Montsouris

Before you step into the park, look down at the ground you are walking on. This land sits directly above a complex maze of abandoned stone quarries and old mine tunnels. When city planners began transforming this area in the nineteenth century, they discovered the site was riddled with these underground voids, which had previously served as a grim overflow space for thousands of human skeletons removed from Parisian cemeteries. Workers had to clear out these remains and reinforce the unstable ground before the first tree could be planted.