The Paris Sewer Museum
5/12/202618 min
We dive into the dirty history of the famed Paris sewer system, from its unorthodox cleaning methods, to a pneumatic postal service that ran via the sewer, to… a poop tax.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlexa Lim· Host0:01
Hi, Kelly. How's it going?
Kelly McEvers· Host0:01
Good.
Alexa Lim· Host0:02
Good. Okay, so today I have a story for you that takes place in Paris, and it centers around one of the lesser-known tourist destinations there. So- In Paris. Yes. Are you a Paris person? Have you been to Paris?
Kelly McEvers· Host0:14
[laughs] I have been to Paris, but it has been a really, really long time. I haven't been to Paris since, like, the '90s. I went as, like, a backpacker, did those home stay things that you did back then. I remember I stayed with a blind programmer in a beautiful neighborhood of Paris. Anyway, the point is, I need to get back to Paris.
Alexa Lim· Host0:38
Yeah. I went for three days and, you know, I saw, like, the Louvre and everything, but the thing that sticks out for me is a falafel sandwich that I had there, so- Oh ... you know.
Kelly McEvers· Host0:47
Nice.
Alexa Lim· Host0:47
But there's this one lesser-known landmark that I wanna talk about.
Kelly McEvers· Host0:50
Okay.
Alexa Lim· Host0:51
And it had one of its first public unveilings in 1867, and in 1867, Paris was hosting the World's Fair. You know, the point of a world fair is to showcase the big technologies that are happening. So of course, different countries come and they would set up exhibits and wanna showboat about how modern they have become, right?
Kelly McEvers· Host1:12
Mm-hmm.
Alexa Lim· Host1:12
Um, and at the time, Napoleon III was the Emperor of France, and he was the nephew of the short Napoleon.
Kelly McEvers· Host1:19
Right. There were so many Napoleons, it's really hard to keep track. Yeah.
Alexa Lim· Host1:22
How he came to power was very complicated, but one of the big items on his agenda was to modernize and industrialize France.