PARIS WORLD EXPOSITION 1900
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This deck was published almost a century after the actual exhibition and the deck uses (extracts of) pictures that were taken by others than the official "Grimaud" photographer, J. Kuhn, and thus gives us additional visual information. The deck was published in the 1990's by Mijoke from Paris as "La Globe Celeste" after the amazing globe that was build on the square in front of the Eiffel tower for the 1900 exposition. The deck also shows pictures from the previous 4 world expositions in Paris on the numbercards (not shown here).

For transportation purposes, the complete inner-city site was served by an electrical elevated railway which provided access to the Champs de Mars, the banks of the Seine and the Esplanade des Invalides via a circular track. Running parallel to the elevated railway was the 3.5 kilometre-long "trottoir roulant" - a wooden pavement moving at two speeds of 4 and 8 km/h which was installed above street level and was accessible via transport belts without steps. Its novelty appeal made it the most popular means of transport, with up to 160,000 happily rolling through the exposition site each day, although there were mishaps, like the Jack of Hearts shows us here.
Still, it was the first one ever and must have caused some difficulties for the users. Nowadays we are fully used to rolling stairways, but also still thankful for the long "rolling pavements" in large subway stations like that of Montparnasse.

Was the exposition a success?
Expenditure: 119,225,707 francs, revenue: 126,318,168 francs......profit: over 7,000,000 francs!



And what a festive sight it was!

 

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