UP on boulevard haussmann. DOWN on rue saint-honor?

[donagigi]

UP on boulevard haussmann.
They dallied at department stores
and stayed a while at tally weijl.
DOWN on rue saint-honor?
They courted couture at palais royal
And found the perfect outfits


What "up" and "down" mean here?

 

[konungursvia]

They are vague vector-concepts with meanings dependent on context. Sometimes up is northward, or uphill. Sometimes it is just along a length of some kind, but which is arbitrarily established as up, similar to the Cartesian plane with one 'positive' and one 'negative' range on each axis.

The best way to view this example is "in one place, boul. Hausmann..." "in another place, rue Saint-Honoré,..." it is a kind of dichotomy, a here and a there.

 

[JohnParis]

Hello Donagigi
In Paris, the boulevard Haussmann and the rue du faubourg Saint-Honoré (along with their extensions of different names) are mostly parallel. Both streets are on a barely sloping hill that runs down to the Seine river. On the hill, Haussmann is above Saint-Honoré. Konungursvia is correct in his assessment. Here, there is a physical element of 'up' (meaning above) or 'higher up on the hill.' The shoppers started up on Haussmann and made their way down to Saint-Honoré.
John

 

[Rover_KE]

In future, donagigi, please take the trouble to capitalise proper nouns when posting text here.

Rover