Paris is definitely the city I know best outside of New York. I've taken 3 trips, each time meeting fascinating new people and having adventures I'd couldn't have imagined even on the last trip. Still, even through this progression, this first night in Paris was my favorite. Guerrilla Urbanism's like heroin - you're always chasing that first high. My first Paris high ended at three in the morning with a naked woman on top of a statue of a Seraph in sub-zero weather 150 feet above the city.

  

Paris is a city with an enormously interesting variety of urban history and layers. In addition to having some of the premier cultural, architectural, and historical attractions in the world, it also has one of the premier attractions for those interested in the urban underground - the 170 miles of limestone quarries dotted with WWII bunkers, ossuaries, unofficial art galleries (such as the one seen above), and other assorted surprises colloquially know as “The Catacombs.” Every self-respecting international urban adventurer has spent at least a few hours down there. And the whole purpose of my first trip to Paris was to see as much of them as I could. Although almost all of the Catacombs are officially off-limits to the public, access is generally pretty easy. And you can spend a lifetime down there and not see everything. But as I later find out, in Paris the Catacombs are only the beginning.

  

I had taken this trip to Paris with my friend Steve. Another friend of ours, Miru, was already there and had hooked up with some locals. We call her upon arrival, and end up getting a surprise added bonus - turning away from the phone a bit, Steve asks me “so you wanna go climb a tower tonight?”

  

We end up meeting Miru and a group of Cataphiles (as aficionados of the Paris underworld are sometimes called) at a restaurant on the Right Bank. The leader of the group is an immaculately dressed young French woman who instantly earns the nickname “Rosie” from me for some reason - it might be because of the pink skull on her otherwise jet-black outfit. The others are from an art collective down the street, 59 Rue de Rivoli.

  

The Tour St. Jacques is the only surviving part of a 16th century Gothic church, the rest of which was demolished in 1797. Nicolas Flamel was supposedly buried underneath its floor, and Blaise Pascal used it to conduct his experiments on atmospheric pressure (today it also houses a meteorological laboratory). It’s located inside a small park in the 4th arrondissement right in the middle of Paris - despite it being well past midnight, I have no idea how we’re going to pull this off without getting caught.

  

The first part is easy - somehow, Rosie’s got a key to the park, which is closed after dark. But there’s still the problem of getting past the 12-foot tall solid metal barriers that surround the actual tower. If it were just Steve and I, we could probably find a way over, but we have the added challenge of getting the other, less athletic people across as well. After a bit of poking around, Rosie shows up out of nowhere with a shovel. Steve gets to digging. I am absolutely amazed that no passersby seem to find this a particularly noteworthy situation. Although it is really late, and we’re partially hidden by some bushes, if it were Midtown Manhattan instead of Central Paris we’d probably be in handcuffs by now. But as I learn on my later trips, for whatever reason Paris is just really chill about this kind of stuff.

  

After about 10 minutes, Steve has managed to create a hole under the barrier big enough for me to slip through. I take the shovel and clear out the other side a bit. Everyone wiggles under, and we head to the tower.

  

The Tour St. Jacques is currently being inspected and restored, so we have the advantage of scaffolding, which makes the climb pretty easy. We make our way up, stepping over protruding gargoyles and stopping occasionally to admire the Gothic detailing close up. But the real goal, as always, is the top. Because of the scaffolding, we can get a close-up look at the 3-story tall statue on top that was added in the 19th Century. I’m pretty much content to hang out and admire the view while the others take photographs, occasionally posing for a shot.

  

But when Steve asks me to pose for a photo on top of a statue on the corner of the roof, I balk. A big factor in getting to climb the tower was the scaffolding. The scaffolding was erected at least partially to assist with the historic preservation of the tower. So I feel like anything that might interfere with the preservation of the sculptures - like sitting on them for instance - is kind of bad manners. Miru, on the other hand, has no such qualms. Her main art project involves taking naked photos of herself in strange places, and I guess this is just too good of an opportunity for her to pass up; niceties like historic preservation - or the fact that it’s absolutely freezing - can’t stand in the way of true artistic vision.

  

We head back down the tower through the interior spiral staircase, out a small passageway back onto the scaffolding, and out the same hole we came in. The gang decides to try and fill it back in. I can’t say I understand the point - all I can think of is the irony of getting caught at the end of this excursion filling up the hole we dug to get in. Still, 15 minutes later when we’re safe sipping tea at the art collective, I can forgive our new friends anything. It’s been the most wonderful welcome to a city I’ve ever had.

More secrets of the City of Light can be found here