Châtelet-Les Halles: station history
Served by: RER A, B and D.
Did you know?
A station for RER A, B and D, put into service in 1977 and operated by the RATP. Entirely underground, beneath the Forum des Halles and La Canopée, it has seven tracks and four platforms, including two central platforms reserved for line D. A corridor with three moving walkways about 153 metres long links it to the Châtelet metro station. According to the RATP, it is the largest underground station in Europe. In the exchange hall, a bronze sculpture, « Énergies », by Pierre-Yves Trémois, dates from 1977.
Anecdote
The place has a market history: in 1137, Louis VII established a market at the place called Les Champeaux, then Victor Baltard built ten pavilions of iron, cast iron and glass between 1854 and 1870, dismantled from 1971 to 1973. The station is the setting of a security-van robbery in Luc Besson's 1985 film Subway, and a location in the comic Métro Châtelet direction Cassiopée. Renovated from 2011 to 2017 without closing, it got its exchange hall back a year behind schedule.
Around Châtelet-Les Halles
- Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, 400 m away — A circular 18th-century former grain exchange, converted into a contemporary art museum for the François Pinault collection.
- Jardin Nelson-Mandela, 170 m away — A large contemporary garden laid out on the roof of the Forum des Halles, with pergolas and water features.
- Tour Saint-Jacques, 450 m away — A 16th-century Flamboyant Gothic tower, remnant of the church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, at the centre of Paris's first railed-in square, created in 1856 by Alphand. A statue of Pascal (1857) recalls his experiments on atmospheric pressure. Restored from 2006 to 2009.