Some stories begin with a sentence. Others begin with a place.

Les Boulevardiers began with Olympia: a fashionable block of Paris near the Opéra where gaslight catches in the mist, carriages rattle over wet cobblestones, and every open door seems to lead somewhere more dangerous than the last.

It is a world of theaters, cafés, brasseries, private clubs, brothels, opium rooms, salons, hidden passages, and alleys that do not easily surrender their secrets. By day, Olympia glitters. By night, it changes shape.

So I built a playlist for it.

The real block, the imagined block, and the café that kept returning

A city changes when you walk it.

On a map, Paris can look orderly: boulevards, axes, monuments, arrondissements, transit lines, polite geometry. But at street level, the city becomes something else. It compresses. It folds. A doorway becomes a clue. A narrow passage becomes a plot device. A café window becomes a surveillance post, a refuge, a stage, or a trap.