This was the commercial waterfront. The tall eighteenth-century houses along it were built by shipowners and merchants, and their decoration — carved heads, ironwork, mascarons — is a direct expression of what the port earned.
The memorial runs along this quay, which is deliberate: it is on the ground the ships left from.
Further west the quay runs on towards the Butte Sainte-Anne and the old Gare Maritime, where the river shuttle to Trentemoult leaves.
Read the buildings and the memorial together. Separately, each tells you half of what happened here.
Quai de la Fosse in pictures
