Colonel William A. Phillips

Saint-Marcel (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ maʁsɛl]) is a station on Line 5 of the Paris Métro, located in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, under the Boulevard de l'Hôpital.

Location

The station is located under the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, south of the intersection of the Rue des Wallons. It is the first underground station for southbound passengers after Gare d'Austerlitz. The station serves Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital.

History

The station was opened on 2 June 1906 with the commissioning of the first section of Line 5 between Gare d'Orléans (now Gare d'Austerlitz) and Place d'Italie.

It owes its name to its proximity to the beginning of Boulevard Saint-Marcel, named for a 5th-century bishop of Paris, who died in 436 and was famous for his mythical miracles. He rescued Paris from a monstrous dragon, changed the water of the Seine into wine, as well as converted pagans.

In 2018, 2,286,932 travellers entered the station which placed it at 240th position of Métro stations for its attendance.^[1]

Passenger services

Access

The station has two accesses consisting of fixed stairs opening on either side of the Boulevard de l'Hôpital:

• Access 1: Boulevard de l'Hôpital – La Pitié-Salpêtrière, adorned with a Guimard edicule, now a historical monument (decreed on 12 February 2016), is on the right of the No. 83, which is one of the entrances to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital;
• Access 2: Rue des Wallons, embellished with a mast with a yellow "M" in a circle, located opposite No. 50 on the boulevard.

Station layout

Line 5 platforms	Side platform, doors will open on the right
	Southbound	← toward Place d'Italie (Campo Formio)
	Northbound	→ toward Bobigny–Pablo Picasso (Gare d'Austerlitz) →
	Side platform, doors will open on the right

Platforms

Saint-Marcel metro station is of a standard configuration. It has two platforms separated by metro tracks and the roof is elliptical. The decor is the style used for the majority of metro stations. The lighting strips are white and rounded in the Gaudin style of the metro revival of the 2000s, and the white ceramic tiles bevelled on the sides, the tympans and the outlets of the corridors. The vault is coated and painted white. The advertising frames are white ceramic and the name of the station is written in the Parisine type font on enamelled plates. The platforms are equipped with wooden slat benches.

Bus connections

The station is served by Lines 57 and 91 of the RATP Bus Network and, at night, by the N31 line of the Noctilien network.

Nearby

• Jardin des plantes
• Grand Mosque of Paris
• Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital
• Campus Pitié-Salpêtrière

Culture

One of the station's entrances is visible in a scene in the first moments of Claude Autant-Lara's film The Traversée de Paris.

References