Carrefour Pleyel: origin of the name and station history
Served by: metro line 13.
Why this name?
A line 13 station in Saint-Denis, opened in 1952 as the terminus of the line. The infrastructure was finished in 1948 and the station fitted out in early 1950, but works had been slowed by the German authorities, halted in 1943 and then slowed again after the Liberation. Its name comes from the Pleyel crossroads, where the piano maker Ignace Joseph Pleyel founded a famous factory in 1807; the town named a nearby spot « place des Pianos ». The station has a side platform and a central platform between two tracks.
Anecdote
For the metro's centenary, the station received a « Music » themed decor with interactive lighting and sounds, which was stopped after two weeks following complaints from drivers and the line 13 users' association. There are four entrances, one of them closed off, and the Cité du cinéma, created by Luc Besson, occupies a former power plant that supplied the metro. The station is in zone 2, unlike the other Saint-Denis stations, which are in zone 3.
Around Carrefour Pleyel
- Stade de France, 550 m away — France's national stadium, opened in 1998, where the French team won its first football World Cup.
- Basilique de Saint-Denis, 1500 m away — The first Gothic building in history and the necropolis of the Kings of France for over a thousand years.
- Canal Saint-Denis, 500 m away — A 19th-century industrial canal, now lined with walkways amid major urban renewal.