Recalled in the memoir
The Big Sea
Hughes remembers the performers' café and the moment Sonya hid under their table when the Danish tourist she had robbed passed the window.
The Flea Pit
Demolished
Outside only
A redeveloped site
The vanished café at the La Bruyère and Pigalle corner where Black musicians and performers gathered, and where Langston Hughes watched Sonya hide beneath their table.
- Corner of Rue La Bruyère and the former Rue Pigalle, 75009 Paris
- Black Montmartre gathering place in the 1920s
Illustration
The place, briefly
The Flea Pit was a small café on rue La Bruyère at its corner with the old rue Pigalle, close to Le Grand Duc. Black musicians and Montmartre performers used it as an afternoon meeting place. A contemporary fictional account in Eric D. Walrond's 1926 story Wedding Day calls it both the Pit and the Flea Pit and explains the nickname in the period's own racial slang; the important point is the density of the Black American circle that passed through the room.
Langston Hughes came here with Sonya after one of their rare prosperous mornings. Sonya had taken money from a drunken Danish patron at Zelli's. They celebrated with a haircut and shine for Hughes, a manicure for Sonya, lunch at an unnamed café on Place Pigalle, and Hughes's first Paris movie.
At dusk they returned to the Flea Pit and sat just inside its street window. Sonya abruptly slid under the table. The Dane she had robbed was walking past outside, and she stayed on the floor signaling for everyone to ignore her until he disappeared down the hill. Hughes tells the scene without improving it; the room's big window and the community's familiarity do all the work.
The café has vanished, and its informal name makes the precise shopfront difficult to reconstruct beyond the documented corner. This record stops at that level. It does not transfer the Flea Pit's identity to the hotel or any other business now standing there.
Key facts
- An afternoon café and gathering place for Black musicians and Montmartre performers
- At the corner of rue La Bruyère and the old rue Pigalle
- Came here with Sonya in 1924
- Sonya hid beneath their table when a Danish tourist passed the window
- Corner-level; no modern successor is claimed
- The historical café is gone
In images
Timeline
The café serves as a daily meeting place in Black Montmartre.
Langston Hughes and Sonya sit here after lunch and a movie; Sonya ducks beneath their table.
Eric D. Walrond places the Flea Pit and its clientele in his story Wedding Day.
On the map
Related books
Writers who knew this place
Langston Hughes
Frequented by · 1924
Hughes identifies this little rue La Bruyère café as the late-afternoon hangout of Montmartre performers and remembers sitting at its window with Sonya in 1924.
Within walking distance
15 rue La Bruyère
A Paul Gauguin address in the 9th arrondissement during the years when he was still a stockbroker, painting on Sundays and quietly assembling one of the better private Impressionist collections in Paris.
Visit the place
56 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette
The house where Paul Gauguin was born on 7 June 1848, months before the family fled France for Peru — a departure that killed his father and shaped everything that came after.
Visit the place
Le Grand Duc
The tiny Montmartre nightclub where Langston Hughes washed dishes in 1924 and Bricktop began her Paris career — an eight-foot bar, a dance floor for a dozen couples, and the after-hours jam sessions that ended the quarter's nights.
Visit the place
Zelli's
Crowded, smoky, and loud — Joe Zelli's Montmartre boîte, where the music hits you at the door and the novel's Paris nights go to end.
Visit the placeReferences
References
The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document The Flea Pit, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.
1The Big Sea
MemoirAlfred A. Knopf, New York, 1940Used forFirst-person evidence and historical context used in preparing the The Flea Pit page.
2Wedding Day
PeriodicalFire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists, 1926Used forContemporary reporting or criticism used to document the historical reception and context of The Flea Pit.
3Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story Between the Great Wars
BiographyUniversity of California Press, 2001Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to The Flea Pit.
4Stepping Back in Time: Langston Hughes' writings reveal Black Montmartre
PeriodicalSFGATE, 2003Used forContemporary reporting or criticism used to document the historical reception and context of The Flea Pit.
5OpenStreetMap
Map dataUsed forMap data used to verify addresses, geographic coordinates, and the placement associated with The Flea Pit.
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Why these sources are here
These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
Explore more resourcesNewsletter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.