Our before-and-after meeting of the summer (4): images of Montpellier twenty or thirty years ago

2006-2024: no more cars on Ledru-Rollin and Jeu-de-Paume. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

Episode 4. It was better before? Or not? It's up to you to judge. Throughout the summer, every Sunday, Midi Libre offers you a stroll through the city… in a time that was not so long ago. It was twenty or thirty years ago. Our ever-young photographer Jean-Michel Mart retraced his steps, the places of old reports.

1. Station

2001, rue Jules-Ferry hits the old station car park. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

2001. Rue Jules-Ferry and the former station silo car park, in operation for almost thirty years, from 1977 to 2004. Access was via the Pont de Sète and Rue du Grand-Saint-Jean, at a time when the roof of the SNCF station also housed the drop-off point and the bus station. The destruction of this immense building allowed the opening and creation of an entire district: the New Saint-Roch.

2001, rue Jules-Ferry is cleared and opens onto a new street: Alexandra-David-Neel. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

2024. Rue Jules-Ferry is clear, the Sète bridge is still there, in the background, the tramway has arrived, the remarkable Belaroia and Higher Roch buildings show their particularities and… the parking silo has been rebuilt. More modern, offset to the other side of the bridge, it was rebuilt perpendicular to the old one and parallel to the SNCF tracks. If travelers have to walk a little, urbanistically, the whole is more coherent.

2. Jeu-de-Paume

2006. Traffic jam on the Jeu-de-Paume. Midi Libre – JEAN MICHEL MART

2006.Descending from Peyrou, the Ledru-Rollin boulevards and, in its continuity, the Jeu-de-Paume are still very busy, crossing the city and providing access to the Comédie tunnel. First three lanes, then two, this motoring kingdom had the particularity of being congested at all hours of the day.

2024. Rails and pedestrians on the Jeu-de-Paume. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

2024. No more cars, the boulevards Ledru-Rollin and Jeu-de-Paume are now only (or almost) used by the tramway. Compared to the Champs-Élysées when it was launched after the first developments, the artery is intended to be essentially pedestrian and commercial, even if the graft is slow to take.

3. La Paillade

2001, the Tritons towers are standing. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

2001. In 1968, La Paillade, on its heights (seen here from Grabels) had five towers, which were called the Tritons, and a block, Phobos, whose name alone was enough to not venture there if you were not invited. The towers in question were all destroyed, not without real emotion as the inhabitants were so attached to them: first Cambacérès (2001), then Monge (2005), Condorcet (2012), Cambon (2013) and D’Alembert (2017).

2024, without the Tritons towers. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

2024. La Paillade has been extensively reworked, starting with the name. Now call it Mosson and its heights are called Hauts-de-Massane. With a real policy of rethinking the entire neighborhood and the support of the National Urban Renewal Agency, the neighborhood is changing. The symbol: the Assas tower, at the stadium level, which is currently being demolished.

4. Vauguières

1995. The Lironde Park… Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

1995-2024. Inaugurated in 1995, the Lironde Park, named after the stream that runs through it, has not changed much, and has been wisely preserved. Rather unknown, it is a real green lung. The surroundings have largely evolved in this now highly urbanized area, between Avenue Mendès-France, Port-Marianne and Odysseum.

2024. Lironde Park… not much more wooded but much more urbanized on the edge. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

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