Little Paris is a project led by Coucou founder and CEO Léa Perret, born from the same idea that has shaped Coucou from the beginning: creating a place for contemporary French language, culture, and community in New York.

The goal goes beyond putting a French name on a few blocks. It’s about bringing the French businesses, Francophones, and Francophiles already here into the open, and onto the map.

New York is home to roughly 60,000 French expats and more than 81,000 French speakers. The French presence here, especially in Lower Manhattan, runs deeper than most New Yorkers realize.

In the mid-17th century, a hill overlooked what is now Nolita. The land was bought by the Bayards, a prominent Huguenot family of Franco-Dutch origin, who built their estate there. For two centuries, the area was known as "Bayard’s Mount."

Then, in the second half of the 1800s, French immigrants arrived in waves, and what we now call SoHo became a flourishing quartier français.

A century and a half later, the French have found their way back. Coucou shares the block with Maman, La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, and Clic. Even the old NYPD headquarters across the street, that imposing Beaux-Arts building, was modeled on the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.

It’s time for the French and Francophiles of New York to have a home again. A neighborhood whose name reflects what’s already here. A place like Little Paris.

Little Paris sits on Centre Street, between Broome and Grand, in Lower Manhattan. It was inaugurated on Bastille Day 2021, when Coucou installed Parisian street signs hand-painted in France and lettered “Little Paris NYC” on the facades of the block.

A network of French businesses has quietly settled back into the same streets that made up New York’s French Quarter 150 years ago.

The next step is to grow Little Paris beyond its current block, inviting more French and Francophone businesses across Nolita and SoHo to join the map, share visibility, and build something together.

The Little Paris Guidebook brings together French businesses, cafés, galleries, wine bars, and points of interest across the neighborhood. Whether you live downtown or you’re here for the weekend, it’s an easy way to find your way around.

The bigger ambition is simple: a neighborhood where Francophones can tell their stories, new Francophiles can find their way in, and the mix of French roots and New York energy has somewhere to call home.