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The Anne Frank Garden is a well-hidden park a short distance east of the Forum des Halles.
The park is on a tiny, dead-end pedestrian street just behind the popular Pompidou Center.
This is the front or west side of the Center, which is a museum of modern art.
On the south side of the Center there’s the Stravinsky Fountain, and restaurants.
Renard Street runs right next to the east side of the Pompidou Center.
It changes its name to Beaubourg Street about half-way past the museum.
This is the bus stop nearest to the Anne Frank Garden (Lines 29, 38, 47, and 75).
The name of the street changes as it continues north, but it’s the same street.
Since this is the back of the Center, it doesn’t get as much foot traffic as the other sides.
Beaubourg Street meets Rambuteau Street on the north side of the Pompidou Center.
The street is pedestrian north of the Center (seen here), but vehicular to the east (behind us).
On this corner is the nearest Métro station, Rambuteau, served by Line 11.
And just north of the corner, on this (east) side of the street, is this tiny sign.
Here you’ll find a little pedestrian street that sneaks eastward between some buildings.
Let’s swing away from Beaubourg Street and take a walk down Impasse Berthaud.
It’s very easy to walk past this street without seeing it if you’re not looking for it.
Looking the opposite way, it lines up with another pedestrian street across Beaubourg Street.
This cozy little passage is also home to the Doll Museum (Musée de la Poupée).
And there’s the only entrance to the Anne Frank Garden, up ahead.
The park, built in 2007, is divided into three sections.
This first section is modern and was built in 2007.
Inside it, there’s a chestnut tree grown from the tree that Anne Frank admired out her window.
This is it. The original tree in Amsterdam was lost in 2010 when it was felled by a storm.
There’s also a table with a chessboard (just one), although people use it for eating lunch.
You can see the chestnut tree and the entrance to the center section of the park back there.
Now let’s visit the center section of the park, which has existed since the 17th century.
It was originally the “backyard” of the Saint-Aignan mansion, which is off to the right (east).
Today the mansion houses the Museum of Jewish Art and History.
That’s the museum behind the fence.
I think the statue there is a statue of Alfred Dreyfus.
There’s no park entrance from the museum, though, which is on Temple Street, to the east.
The museum is on the right.
This is the entrance. The park is off to the left and behind the building.
Here we are back in the park.
The rest of the center section (west end shown here) has been renovated.
The renovation attempted to follow the 17th-century design closely.
And here on the left you can see the archway leading to the third section.
Looking back south, you can see that the Pompidou Center is not far away.
Now let’s move on to the third section of the park.
One interesting feature of this section is a tiny garden.
It is maintained by the “1001 Leaves” club, which is local to this neighborhood.
I don’t know how large the club is, but the garden is really small, albeit well tended.
This is the rest of the third section, looking away (west) from the little garden.
From a small playground at the other end, you can see the tiny garden.
The entire park is hemmed in and hidden by the buildings around it.
That’s about it. I’ll walk you back out to the street.
Almost looks kinda spooky, huh?
There’s busy Beaubourg Street up ahead.
If you cross the street and continue, you end up in the modern Quartier de l’Horloge.
I show that in another video.
There’s the Pompidou Center again.
Thank you for watching my video.