I climbed the Notre-Dame towers for the first time in the 1970-ties - as a then Polish student on a student exchange program with France. Right after I left for the NYC.
It was love at a first sight. As it was for the others!
A beautiful video-LOVE-LETTER to the Notre-Dame de Paris, posted while fire was still burning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j7q58-fCAM
Notre Dame de Paris (Belle) Je t'aime
The formidable music is from a world-famous 1998 French musical Notre-Dame de Paris, based on the the novel
Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) by Victor Hugo. Music by Riccardo Cocciante. The song English version starts ~min.8.
This musical had over 20 versions in diff. languages, including Georgian and.. Kazakh. Was never brought to
Broadway. It has been understood always that although the main record-breaking haunting song BELLE is dedicated
to Esmeralda (Gypsy love of the Hunchback), known as BELLE (Beauty), the song pays tribute to the Cathedrale
Notre-Dame de Paris itself.
The atmosphere:
Totally beautiful, truly stunning, posted just after the fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbdXXzhVKJc
The last music sung in Notre-Dame de Paris by the choir 😭💔 Stunning Stabat Mater!
In Latin, w/English subtitles
The long version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTZ01hm3pCk
Messe des Rameaux - The Palm Sunday Mass 4/14/2019
Heavenly voices /music for non-Catholics
Note the fabulous chestnut trees in bloom already, in the beginning.
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First, my ancestors were workers and peasants. This obscenity was built on their backs.
Second, how many little boys (and girls) got raped and abused by priests in this vile place in 800 years?
What does it take to see the obvious? Raze it and build a monument to the sorrows and wrecked lives that were (and are) caused of the vile people who created this monstrosity. Now is the time to remember these lives, not to restore a monument to pederasts, liars, and greed. Yellow vests take note.
@D. K. With all due respect most great architecture over the millennia from the Pyramids, to Angkor Wat, to the Mayan and Incan monuments too deities have been built by the labor of those at the bottom rung of the financial ladder and that policy remained thus so until Unions came of age, unfortunately Americas upper classes from both parties are trying to destroy the movement that gave voice to workers and what little power they have left has been further diminished by globalization, it’s time to correct that; in the meantime, in as much as Im not a card carrying member of Isis, who has done a lot of destroying of religious art and structures that they perceive as not being in line with their beliefs, I would prefer to see the gorgeous example of Medievalist Gothic Architecture restored for future generations to enjoy and make their own memories from just as these folks featured in Lelas wonderful article. BTW DK I think the best possible solution was achieved when the Uber rich stepped up to the plate( tax breaks aside) because as we all know there are so many other places requiring shrinking tax revenues for governments to do the work that churches crushed by lawsuits are no longer capable of. How about let’s just all agree, for today at least, how great it was that Lela brought forth this lovely article and allowed such a diverse group to remember their days in the sun.
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These are wonderful 'postcards of Notre Dame' in Paris for all seasons and ages. Ms. Margid, and her recollection of chattering away to a silent French monk on a park bench, surrounded by a crowd of Parisian pigeons near the Cathedral, is a source of rich crumbs of solace and comfort, to be shared with others on this solemn occasion.
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How much is the Vatican, the center of the Catholic religion, going to contribute to the restoration?
@irdac
Catholic Church is NOT the owner of the Notre-Dame, but the French State/government - who's responsibility is the structural-engineering etc. maintenance and retrofit of the building as such. All the churches as structures in France belong to the French State since the Revolution (1792).
Catholic Church is only a tenant in the Notre-Dame.
Direct your bile at Micron - that's where the buck stops. His crocodile tears are just that.
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In 1963 I hitch hiked with a friend from Amsterdam to Paris. He managed to get a job, selling the Herald Tribune on the Champs Elysees. I spent time on the Ile de la Cite, waiting for him to show up with money for food: all I did was walk around and take some pictures, like this attached one showing Notre-Dame centered in daily life, Paris.
On whose backs was Notre-Dame and other edifices to 'organized' religion built? (And still are according to the NYT Yeezy story today - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/nyregion/preachers-sneakers-instagram-account.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Perhaps it's time for all of us to put on our Gilets jaunes (yellow vest) and drive the money-changers from this temple called the Earth.
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Lovely. Thank you, N Y Times.
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Notre Dame is both historic and lucky. What I mean by that is that it is very similar to the Mona Lisa. That painting was note worthy because it was the first painting of a human from the waist up and employed a new technique and was painted by a high renaissance master.
Notre Dame was similar, noteworthy because of its grand architecture.
However what made them super iconic was that they were promoted by people/countries as symbols of something. With the Mona Lisa, it was the symbol of The Renaissance, with Notre Dame is was promoted as more than a grand church but the symbol of France like the Eiffel Tower.
Ironically I visited Notre Dame a few yrs. ago and took hundreds of pictures of it from all sides, angles, statues both inside and outside.
My family and friends tell me I might have taken the last exhaustive photos of the place before the great fire.
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Great article and especially important to share for others to read what " Notre Dame" means to so many in so many different ways.
The importance of protecting and preserving historic buildings is not just for their architectural beauty or historical significance but also for their emotional significance.
The importance of preserving our worldly treasures is a responsibility we must all share and protect.
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Beautiful, as befits Notre Dame!
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First I must comment on what a beautiful picture that Ms Fletcher has supplied !
I had visited Notre Dame several times in my life but it truly became a magical place for me when in 1996, visiting on my own trying to heal from lost relationships, I lite a candle & asked for my life to change. One week later I met the man I have spent my life with since.
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I just would like to briefly thank The New York Times and all the readers who contributed in writing this wonderful yet heartrending article.
I am French and of course this tragedy deeply affected me. Indeed it is such a big part of our identity, of our culture, of our history, and personnally I have quite a few good memories which are related to Notre-Dame, as have so many people...
And so you have no idea how much it means to me and to all of us to see how much Notre-Dame meant to the whole world.
It is of course unfortunate that it is in such circumstances that people gather and reunite - even in France, which is such a divided country at the moment, it felt like we had some sort of truce...- but it is incredibly comforting and I got goosebumps when reading all of those comments, as well as when I saw the myriad of reactions coming from all over the world...
Somehow I guess that there is something most reassuring and uplifting in seeing that if people are divided regarding political and economical issues, art and culture are still able to bring people together. Guess there is hope for humanity after all...
Thank you again to all of you.. Again - it literally means the world to me..
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@Agnes G We will be back!
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My husband and I visited Paris in 1991, and one of the most impressive sites there was the fabled Notre Dame. We are so thankful to have seen it in its older incarnation. What a beautiful, historically and spiritually resonant place. Also an architectural wonder!
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Ceci ne tuera pas cela
Stirred in the mist of deep consternation, my reflexions have been centered in the finding that my intellectual identity —as well as most of its ethical foundation— is rooted in the first reading of Notre Dame de Paris in the months of that distant summer in which Victor Hugo’s books and poetry guided my transition from high school to freshman year at the University of Havana, back in the early years of the 50’s. As accurately described by Mario Vargas Llosa, icon by right of our restless generations, the philosophical values, the aesthetical models, the ideology and the issues raging the intellectual debates in Latin America, were all following closely trends emanating from France.
In my case the seminal impulse came from the moving history of Esmeralda, Quasimodo and Claude Follo, weaved against the tapestry of Hugo’s argumentation of the struggle between architecture and Gutenberg’s lead letters taking the place of Orpheo’s stone letters.
Ceci tuera cela: the Book will kill the Edifice. And yet, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris, Notre Dame de Paris, has remained for eight hundred years the generic symbol of our civilization. Notre Dame has been The Edifice of our vision of Humanity. The flames of April 15, 2019, (“Ceci”), will not kill Notre Dame de Paris (“cela”). Ceci ne tuera pas cela.
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@Prof. Celestino Pena: Mario Llosa himself could not have written a more elegant tribute to Notre Dame de Paris. Really Lovely Professor.
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Thank you Lela for this assembling this collage of folks from all different backgrounds under all different circumstances who found their way to the City of Light and its spiritual center Notre Dame. Your article was particularly timely after the backlash from les gilets jaunes, as much as I see the need for changes throughout American and European Society to correct the terrible injustice brought about globalization and the rise of the 1%; this is one time I will not criticize Uber Rich; it was good to see them step up to the plate with nearly a billion dollars in one day to restore this architectural treasure that is visited by 13,000,000,000 a year, 13,000,000,000 mostly regular folks as those profiled in your article. Superb article and such a relief from the over abundance of depressing minutiae dominating todays headlines.
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