Passage du Grand-Cerf, covered arcade off rue Saint-Denis since 1825

The Passage du Grand-Cerf, a covered arcade between rue Saint-Denis and rue Dussoubs, opened in 1825 in the Bonne-Nouvelle quarter. It replaced an eighteenth-century passage serving the Hôtel du Grand Cerf, whose sign gave it its name. The banking house Devaux-Moisson bought the site that year.

By 1826 Isidore Monier owned it. In 1830 the newspaper L’Extra-Muros, to which the songwriter Émile Debraux contributed, had its offices at number 6. Around 1845 the arcade received its great glass roof: the iron structure allowed it to sit very high and the shopfronts to be glazed generously.

Left to the Assistance publique in 1862 by the Monier heir, the arcade slowly lost its income through neglect. Sold in 1987, it was restored by the architect Jean Le Corre. Louis Malle shot a scene of Zazie dans le métro here in 1960.

The arcade links rue Saint-Denis with rue Dussoubs and continues into the Passage du Bourg-l’Abbé. Beneath its tall glass roof are workshops and shops of craftsmen, designers, decorators and fashion labels, a few steps from Étienne Marcel and Les Halles.