Place d'Italie

The Place d’Italie is a vast, circular junction where seven major streets converge in the thirteenth arrondissement. Its center is dominated by a modern fountain, the Fontaine Wallace, honoring the nineteenth-century philanthropist Richard Wallace. This square marks the site of the old Barrière d’Italie, a toll gate where travelers arriving from the south once paid duties to enter Paris. In the nineteen sixties, urban planners razed the surrounding neighborhood to make way for the high-rise residential towers that now loom over the traffic.