The city of Paris will name a street after rock icon David Bowie on Monday, officials announced, a first in honor of the singer eight years after his death.
“David Bowie Street” will be officially inaugurated in the 13th arrondissement of the capital, on the left bank of the city. No former dignitary names will need to be removed to make way for Bowie, as the street was created recently as part of a major overhaul of the neighborhood that also includes the modernist university library Bibliothèque François Mitterrand.
The thoroughfare – about 50 meters long – was previously known to city planners as “VoieDZ/13”, a working title that might have appealed to Bowie himself who wrote songs such as “TVC15″ or ” 5:15″. “.
Bowie, who died on January 10, 2016 from liver cancer, would have been 77 on Monday.
Bowie counts as one of the most influential and best-selling musicians of the 20th century, largely due to his unparalleled ability to reinvent himself artistically throughout a career that took off with the hit single “Space Oddity” in 1969.
His signature songs and albums include “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” and “Aladdin Sane”, as well as commercial hits “Let's Dance” and “China Girl”, as well as dark and experimental works such as “Low”.
– 'Dancing in the street!' –
Paris played a less important role in Bowie's life than London, Berlin and Los Angeles, but French avant-garde theater culture had an influence on his visual style.
He also successfully covered the French-speaking songs “Amsterdam” and “Ma Mort” by Jacques Brel, who was not actually French but Belgian.
A cryptic phrase in Bowie's song “Aladdin Sane” refers to “Paris or maybe Hell.”
He still has a cult following in France, where fan clubs like “Bowie France” sell merchandise, organize Bowie concerts and conventions attracting thousands of people, and where the cover band “Bowie Reloaded” even fills large venues of nostalgic fans.
The unveiling of the plaque on Monday is scheduled for 4:15 p.m. (3:15 p.m. GMT), the mayor of the 13th arrondissement of Paris, Jérôme Coumet, indicated on X, former Twitter.
A self-confessed Bowie fan, Coumet floated the idea of a Bowie Street in early 2020 and won approval from the city of Paris later that year, arguing that the star had “a strong connection to the City of Lights” .
There is no record of a street named after David-Bowie anywhere else. In his post
Monday's unveiling of the street name plaque will be followed by an evening tribute to Bowie at the district's city hall, featuring Bowie's friend and biographer Jérôme Soligny, as well as producer Clifford Slapper of a tribute album “Bowie Songs One”.
A Bowie exhibit, also at the mayor's office, is scheduled to run through the end of next week.