Église Notre-Dame de la Gare

The church of Notre-Dame de la Gare stands on the Place Jeanne-d'Arc as a product of the rapid industrialization of the thirteenth arrondissement during the mid-nineteenth century. Its name derives from its proximity to a major freight railway station, or gare, that once defined the activity of this working-class neighborhood. Emperor Napoleon III commissioned this building to provide a spiritual anchor for a district that was quickly filling with glassworks, oil refineries, and eventually automobile factories. Construction finished in eighteen sixty-four, marking the site as a cornerstone of the area's social and physical expansion.