Word: rue
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...half a century, Americans in Paris -sophisticates and innocents alike-have felt the same way about the American Express office. To them, the grimy faced, flatiron-shaped building at 11 Rue Scribe, across the street from the Opera, has been their home away from home. It has handled their mail (750,000 pieces a year, addressed simply c/o American Express, Paris), cashed their checks, even furnished them with "jeunes filles de bonne famille" for babysitters. Through its portals as many as 10,000 Americans have thronged each day in search of information, messages or waiting friends...
Supermodern Island. Last week progress and change came to 11 Rue Scribe. A gang of builders invaded the old structure, gutted the ground floor and prepared to rebuild the entire six floors. Only the outside will remain the same. France's "Law on Historic Monuments" jealously prohibits tampering with the building's traditional façade; city officials refused even to let American Express sandblast its grimy exterior lest this make the nearby grimy Opéra look even dirtier...
When the rebuilders finish April 15, the inside of 11 Rue Scribe will be a supermodern island of U.S. business efficiency in the old world. Gone will be the curlicued wrought iron balustrades, the clutter of desks on the ground floor, the buckety old elevators so useful to a lonely tourist trying to strike up an acquaintanceship with a pretty Iowa schoolmarm. In their place will be $750,000 worth of electronic gadgets, air conditioning, an escalator and labor-saving business machines. Last week, as traditionalists complained, American Express President Ralph T. Reed explained: "Travel has become big business...
...Casablanca's narrow Rue Dumont d'Urville one morning last week, a U.S. newsman walked through a police cordon to the offices of the daily Maroc-Presse (circ. 55,000), took a long look at its Broken windows and barricaded doors and said: "You've got to be a hero to work lere." For Maroc-Presse's 20 reporters and editors, courage is another requirement of the job; theirs is the most utterly hated newspaper in the world. Reporters are regularly beaten up, death threats come into the city desk almost daily. Editor Antoine Mazzella...
...carrying 16 American girls dressed in flowing silver-grey silk and toting violins, violas, cellos and a string bass; their conductor, Boris Sirpo, and a few assistants. In sum total they were the Little Chamber Orchestra from Portland, Ore., and their destination was the National French Television studio in Rue Cognacq...