Cours de la Bièvre (Course of the Bièvre River) (fifth arrondissement)

The neighborhood around the Bièvre, a tributary of the Seine that enters Paris from the southeast, was the site of many small factories, especially leather works, dye shops, and laundries that dumped copious amounts of chemical waste into the river. When Marville photographed the area in the early 1860s, city officials, concerned with the health hazards and “terrible stench” emanating from the Bièvre, were planning to tackle the problem. (The waterway was covered over at the end of the nineteenth century and now runs underground, through the sewers.)

In this view of a tannery, men lined up along the narrow canal pause from their work scraping hides to regard the camera and the man behind it. The tanning profession had deep roots in this working-class neighborhood, but like Old Paris itself, it was on the verge of extinction.