My favorite Paris guidebooks are not from Lonely Planet, wallpapers, or monocles. In fact, I'm sure you've never heard of it. The volume, published in 1953 by an Afro-American company titled “Here Comes Paris!”, sets just 30 pages in a cheerful yellow cover decorated with white line drawings of the Eiffel Tower.
Filled with engaging and conversational advice, this booklet describes Paris as “not a place, but a way of life – unique, fond of, unrestrained.”
The book's author, Ollie Stewart, was the uncle of my father, born in Louisiana in 1906. He was the first black reporter to be recognized as a war correspondent during World War II, and lived in Paris until his death in 1977 after the war.
In the e-book “Race Goes To War,” Antero Pietila and Stacy Spaulding describe the wartime trip of Uncle Ollie from Afro-American, a black newspaper based in Baltimore. He covered the skirmishes in North Africa in 1942, the Battle of Sicily in 1943, and the invasion of Normandy in 1944.
He explained the conditions of the segregated soldiers, attended training for Tuskegee airlines, and was “treated as a celebrity in Afro and other black newspapers.”
Instead of returning home to Jim Crow South after the war, he stayed in Paris, where he met in his only time in 1976. I was a small child and traveled with my parents.
Uncle Ollie passed away the following year. He never married and had no children. However, his writing about Paris reveals how he fell in love with the city. In addition to “Here is Paris!” he wrote a number of other unpublished Paris-oriented articles and essays, including a 4,000-word work entitled “Cafe Sitting: A Way of Life.”
So when I'm in Paris, I look for Uncle Olly's words, just like I was to cover the Olympics last year.
“Paris is here!” More than 70 years ago, the approach felt energetic and fresh. “With appreciation for money, companions, good stomachs and good life,” the introduction said, “Paris can be the most satisfying place in the world, even if you can't speak a language!”
A few years ago I stayed at a small hotel in the ninth arrondissement near Montmartre. I checked what Uncle Olly had to say about Pigall in a nearby location. He writes:
In fact, there were signs of table dance, lap dance, lingerie, and “specialist aphrodisiaque.” Several stores offered adult toys in the shape of Eiffel Tower.
But nowadays, Pigall is also home to McDonald's, with a line of young, stylish frequent bars and nightclubs. Threshold security guards investigate the kingdoms that customers have circumscribed, laughing at smoking. Pop song snippets are leaking through the entrance.
It's impossible to know what Uncle Ollie thinks about it. But I know he disapproved of the huge suitcase I packed up to cover the Olympics. He was firmly against the heavy load. “Porters may have to run to make an invisible train,” he wrote, adding:
The chapter “Wine and Liquor” in Uncle Ollie's Guide claims that “Champagne is the perfect drink.” And that's not yet.
For me, my trip to Paris would not be complete without a jovial atmosphere. I'm biased towards the French 75S and Kir Royales. We sipped some champagne in front of the spectacular views of the Skybar on the 34th floor of the Hyatt next to the Palais des Congles. A dimly lit wood panelled bar, like a movie from the Le Meurice Hotel. And, as Uncle Olly did, outside the Parisian air of various sidewalk cafes.
I often leaned when treated with polite service, but Uncle Ollie's guide complains, “Americans give too much wherever they are and ruin everything.”
We recommended that some of Ollie's Uncle's restaurants and bars had been closed years ago. However, during the Olympics, I took his advice and ate at Le Dome in Montparnasse. Uncle Olly described it as a good place to “sit down and see the world,” and described Hemingway as a regular in the past.
I praised the plate by sliding the fork into the delicate fish and admired the octagonal plate decorated with Art Deco lettering and illustrations of a harely server in jackets and aprons. What did they discuss? He interviewed Morocco's Josephine Baker during the war – did they meet Mour in the middle of the night?
Brown v. While the school board controls the news, I like to imagine him at a table full of black foreigners who visited his coffee.
Written by black people for a black audience, his guide acknowledged the racial cruelty of the United States in 1953 and informed readers of their rights. Regarding cafes in Paris, he wrote:
However, “Here is Paris!” he does not live much in the country he left behind, and instead encourages his readers to find joy in the City of Light. The “Paria After Dark” chapter introduces, as he writes, Ollie's non-discriminatory and diplomatic character.
“I don't know your marriage status, your church affiliation, or the size of your bankroll, of course, when you go out to remove your hair, I couldn't tell you what to do.
Of course, some tips are outdated. Paris and the world have changed since 1953.
You can skip Uncle Olly's advice to get an entire chapter on arriving in Paris via Traveler's check and ship. His declaration that “French people do not provide or drink water with food” is no longer true, especially in facilities visited by tourists frequently. However, the Seine bookstore that invited him is still there. As he wrote, “If you get tired of books or prints, you can sit on a bench and fall asleep in the sun. It's a good old French custom, and no one criticizes not sweating your brain at your work.”
Paris is a great city to walk to. In the tourism section of his guide, Uncle Olly writes:
One afternoon walk I passed at least dozens of dazzling landmarks. This is a large classic column by La Madeleine. A gorgeous golden winged monument above the Paris Opera. An Egyptian obelisk located at the Delaconcorde site.
Walking around town reveals the rhythm of the music. A narrow, twisted side street opens into a raucous, bustling square, like a tinkling melody that gives way to a raucous chorus.
This composition comes with: visual pleasure. A victorious angel, a distorted gargoyle, an intricately legged balcony railing, bright green shutters, and grey mansard roofs separated by curious dormer windows. Beauty for beauty.
When I crossed Pont de la Concorde, I wondered which bridge was Uncle Ollie's favorite. After the brutality of war, he slowly took a stroll around Quai d'orsay, marveling at the enormous luxury of Pon Alexander III, as I had just done, with his cheeky cherubs, nymphs and gold accents?
On page 21, Uncle Olly says that if readers need recommendations that they cannot find on the guide's page, “You'll need to look into me when you arrive in Paris.
He added:
My address is July 7th. As long as time allows, I am pleased to answer questions and show visitors around town if they compensate me equally for the amount I spend on their behalf.
So I took a photograph of a stone-like Art Deco facade built in 1925, walking to Laos in July, with carved poppies and ornate ironworkers highlighting the doors and balconies.
Located at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, it is just off the imposing 18th century complex of Ecole Militia and the extensive open park space of Champion de Mars. When I met Uncle Ollie in 1953 or 1976, I tried to imagine it. Perhaps some companies have changed their names, but certainly the streets and cream-colored buildings were the same.
The city was full of tourists, but I was the only person standing in front of Laos in July. It's a beautiful building, but not one of the stunning monuments of a stunning monument. Tourists flock to Paris.
For me, it's a landmark. I could imagine Uncle Ollie coming back late, washing away with wine and gossip and entering the doorway under a shower of carved flowers floating in the stonework above his head.
“You'll be a writer just like my uncle Ollie,” my dad said when I was young and dabbled in poetry and fiction. When I was sent to Paris on assignment, I felt it was destined, as was my uncle Ollie once.
My grandparents and my parents all died, and none of them were in the way of any concrete assets. There is no property, no precious gems or wedding gowns. What they inherited is what they taught me, how they lived, how they loved them.
And the Uncle's Ollie Guide is a valuable heirloom. He bequeathed to his passion for Paris and his exploration of the world with humor and fun. His command is to take life, dry it out, blow away the expectations and limits of the past, laugh, make your own rules, and really immerse yourself in the joy of living, for as many sparkling moments as possible. As he wrote about spending an afternoon on the Seine:
You can ride a boat and ride the river, or fire a few francs and rent a fishing rod from the French. You probably won't catch things – but not the hundreds of people fishing on the Seine every day. But who cares? The sun is shining, you are alive, and what would the boys returning home say if they could meet you now?
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