Our readers can also make their proposals for the new neighborhood names!
Every Wednesday, we now go around the different neighborhoods to not only present them, but also to help you find « real » names for them, relating to their history, their geography or their daily life. After district 5 last week, place today at number 6, managed by the district council which adopted the slogan « The 6 in unison ».
major arteries
When it comes to choosing a name for this district in the extreme south-east of the city, reference may be made to the Édouard-Herriot school, to the Chabaud park or even, why not, to the Marché d national interest (Min).
Apart from the zone reserved for the market-station, district 6 represents a triangle which would be limited to the south by the ring road (avenue de Colmar) which would represent its base. The other two sides that meet at the height of the Toussaint district are made up of avenue Jean-Jaurès to the east, and avenue Georges-Cuvier then rue Verlaine to the west.
This district has a very contemporary look with its wide thoroughfares (rue Aristide-Briand, avenue Édouard-Herriot), squares and esplanades as well as playgrounds for children. Along avenue Édouard-Herriot, a few local shops have been set up. There is also a post office there. It is pleasant to circulate in this district, including by car, because it has many free parking spaces. The Édouard-Herriot school center (which houses the Maison de l’Europe) sets the pace for the district.
Reinforcing the very airy side of the district, the Chabaud park, planted with beautiful trees, is the major attraction of the Tapie-Mondésir block. Lots of locals go there. Both young and old.
Buildings and individual houses
In fine weather, the tables are taken by storm for family picnics. It is a place conducive to exchanges between the residents who already represent a good example of social diversity and the families who come to visit the residents of the Saint-Jean medical residence.
The Edouard-Herriot school is a very lively site, where many leisure and cultural activities are held
Partly transformed over the past twenty years, district 6 on the side of the Mandiberon block (rue Verlaine, rue Rimbaud, etc.) is characterized by a group of individual houses, almost all of which have a garden. There are still a few “building bars” from the 1960s (rue Louis-Lavelle) but the adjoining dwellings (rue Tapie, rue Jules-Massenet, etc.) have largely dethroned them.
The inhabitants of the district feel somewhat sheltered from the hustle and bustle of the city center while being able to access it very easily. A long-established population of foreign origin gives this district, which long ago abandoned the bad image that clung to it, a relaxed and good-natured atmosphere. The development of avenue Jean-Jaurès will reinforce the image of a modern district, with its own characteristics and way of life but largely open to the outside world.
“The neighborhood has changed its social typology”
What are the main attractions of your neighborhood?
Henriette Magri, president of district council 6: “Our district has an airy appearance. It is well served by various bus lines. We find local shops, schools but also Chabaud Park, its « green lung » and many playgrounds for children. »
How has your neighborhood evolved in recent years?
“Since the very beginning of the 2000s, the district has been entirely rehabilitated, in particular under the impetus of two mayors, Paul Chollet and Jean Dionis du Séjour. Bars of buildings have given way to individual dwellings, which has considerably changed its social typology, which is characterized by a great mix. Our district thus welcomes members of various communities but also, recently, the Saint-Jean medical residence and the families of the residents or even the Dami (reception system for immigrant minors). The development of rue Aristide-Briand (opposite the 48th RT) has opened up the district on avenue Jean-Jaurès. »
What projects will they see the light of day soon?
“We want to renovate the sidewalks and roadways of several arteries, but before that, we have to finalize the studies in progress on the rainwater network – essential in order to avoid further flooding. Apart from these road works which will affect different streets, we are going to create a micro-forest (next to the Édouard-Herriot school). Regarding entertainment, we have just organized an egg hunt in Chabaud Park, we will have the Neighbors Day (May 20) or even an inter-district football tournament for young people. Finally, our neighborhood council donated €4,000 to the social center to equip its kitchen. »
Avenue de Colmar when it was created in 1970. It refers to the Alsatian city, whose administrative services (and a large population) took refuge in Agen in 1939. There is also a rue d’Agen in Colmar
A quite recent urbanization
Before the construction of the Tapie-Mondésir city, in the first half of the 1960s, the sector was not very urbanized. The names of the places that bore the city testify to a rural past. The cadastre of 1845, for example, mentions a path of Tapie of which the current street Tapie keeps the memory. The winding route of rue Paganel, which extends rue Denfert-Rochereau, contrasts with the very straight lines of the other streets in the district. This is because it too belongs to the landscape of the past by its old name: chemin d’Agen à Péchabout, on the cadastral map of 1845. The name of this locality is itself preserved by a road in part of the district which extends it, like an appendage, towards the south-east, beyond the avenue de Colmar: the impasse Péchabout. In the first half of the 20th century, the fields clearly outweighed the constructions.
The construction of blocks of buildings, emblematic of the period of the « Trente Glorieuses » when it was necessary to respond to the need to house both the people of Age and the many immigrants of the time, changed the appearance of the sector by imposing on it an aesthetic that has “barred” the landscape with large rectangular blocks and the streets leading to them. All the buildings, but also the many individual houses, wisely distributed and aligned in their blocks, revolve around the Edouard-Herriot school, one of the creations of the prolific architect Roland Jossilévitch.
Chabaud Park
Completed in 1977, the avenue de Colmar acts as a ring road materializing on the ground the limit of the urban extension of the time. It took with it the demolition of the Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix chapel which would be located today at the southern end of the current impasse Chanoine-Angély.
Between avenue Jean-Jaurès and the end of avenue de Colmar, however, remains a green space, the Chabaud park, part of which has just been converted into housing. This park has given its name to a new complex which, through its architecture and a new conception of town planning, evacuates the concept of « city » both in the thing and the words: it is now the « Residence of the park Chabaud”.
F. Stephanus and the research group of the Academy on the streets of Agen
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