Blanche () is a station on

Paris Métro Line 2 Paris Métro Line 2 (French: ''Ligne 2 du métro de Paris'') is one of the sixteen lines of the Paris Métro. Situated almost entirely above the former customs barrier around the capital (''Boulevards extérieurs''), it runs in a semicircle in t ...

, on the border of the

9th 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

and the

18th arrondissement The 18th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of Paris, the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''dix-huitième''. The arrondis ...

Location

The station is located under

Boulevard de Clichy The Boulevard de Clichy () is a famous street of Paris, which lends its name to the Place de Clichy, resulted from the fusion, in 1864, of the roads that paralleled the Wall of the Farmers-General, both inside and out. It extends from the Place d ...

Montmartre Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...

, east of Place Blanche. Oriented approximately along an east–west axis, it is located between the

Place de Clichy The Place de Clichy, also known as "Place Clichy", is situated in the northwestern quadrant of Paris. It is formed by the intersection of the Boulevard de Clichy, the Avenue Clichy, the Rue Clichy, the Boulevard des Batignolles, and the Rue ...

and Pigalle metro stations.

History

The station was opened on 21 October 1902 as part of the extension of line 2 Nord from Étoile to Anvers and simply as line 2 from 17 October 1907. The station was not ready for the opening of the line two weeks earlier, so trains passed without stopping. The station is named after the ''Place Blanche'' (French for "white place"), which derives its name from the

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...

that spilled in the 17th century from the wagons leaving the Montmartre quarries, where it was mined to produce

plaster of Paris Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...

. The ''Place'' was named after the ''Barrière Blanche'', a gate built for the collection of taxation as part of the

Wall of the Farmers-General A wall is a structure and a surface that defines an area; carries a load; provides security, shelter, or soundproofing; or, is decorative. There are many kinds of walls, including: * Walls in buildings that form a fundamental part of the supe ...

; the gate was built between 1784 and 1788 and demolished in the 19th century. From the 1950s until 2010, the walls were covered with a metallic bodywork with blue horizontal pillars and illuminated golden advertising frames. Its removal was part of the RATP's ''Renouveau du métro'' renovation program, and was completed with 'shell' white seats characteristic of the ''Motte'' style. In 2019, 3,893,362 travelers entered this station which placed it at the 122nd position of the metro stations for its usage.

Passenger services

Access

The station has a single access entitled ''Boulevard de Clichy'', leading to the central reservation of this boulevard, facing no. 59. Consisting of a fixed staircase, it is adorned with a Guimard entrance, whose remaining elements are subject to a registration as historic monuments by a decree of 29 May 1978.

Station layout

Platforms

Blanche is a standard configuration station. It has two platforms separated by the metro tracks and the vault is elliptical. The decoration is of the style used for most metro stations. The lighting canopies are white and rounded in the ''Gaudin'' style of the ''renouveau du métro des années 2000'', and the bevelled white ceramic tiles cover the walls, the vault and the tympans. The advertising frames are in white ceramic and the name of the station is written in

Parisine Parisine is a typeface created by Jean-François Porchez. Distributed by Typofonderie. It is used in Paris Métro, tramways, buses and RER parts operated by the RATP Group in Île-de-France. Starting in 2015, the Osaka City Subway in Japan a ...

font on enameled plates. The seats are in orange ''Akiko'' style.

Bus services

The station is served by lines 30, 54, 68, 74 and the tourist line OpenTour of the

RATP Bus Network The RATP bus network covers the entire territory of the city of Paris and the vast majority of its near suburbs. Operated by the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP), this constitutes a dense bus network complementary to other public ...

and, at night, N01 and N02 of the

Noctilien Noctilien is the night bus service in Paris and its agglomeration. It is managed by the Île-de-France Mobilités (formerly the STIF), the Île-de-France regional public transit authority, and operated by RATP (with 32 lines) and Transilien SNC ...

network.

Nearby

The station serves the

Moulin Rouge Moulin Rouge (, ; ) is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche. In 1889, the Moulin Rouge was co-founded by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Olympia (P ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blanche (Paris Metro) Paris Métro stations in the 9th arrondissement of Paris Paris Métro stations in the 18th arrondissement of Paris Railway stations in France opened in 1902 Paris Métro stations located underground