Jonction: Geneva

The Jonction is, literally, the junction of the Arve and Rhône rivers where they form a "y" shape and carve out a triangle-shaped corner of Geneva. While the Arve starts in the French Alps, and meets its end at the Jonction, the Rhone starts in Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) and ends in the Mediterranean, at Marseille. Until recently Jonction was a spotty neighborhood of quaint family restaurants, small hardware stores, and unfortunate dead-ends like the municipal bus depot, derelict factories, and lonely warehouses. Nowadays the quarter is waking up to a gritty urban revival, thanks much in part to being home to Geneva's Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMCO) and numerous art galleries. Centred on the axes of Rue des Bains, Rue du Stand and Boulevard St. Georges, Jonction is beginning to blend with the more student crowd of neighboring Plainpalais. With renovated lofts, funky bars, urban danceclubs such as L'Usine ("The Factory") and the thrice-annual QuARTier des Bains gallery walk, Jonction is rebranding itself as the epicenter for Geneva's urban hipsters, the Swiss equivalent to the young people in New York's Chelsea (or, Meatpacking district) or London's Soho (or, Southbank) ... meaning: evolving, hip, and on a much smaller scale. Come see how the Swiss rebel against their staid roots. © Editor