The devastating fire that gutted much of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France in April 2019 left so much careful cleanup and restoration work to be done that it was only expected that the UNESCO World Heritage Site would reopen to the public five years after the fire.
Now, according to the New York Times, the deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire hopes that sections of the square in front of the cathedral will open to the public in the European spring ‘if everything goes OK’.
Traces of lead and rubble need to be removed in order to make it safe. The New York Times reported that levels of lead on site were 1,300 times higher than French safety guidelines after the fire but by now most have this has been cleaned up.
Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France. Image credit: Pixabay.
The deputy mayor of Paris hopes to open the plaza in front of Notre Dame in the first half of 2020 and the crypt beneath the cathedral may also be reopened.
‘For now we do not know the precise date. The crypt will reopen as soon as the clean-up operation will be finished and the site safe,’ Camille Courbis of Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris and Crypte Archéologique told Lonely Planet. Courbis also said that a new exhibition, which will be a tribute to Notre Dame, will open when the crypt is reopened if all goes according to plan.
