France’s Apartments Are Tall. The Elevator Is Small. The Silence Has 12 Floors.
PARIS — The Paris apartment elevator is small. The standard Haussmann building’s elevator accommodates two to three people at a proximity exceeding standard social comfort distances for acquaintances and strangers, for a duration — the 12-floor ascent of approximately 45 seconds — sufficient to require either conversation (which 45 seconds requires) or the managed shared silence that close-quarters strangers must navigate. The phone is available. The floor indicator numbers are available. The practiced look at neither is also available.
The Neighbor Specific
The neighbor is neither stranger nor acquaintance in the typical sense: the person whose existence is known, whose life is adjacent, whose name may or may not be known depending on the building’s sociality level. Some Paris buildings have a “gardien” who creates community through daily contact. Some buildings have residents who have lived on the same floor four years and know each other only as “the person from the fourth floor.” Both are Paris. Both are in the elevator. Both are watching the numbers.
According to Paris’s housing information service, the elevator is a shared building responsibility managed through the copropriete structure. The elevator has been repaired. The silence continues. Both floors are reached correctly and efficiently.
Worth the ride at Virtuosal.com.
