Cite des Fleurs 8-11-15

I've been lobbying to go see the Cite des Fleurs for quite a while but things have not worked out in that direction until today.   Located up in the 17th arr, the Cite des Fleurs is a gated private street around 300 meters in length lined with houses dating as far back as the beginning of the street in 1847.  It may be the oldest development in Paris with housing covenants which are still in place and enforced.  The street is lined with a variety of architectural styles and a large percentage are quite lovely in design, while some are more utilitarian.   All have fences facing the street with front yards of one type or another.  Some yards are paved while many others are gardens with flowering plants and at least one has palm trees.
We walked down the street the first time looking at houses on one side of the street, then left the street to walk around the neighborhood looking for a place to have lunch.  During our walk we found 3 different little parks within about 5 blocks, one was hidden at the back of a dead end street while the others were bounded by streets and buildings on all sides.
After our little walkabout we settled on the first restaurant we had seen, Irene et Bernard, sitting on a corner about a block from the Cite des Fleurs gate.  We both had a tasty filet mignon of pork with roast potatoes in a mustard sauce.  Of course, seeing filet mignon I ordered my "saignant" which is bloody, it was only after it was delivered that I realized it was pork which explained the somewhat nonplussed look of the waitress when I ordered.
After lunch we walked back to the street and walked it again looking at the houses and gardens on the opposite side.  It does appear that there must have been builders who constructed more than one house on the street because there are several with markedly similar designs.
When we finished with the street we walked over to yet another park a couple blocks away, named in honor of Martin Luther King.  It contains a skateboard park where children were going wild on the ramps and pipe, almost no skateboards in evidence but several scooters like the types we see in the streets.   The great majority of kids were just running up on to the upper stages of the pipe and then sliding down without any equipment.   The kids on scooters were going down the ramps and trying to jump across middle ramps then up ramps at the other end.
We watched this mayhem for an hours or so and then headed home, where I was able to pick up my blood test results from the morning visit.