Square Necker

Square Necker is a quiet, rectangular urban garden tucked away in the fifteenth arrondissement. It takes its name from the nearby Necker–Enfants Malades Hospital, a medical institution with a history stretching back to the late eighteenth century. The hospital itself was founded in seventeen seventy-eight by Suzanne Necker, who transformed an old monastery into a place for the poor. Her husband, Jacques Necker, served as the finance minister to King Louis the Sixteenth and was such a polarizing and popular figure that his dismissal in seventeen eighty-nine helped ignite the chaos that led to the storming of the Bastille. Today, the square serves as a modest green sanctuary for the neighborhood, providing a simple play area for children and a small, peaceful lawn in the middle of the city.