Property magnate Charles Cohen’s €8m renovation of La Pagode branded a ‘massacre’
When the property magnate Charles Cohen bought the La Pagode cinema in Paris, complete with its celebrated Japanese garden, three years ago, he announced that as an American in Paris he wanted “everyone to be happy”.
The cinema-loving Francophile promised to “restore and preserve” the magnificent listed building and pledged he would “not disappoint” with his €8m facelift.
But locals in the 7th arrondissement near the celebrated cinema are far from happy, claiming the historic site has been partly destroyed. They describe the sawing down of a ginkgo biloba tree, a large horse chestnut and a weeping beech – unexpectedly razed on the day France’s strict lockdown ended – as a chainsaw “massacre”.