Paris-Saint-Lazare: origin of the name and station history
Served by: Transilien J and L.
Why this name?
A station in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, the first station built in Île-de-France: first called an "embarcadère", it opened in 1837 with the Paris to Saint-Germain-en-Laye line, under Louis-Philippe I, the inaugural train leaving the provisional station at place de l'Europe for Le Pecq. The third station was designed by the architect Alfred Armand and the engineer Eugène Flachat, from 1842 to 1853, at the corner of rue d'Amsterdam and rue Saint-Lazare, from which it takes its name. The present façade building was built from 1885 to 1889 under the direction of Juste Lisch, for the Exposition universelle.
Anecdote
Claude Monet painted a series of twelve paintings there after obtaining permission to work in the station, seeking the effects of light and steam. Since 1985, two works by Arman have stood in the courtyards: Consigne à vie, a stack of suitcases, and L'Heure de tous, a stack of clocks. The Art Nouveau glass roofs of the transverse platform, the work of the painter and railwayman Charles Sarteur, depict towns served by the network. The station appears in Jean Renoir's La Bête humaine (1938) and in the final scene of Claude Lelouch's Un homme et une femme (1966).
Around Paris-Saint-Lazare
- Chapelle expiatoire, 250 m away — A neoclassical Restoration memorial built on the site of the cemetery where Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette lay.
- Église Saint-Augustin, 400 m away — A church with a hidden metal frame beneath a vast dome, by Victor Baltard.
- Pont de l'Europe, 350 m away — A metal bridge over the Saint-Lazare tracks, immortalised by Gustave Caillebotte.