. Here in 1886 Vincent Van Gough and his brother Theo lived during their second stay in Paris, in a tiny apartment on the 2nd floor of the courtyard building at the civic number 25.
In 1901 Martha Weill (1865–1951) opens the first art gallery owned by a female entrepreneur.
“Le petite mère Weill” (which literally means “the little mother Weill”, but sounds like “the little marvel”), as the gallery was named, hosted the first exhibition and sold the first paintings of Pablo Picasso and other artists of the Cubist movement.
Photos above and previous one are taken from CDG airport Terminal 2E, where there is a Le Café Cubiste and an adiacent exhibition.
“Berthe Weill, the little gallerist of the great artists” is a biography written in 2011. Among the famous personalities and celebrities that visited Weill’s gallery there are: Amedeo Modigliani, Jean Paul Satre, Simone de Beauvoir, Coco Chanel, Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker. In recent times Patrick Suskind and Cecilia Sarkozy (the first wife of former French President Sarkozy) were seen at the Le Cotton Club.
In 1917 an insurance company, the new owner of the establishment, transforms it in a grocery store, selling also drinks.
In 1920 the brasserie changes name in Cotton Club, evocative of cotton and opium traffic from faraway worlds. The Parisien place is much smaller than the original inspiration, the Cotton Club in New York: in spite of being in Montmartre they both share similar fascinating atmospheres.
After the WWI the shop is transformed in a hostess bar. Some interiors still remind of that past.
Belkacem, the husband of Lynda, host, bouncer, security and factotum of the Cotton Club mentions that there were three madame owners for three different religions: Berthe Weill (owner in 1901–1917, Jewish), Le Morvan (Catholic) and Lynda Mouhabeddine (owner 2015-present, Muslim).
A fourth generation American in Paris, Australia born, Harley Davidson lover, bar owner explained that the historical building across the Le Cotton Club was in the 19th century one of the most famous hostess bar in Pigalle area. Today it is a cultural heritage building restored with the original decoration. He and Belkacem also mentioned that the glass decor at the entrance was made by a Japanese artist.
Paris
Cotton Club
Pigalle
Montmartre

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Parallel 38°

Written by Parallel 38°

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Stories from Korea. In pursuit of truth, impartial pov, fear/favorless, independent of party/sect/interests involved.

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