Coming Home to Little Paris NYC
The two-block neighborhood in downtown New York that feels unexpectedly Parisian, and why Lemieux et Cie chose to open at 161 Grand Street at the gateway to Little Paris NYC.
“Luxury is not a surface. It is a story told through objects that endure.”
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A French Brand Meant for This Corner
There is a particular kind of homecoming that does not involve returning to a place you have been before. It is arriving somewhere that feels, in some deeply familiar way, already yours.
That is what it means for Lemieux et Cie to open at 161 Grand Street, at the corner where Centre Street begins its most French block, between Grand and Broome. From this corner, you step straight into what New Yorkers now call Little Paris NYC, a compact downtown neighborhood where French cafés, wine bars, galleries, and a language school share the same streetscape.
For a brand rooted in French design history, craftsmanship, and enduring interiors, this address in SoHo/Nolita feels less like a new location and more like the right one.
The Street New York Almost Forgot
Most people walk past it without realizing what they are standing in. But Centre Street between Grand and Broome (spelled the French way, “Centre”) sits at the heart of a historic French presence in Lower Manhattan that dates back to the 19th century, when part of this area was known as a quartier français.
Today, that history helps explain why Little Paris NYC feels so distinct within SoHo and Nolita, and why this small section of downtown Manhattan has become a gathering place for French businesses, French speakers, and Francophiles.
5 Things Most People Do Not Know About Little Paris NYC
- In the late 1800s, part of what is now SoHo was a thriving French quarter. Contemporary accounts described streets where “the people are nearly all French,” with French butchers, bakers, and shopfronts.
- In the late Centre Street lies just east of Lafayette Street, named after the Marquis de Lafayette, the French military officer who fought in the American Revolution.
- The former NYPD Police Headquarters at 240 Centre Street (1909) is an imposing Beaux-Arts building whose dome and classical detailing evoke Parisian civic architecture.
- The “Little Paris NYC” street signs above the block are Parisian-style plaques, hand-painted in France and installed on Bastille Day 2021 to mark the neighborhood’s rebirth as a French hub
- New York City is home to a large French-speaking community, making it one of the most significant French cultural centers in the United States.
The original French community eventually dispersed, and the old quarter faded into the fabric of SoHo and Nolita. But the idea of a French village inside Manhattan never fully disappeared. In 2021, Coucou French Classes founders Léa and Marianne Perret led an effort to officially christen Centre Street between Grand and Broome as Little Paris, installing hand-painted signs and rallying local French businesses around a shared identity.
Where the French Block Begins
This is not a theme park. The French brands that cluster on and around Centre Street are the same names you would recognize in Paris, now woven into the streets of Nolita and SoHo.
Starting at our front door:
Lemieux et Cie’s store and studio at 161 Grand Street anchors the southern gateway to Little Paris NYC, extending the brand’s world beyond its flagship design studio at 14 Crosby Street. Step outside and the neighborhood unfolds in every direction, like an afternoon with nowhere in particular to be.
Walk north and you will find:
- Maman, a beloved French café and bakery whose SoHo/Nolita location helped set the tone for the block.
- La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, a Paris-born wine bar known for low banquettes, flattering light, and a deep wine list.
- Clic, a gallery, concept boutique, and art bookstore curating photography, design, and objects with a collector’s point of view.
- Coucou French Classes, the cultural heart of Little Paris, where native speakers lead language classes, film nights, and salons that keep the neighborhood’s French life active.
A short walk away, the map continues:
Sézane and Ba&sh on nearby streets for considered French fashion; Diptyque and Le Labo for fragrance; Cire Trudon for candles from one of the world’s oldest wax manufacturers; Maison Kitsuné on Lafayette for that offhand Parisian cool; Anne et Valentin for eyewear; and Zurcher Gallery, the New York outpost of a Paris gallery, for art.
In one small pocket of downtown Manhattan, French fashion, fragrance, art, and design meet on foot.
The Building That Feels Like Paris
The Building That Feels Like Paris The old Police Headquarters at 240 Centre Street is one of downtown New York’s most spectacular buildings. Completed in 1909, its limestone façade, classical columns, and copper dome exemplify Beaux-Arts grandeur and recall European civic architecture, especially Paris.
Walk past it on a grey morning and it is easy to imagine the Seine just out of sight.
That European classicism against a resolutely New York streetscape echoes what great French designers have always known: rigor and beauty are not the opposites of livability. They are its highest expression. Jean Royère’s biomorphic forms, Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre, and Jean-Michel Frank’s distilled minimalism fused precision with warmth, proving that restraint can feel deeply human.
This is the standard we hold ourselves to at Lemieux et Cie: pieces with historical depth, built by master artisans, meant to live and age in the rhythm of daily life.
French Design Heritage in New York
Lemieux et Cie launched in 2020, but its outlook is rooted in a deeper French story, a tradition of craft that has crossed borders and centuries. French families from Normandy, Paris, and beyond left ports like Rouen for the New World long before New Amsterdam became New York, and those movements of people, objects, and ideas seeded a French presence that still shapes the city’s culture today.
Now, in Little Paris NYC, that history takes a local form: a block of French businesses, French speakers, and Francophiles gathered under one shared identity in Lower Manhattan.
For a French heritage-minded furniture and home décor brand, opening a New York design store here is not just an address decision. It is a cultural one.
Visit Lemieux et Cie at 161 Grand Street
Our shop at 161 Grand Street is equal parts gallery and salon, a place where conversations about craft, history, and how we live now happen in more than one language, alongside neighbors who feel much the same way.
We designed the space to pull you gently off the energy of the street and into something more considered. A room where a French chair that might once have sat in a Parisian salon finds its way into a Nolita loft, where Paris and New York become two sides of the same beautifully made room.
Visit Lemieux et Cie at 161 Grand Street in Little Paris NYC. Come in from Grand Street. Stay as long as you like.
