Le Mur des Cascades

The Rue des Cascades is a winding, four-hundred-seventy-five-meter-long street in the twentieth arrondissement that draws its name from a forgotten piece of Parisian infrastructure. Centuries ago, a complex system of stone manholes known as regards allowed workers to inspect the underground aqueducts that funneled spring water from the Belleville hills down to the center of the city. One such installation, the Regard des Cascades, sat at the intersection with the present-day Place Henri-Krasucki and took its name from a nine-meter-long waterfall that once carried water down the hillside.