Place Pigalle

Place Pigalle features a wide, paved square centered around a modest fountain, marked by the steady convergence of traffic from five busy streets. It serves as the gateway to the district named after the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. In eighteen eighty-nine, a young woman named Louise Weber, better known as La Goulue, began dancing here for sailors and artists. She eventually brought the high-kicking can-can from these open street corners onto the nearby stage of the Moulin Rouge, turning the square into a legend.