Archives /// May, 2012
July 18th, 2007
Spacing Montréal starts with a bang!
By Matthew Blackett // 4 Comments
Photographer and Spacing Montréal contributor Daniel Seguin recently captured an amazing image that deserves to be the first posted on this blog.
Bonjour. I'm Matthew Blackett, the publisher of Spacing, a magazine that covers a variety of issues surrounding Toronto's urban landscape and public spaces.
We launched the magazine in December 2003 and quickly discovered that there are a lot of people who are passionate about how cities are built. From planning and architecture students to graffiti artists to retired historical buffs, there are thousands upon thousands of residents who care ...
July 24th, 2007
Who is painting the manhole covers?
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
I'm not just asking --- I really want to know. Over the past month, somebody has painted dozens of manhole covers around Mile End, on Park Avenue, Bernard Street and St. Viateur Street. It's quite a lovely endeavour, adding a bit of colour to the sidewalk while drawing attention to an overlooked but essential piece of civic infrastructure.
Crossposted to Urbanphoto.
Lessons learned from Just for Laughs
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Every year, I head down to Just for Laughs. Not for the comedy, but for the festival site, which takes over the entire Latin Quarter and makes brilliant use of its meandering laneways and hidden corners. For two weeks in July, the Latin Quarter becomes a mysterious village, an amiable place where crowds wander through a surreal landscape of street theatre and shadows. Outdoor cafés, bars and stages emerge in the normally quiet alleys behind St. Denis Street. Space that is normally left to cars and garbage is given over to the crowds.
Just for Laughs ...
Goodbye Griffintown…
By Chris Erb // 10 Comments
Hello… Brossard? Local media outlets have been abuzz with talk of Quebec City based Devimco Inc.’s plans to rip down the gritty industrial neighbourhood (which also happens to be my home) of Griffintown in favour of a development much like its Quartier Dix30 “lifestyle centre” in the South Shore suburb of Brossard.
A rowhouse without a row on Ottawa Street in Griffintown. A small stable occupies the empty lot to the left, a newer warehouse is to the right.
For those unfamiliar with Griffintown, you can find it just south of Downtown below Notre Dame Ouest between McGill and Guy streets. At first glance, it would appear that not much is left of Griffintown, which, truth be told, is true. The neighbourhood was once one the densest urban areas in Canada with about 8000 people (mostly Irish) crammed inside cold-water flats amongst factories and stables. Due to various forces from the powers that be, only a few scattered tenements are left. Abandoned and active factories and a couple stables remain amongst newer warehouses and garages, parking lots, and the ever-expanding campus of L’École de technologie supérieure. However, a keen eye and some time spent in the neighbourhood will find a small and quirky community of small businesses, musicians, small scale artisans, students, and a scattering of stubborn old-timers who refuse to give up what little is left.
Young Street, Griffintown.
That said, Griffintown is no Plateau and with its proximity to Downtown, there have been numerous plans to redevelop the area. Some development has taken place – a cluster of high-rise condos have been built at the foot of the hill around de la Montagne Street and, as mentioned above, ÉTS has been slowly converting and demolishing buildings to expand their campus. The current proposal for a Dix30 style development has raised a lot of hairs amongst many people in the city so I decided get on my bike and take an afternoon to find out what this Dix30 actually is.
July 25th, 2007
Spacing Toronto’s look at FRAG On The Main
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
Over at Spacing Wire Toronto, blogger Sean Marshall discusses his recent visit to your fair city and his discovery of FRAG On The Main, an art installation that appears on a number of St. Laurent storefronts.
When the opportunities arise, we should try to cross-promote each city's blog. I'm excited to read our Spacing Montrealers' impressions of Toronto's public realm (Dylan Reid did a post a few weeks ago about his recent trip to Montreal, and Chris DeWolf has a great post about the little streets of Kensington Market in downtown Toronto).
photo by ...
July 26th, 2007
New bike stands spotted
By Misha Warbanski // 1 Comment
For those of us year-round bike riders, one of the things that makes me smile is, despite the traffic, I’ll never have to look for parking. Locking to a parking meter gives me more joy, and especially when a harried 9-to-5er comes out to feed it while I’m locking up.
Well, the City of Montreal is making it easier to lock your bike to parking meters. A number of steel rings have been attached to parking meter poles in the city. The ones I’ve seen are on Berri, along the east side of the ...
Pizza for the masses
By Misha Warbanski // 8 Comments
An underused park in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood is getting some attention since some area residents built a wood-fire oven there. Dubbed “The Park With No Name”, the space had been an empty overgrown lot, surrounded by a 10-foot chain-link fence tucked in by the Van Horne overpass, on the corner of Clark and Arcade. Last Saturday, about 30 ...
July 27th, 2007
‘S.V.P. Insérez vingt-cinq sous’ (encore): What do payphone rate hikes mean for Montreal?
By Jacob Larsen // No Comments
Next time your cell dies and you dig out a quarter for a payphone, you’ll have to dig a little deeper. After the go-ahead from the CRTC earlier this summer, Bell has doubled the price of local calls to fifty cents. The reason given is the cost of payphone upkeep. This move will likely lead to a further decrease in their usage as frustrated Montrealers simply cease to uncoil their silver-chained receivers. This, of course, justifies the continued phase-out of the public phone, admittedly not the heftiest revenue earner for Bell Canada, Canada’s largest phone service provider.
The disappearance of that little black box will make its absence known gradually, but decisively. In the past it has provided relief to countless Canadians exploring the vast countryside, and a quick (and sometimes anonymous) call for emergencies, either large or small, in our cities. And of course, the increasing number of Canadians hovering around and falling below the poverty line rely most heavily on their availability. As many people have pointed out, pay phones are a public service – like fire hydrants, parks, and public washrooms – they are an integral (and oft over-looked) component of the urban fabric. At the rate they are disappearing – about 4,000 pay phones every year nation-wide – how long before Montreal feels the phone crunch? And is there anything that can be done?
In 2004, the CRTC declared pay phones an essential service however they don’t require companies provide them. Instead, they added a clause to protect existing payphones: if the last pay phone in a community is to be removed, the company must notify everyone in a high-profile way, such as running a newspaper ad. In the wake of the recent rate hike, the national Public Interest Advocacy Centre asked the CRTC to force Bell to operate certain Public Interest Payphones (PIPs) in places with little or no profit-generating potential. But the CRTC didn’t budge, saying that it wouldn’t interfere by imposing a heavy administrative and financial burden on the multi-billion dollar industry.
July 31st, 2007
Creative moving
By Misha Warbanski // No Comments
When push comes to shove and that stairwell just ain't getting any wider, try a creative approach to moving. Furniture hooks on the outside of buildings might be commonplace on houses in Holland, but in Montreal a third floor balcony rail seems to work just as well.
photo: misha warbanski
August 8th, 2007
Butting out litter
By Misha Warbanski // 2 Comments
The City of Montreal and the EcoQuartier of Point-aux-Prairies want smokers to think twice before throwing butts on the ground. And to make it easier they’re distributing 100,000 portable ashtrays.
Branded with the slogan “Save the Earth”, the ashtrays look kinda like this. They're essentially small plastic pouches lined with a shiny flame-retardant material and padded with an odor-eating sponge. They can hold up to seven butts, snap neatly shut and fit in your pocket until you can dump the contents into the next bin. Manufactured in China, each pouch cost the city 40 cents, ...
August 10th, 2007
Destination: boulevard Décarie
By Chris Erb // 2 Comments
When most people think of Décarie Boulevard, images of an incredibly wide, smelly, and loud street with a six lane wide trench running down the middle usually come to mind. For residents of the borough of Saint-Laurent however, the image of “downtown” comes to mind. The strip of Décarie situated roughly between Du College (just above where the 15 and the 40 meet) and boul de la Côte-Vertu (at the terminus of the orange line) is a thriving commercial artery providing residents of the borough with many commercial and civic needs. The street and its ...
August 11th, 2007
Where is the West Island?
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Every Montrealer knows that the West Island is not, in fact, an island unto itself: it is simply the westernmost part of Montreal Island, a collection of towns and boroughs home to about 250,000 people. To many anglophones, it is synonymous with "suburbia"; to many francophones, it is synonymous with "anglophones." Although often portrayed as a sprawling wasteland, the West Island actually has a number of village-like town centres and historic suburban neighbourhoods in its southern half, known to most simply as the Lakeshore.
Still, anyone who visits the West Island may detect a distinct lack ...
August 12th, 2007
Bâtiments fantômes
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 3 Comments
for english follow the "more" tag
Bâtiments fantômes au coin des rues
Saint-François-Xavier et Saint-Sacrement.
Dans le vieux Montréal, la morphologie chronologique du bâti se lit à même les murs. Ça faisait très longtemps que je n'étais pas passé par ce coin de la vieille ville. Il y quelques années, je me souviens avoir été fasciné par ces traces de bâtiments laissées lors de leurs destructions. Le secteur est parsemé de ces petits moments rendus possibles par les quelques terrains vagues restants et les terrains de stationnement extérieurs privés. Je crois qu'un inventaire complet est en règle... mais petit à petit. Je commence par mon préféré, le coin des rues Saint-François-Xavier et Saint-Sacrement. Et si par hasard je n'étais pas le seul à être fasciné par ces lectures murales, n'hésitez pas à m'en faire connaître d'autres!
Montreal’s vanished newsstands
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Kate McDonnell snapped this photo of a newsstand at Pine and St. Laurent in 1991. Back then, it was one of three remaining outdoor news kiosks in Montreal, along with one at University and Ste. Catherine and another at Place d'Armes. By 1996, they had all disappeared, the victims of declining business and a municipal government that was hostile to street vendors of all sorts.
The first crackdown on street vendors came with the election of Jean Drapeau as mayor in 1960. He reigned over the city for nearly two and a half decades, doing more ...
August 16th, 2007
Apple to open Flagship store on Ste-Catherine
By Chris Erb // 8 Comments
Being a nerd, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Apple plans to build a massive 9 300 square foot flagship store in the heart of Downtown at 1321 Ste-Catherine. According to AppleInsider, the existing building (currently housing a clothing store) will see its bottom floor raised to reconfigure the space inside and the facade will be replaced with stainless steel (and probably a giant glowing Apple logo).It is easy to pass this off as just a new retail store for a large corporation on a section of the street filled with many others like it but ...
August 20th, 2007
Bâtiments fantômes 2
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
coin De La Gauchetière et Saint-Laurent
Celui-ci n'offre pas nécessairement une lecture historique, mais est quand même digne de mention... avant qu'un autre bâtiment ne vienne cacher tout ça.
August 22nd, 2007
Phillips Square
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Phillips Square, it has always seemed to me, is inexplicably overlooked. In theory, it should be one of Montreal's most prominent public spaces, situated as it is in the downtown retail district, across the street from a major department store. While it is certainly busy, though, at least during the day, it has none of the ambiance or notoriety of some of the city's other parks, plazas and squares. It doesn't seem like a particularly distinct place to meet and gather; it's just there.
Yet Phillips Square is one of Montreal's oldest squares. First laid out in 1842, ...
Work finally starting on de Maisonneuve bike lane
By Chris Erb // 3 Comments
Montreal cyclists have been waiting for it to happen for months so, being a cyclist, I was very happy to see that the city has finally started building the downtown portion of the bike lane network along boulevard de Maisonneuve.
The new 3 metre wide section will connect the bike lane running along de Maisonneuve in Westmount and NDG to the north/south-bound lane along Berri. The new addition between these two will finally connect the extensive network of bike lanes on the east end to the smaller network on the west. It will also be the first ...
August 23rd, 2007
Montréal metro commercial from 1976
By Matthew Blackett // 2 Comments
I don't know what's going on during this 1976 commercial promoting Montréal's metro system, but it looks like fun.
cross-posted from Spacing Toronto
MyBikeLane
By Chris Erb // 1 Comment
I found out about this wonderful website via the SpacingWire. It allows people to anonymously report and post pictures of vehicles parked in or blocking bike lanes. Toronto is number two after New York and Montreal doesn't have a single submission in its section. This either means motorists are much nicer to cyclists in Montreal than elsewhere or we have some work to do. Sadly, I'm pretty sure the latter is true. So everybody on bikes or on the sidewalk, keep you camera at hand and if you see ...
August 29th, 2007
Follow the sharrows
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Counterflow bike lane on Milton Street, near Lorne Avenue
A couple of days ago, Dale Duncan wrote on Spacing Toronto about sharrows, or shared road arrows, a new type of cycling-related road marking that is slowly becoming popular across North America. When I saw what they looked like --- a bicycle symbol topped by two chevrons --- I realized that Montreal has been using sharrows for a couple of years. The first time I saw them was in the McGill Ghetto, where in 2006, city workers painted them on Milton and Prince Arthur Sts., along with a couple of counterflow bike lanes.
As with any type of cycling infrastructure, cyclists are divided over the benefits and effectiveness of sharrows. Some criticize them for lulling cyclists into a false sense of security while doing little to remind drivers that they are legally bound to share the road with people on bikes. (The same argument is used against bike lanes, bike paths and just about every type of initiative that segregates cyclists and motorists.) Others, though, think they're a good way to realign drivers and cyclists, getting bikes out of the dangerous "door zone" while reminding motorists that cyclists are present.
Sharrows, it seems to me, should be considered just one infrastructural tool among many. In the McGill Ghetto, a neighbourhood just east of the McGill University campus in downtown Montreal, they appear to work very well. Milton and Prince Arthur, parallel one-way streets heading in opposite directions, have long been used as the main east-west link from the Plateau Mont-Royal into the central part of downtown. As such, the number of bikes on these mostly residential streets is consistently high. (At 5pm on a Thursday last year, I counted 24 cyclists passing through the intersection of Milton and University in less than a minute.) Cyclists heading east from McGill have always rode against westbound traffic on Milton before switching over to eastbound Prince Arthur; cyclists heading west from the Plateau would ride against eastbound traffic on Prince Arthur before switching to westbound Milton.
Naturally, a large mass of cyclists heading against the traffic flow on these two streets was potentially dangerous for cyclists and motorists alike. For once, the city's response was ingeniously simple: they established counterflow bike lanes on Milton for a few blocks east of McGill, using sharrows to direct cyclists towards Prince Arthur, where a normal bike lane took them east into the Plateau. Further east, at Prince Arthur and St. Laurent, another counterflow bike lane was built to lead cyclists to Clark Street, where sharrows direct them down to Milton Street.
So far, from what I have observed, the system is working. But that's only because it is just that: a system. If the sharrows were used in isolation, without the bike lanes, I doubt they would be as successful. They also work because they are prominent --- at intersections, four or five densely-packed sharrows are painted in succession, creating a clear path for bikes and making it impossible for drivers to ignore --- and positioned in the centre of the road, rather than on the side where cyclists would be vulnerable to car doors.
Sharrows definitely have a place in our streets --- but not in isolation and not as a replacement for bike lanes.
More photos of the Ghetto's sharrows and bike lanes after the jump!
Crossposted to Urbanphoto.
August 30th, 2007
En public, la seule option est de jeter
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 1 Comment
Samedi dernier, sous le beau soleil de l'après-midi, je sors du parc Lafontaine une bouteille de verre vide à la main. Je remarque plusieurs poubelles placées en évidence mais aucun bac de recyclage. Je me dis que je continuerai jusqu'au métro Mont-Royal en y trouvant sûrement un bac sur mon chemin. À l'approche du métro, un doute croissant me saisi. En fait, je ne me rappellais pas du tout en avoir croisé un dans la ville depuis un bon bout de temps... Pourtant, les bacs publics sont choses communes dans d'autres grandes villes et je gardais espoir d'avoir omis ...
3 visions d’un même endroit
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Au 19e siècle, la rue Sherbrooke était une des plus belles rues de Montréal. De nombreuses résidences bourgeoises furent construites le long de cette rue bordée d’arbres.
En 1862, John Matheson fit construire au coin Sud-Ouest de Sherbrooke et University une magnifique résidence de 3 étages. Cette dernière possédait de tous les côtés des vérandas sur 2 étages, ainsi qu’une tourelle sur le toit. Elle fut par la suite, la propriété de John Sterling, de sa fille Janet Sterling Moyse, du fils de cette dernière, Charles Moyse et enfin, au début du 20e ...
Photo du jour: Open Da Night
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Café Olimpico. St. Viateur and Waverly. June 11, 2006
August 31st, 2007
Mozart, Dante and Molière
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Whenever I head up to Little Italy, on my way for a coffee at Caffè Italia or some gelato at the Jean Talon Market, I wonder about Dante Street, a fairly short sidestreet off St. Laurent Boulevard just below the market. Although it is quiet, Dante Street is home to a few Little Italy landmarks, including the Pizzeria Napoletana and the sumptuous redbrick Chiesa della Madonna della Difesa, in which you can find a fresco of Benito Mussolini painted in 1919.
What really gets me about Dante Street is its name, however. A quick look ...
Sources d’info sur le patrimoine bâti
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 1 Comment
Banque d'Epargne rue Ste-Catherine et McGill, 1936
Archives de la Ville de Montréal
En guise de complément à l'article 3 visions d'un même endroit, j'ai cru que donner quelques liens utiles à la recherche sur les bâtiments, patrimoniaux et autres, de la ville serait une bonne idée. J'ai eu la chance de faire quelques études de bâtiments durant les dernières semaines et voici ce que j'ai trouvé de plus utile. À noter que toutes ces sources (à moins d'avis contraire) sont publiques et donc accessibles à qui le veut bien.
Archives de la Ville de Montréal...
Photo du jour: Restaurant For Sale
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
"Restaurant For Sale." La Gauchetière and St. Urbain. May 10, 2005.
Photo d’époque du jour
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Voici une photo de la rue Metcalfe en direction Sud prise de la rue Sherbrooke en 1964. Cliquez ici pour voir la même rue en 2007.
September 1st, 2007
The 1970 Architectural Concept
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
Ed: This piece by Spacing's Ottawa/Gatineau Region correspondent Amber Yared is cross posted from SpacingToronto and continues the investigation (see first post here) into the many parking lots of downtown Hull:
Three Impervious P-lot personnel congregated for a second interview, this time in Hull with Historian Consultant Michelle Guitard.
We sought out Guitard to find out exactly what used to be where the parking lots are now. As we had suspected, buildings had been there; but it was more lucrative for property owners to tear them down and build parking lots or to lease the land to ...
Mile End’s manhole covers: the mystery is solved!
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Last month I asked if anyone knew who was painting the manhole covers of Mile End. Slowly but surely, readers started offering some leads. One mentioned that she had heard the artist being interviewed on CBC Radio, but couldn't remember which show; another suggested that it might have to do with an arts collective that has recently established itself in the neighbourhood. Sure enough, this week brought with it confirmation that a Dutch artist named Franck Bragigand was responsible for the manhole covers, in a project realized by DARE-DARE, the Consulate-General of the Netherlands in ...
Photo du jour: Park Avenue
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Sunset. Park near St. Viateur. May 22, 2007.
September 2nd, 2007
Photo du jour: Rush Hour
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Waiting to cross. Victoria and Van Horne. February 22, 2006
L’évolution d’une rue
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Ce montage de 2 photographies de la rue Sherbrooke prise à environ 100 ans d'intervalle démontrent à quel point la rue qui était autrefois homogène est maintenant devenue totalement dépourvue d'élégance.
September 3rd, 2007
Big changes on the upper Main
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Ed: Kate McDonnell, who runs the Montreal City Weblog, is also a contributor at Urbanphoto. On occasion we will publish her work here on Spacing Montreal. In this post, Kate writes about some of the changes underway along the upper part of the Main in her neighbourhood of Villeray.
Bingo Villeray, demolished this week
Major demolitions on the Main. Older buildings flattened and replaced by megastores, old folks' homes, condos.
Not the plot of a dystopian movie: it's begun this summer on Boulevard Saint-Laurent above Jean-Talon, but the long shabby decline of that part of ...
Time for Montreal buses to get bent
By Chris Erb // 5 Comments
An articulated RTL bus passing beneath the Bonaventure highway
Montreal needs articulated (also known as bendy or accordion) buses! Anyone who rides some of the busier routes in the city would certainly agree. I was originally writing this article to ask where the hell our articulated buses are but I then came across two stories in today's Gazette (here and here) saying that we're getting them as part of Tremblay's ambitious transit plan. So, the question now is, why didn't we get them a long time ago?
It could be argued that the huge cuts made to the ...
Photo du jour : Le « côté » historique de la rue Ste-Catherine
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Série de photos prises le long de la Rue Sainte-Catherine d'annonces murales datant d'une époque bien avant celle du lecteur mp3.
29 juillet 2007.
September 4th, 2007
Photo du jour: No End in Sight
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Tunnel from St. Antoine to Fort. February 25, 2006.
September 5th, 2007
A window into another city
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
The brothers Gravenor over at Coolopolis recently featured this 1972 photo of a street party on Hutchison Street. What was being celebrated? The success of the Milton Park Citizens' Coalition, which had banded together to fight the proposed Cité Concordia, a massive development that would have obliterated the McGill Ghetto's ramshackle Victorian rowhouses and stately apartment buildings in favour of a Modernist's wet dream. The project was scrapped (although the big La Cité apartment and retail complex was still built at the corner of Park and Prince Arthur) and many of the dwellings in the eastern ...
“It was too funky to last”
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Montreal is quite possibly the largest college town in North America: our four universities, concentrated in the centre of the city, bustle with more than 150,000 students every day. Add tens of thousands more faculty and staff in the mix and you have an enormous number of people who spend most of their lives at these cities-within-the-city. Each campus is, in many ways, a self-contained society with its own culture and sense of identity. Often enough, it's the public spaces within these universities that shape that identity. For instance, it wouldn't be unfair to suggest that Concordia's ...
Photo du jour: New restaurant
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Dragon dance for good business. St. Laurent and La Gauchetière.
May 27, 2007.
Photo du jour: Clean Streets
By Chris Erb // No Comments
Two signs helping to rid rue Fabre and its alley of les déchets. August 24, 2007
L’évolution d’une rue #2
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Voici un montage photo qui représente une fois de plus les ravages de l'apparition de l'automobile.
La première photographie fut prise en 1898 et la seconde en 2007. Vers la fin des années 50 jusqu'au début des années 70 la rue Dorchester a été passablement transformée. Elle fut élargie afin d'être transformée en boulevard et des voies d'accès pour l'autoroute ont été ajoutées à divers endroits. Ainsi donc, aucune maison en rangée de la photo d'époque ne subsistent du côté Nord ...
September 6th, 2007
Get on the bus!
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
In his post urging Montreal to get bent, Chris Erb briefly mentioned the mayor's plan to overhaul Montreal's bus network. Monday's Gazette gave a pretty good outline of what's included in the plan, including some pretty obvious improvements --- like adding more buses. The STM's current fleet of 1,600 will be increased to 2,100, along with an extra 202 bendy buses on busy routes like the 535 Park/Côte-des-Neiges. Here are some more highlights:
--- 240 kilometres of new reserved bus lanes on streets like Beaubien, Rosemont, Notre-Dame East, Sauvé and Côte-Vertu. Priority signals will be installed ...
Mon Chinatown
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Un soir d'hiver dans Chinatown
On s'est promené devant les vitrines
On a trouvé un magasin qui sentait l'orient
On a marché toute la soirée
Tes bottes te faisaient mal aux pieds
Les vieux Chinois nous regardait
Nous autres, on souriait
* Beau Dommage - Chinatown (1974) *
Le Quartier Chinois n'a jamais été un sujet intéressant pour moi. Ayant grandi dans la banlieue ouest de Montréal, mes parents nous y conduisaient mon frère et moi à l'occasion pour faire les achats ou pour aller manger au dim sum.
Je me souviens bien de l'ancienne Maison Kam Fung, alors à ...
Show your Chinatown how much you love it
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
This Saturday is the annual Chinatown Clean-Up festival, organized by the Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal, a non-profit community organization. It might sound kind of odd --- a clean up festival? --- but it promises to be a lot of fun. Participants will spend a couple of hours sweeping up different sections of the neighbourhood and a variety show will present music, sketches and other entertainment. Best of all, volunteers will be rewarded with an organic cotton American Apparel t-shirt and a free lunch at the Man Sau Centre.
This year's event is green-themed and ...
Photo du jour: Wing’s Nouilles Chinoises
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Wing's factory. La Gauchetière and Côté. July 16, 2007.
September 7th, 2007
A Visit to the Vespasiennes
By Jacob Larsen // 3 Comments
Walking through Cabot Square you may have spotted this unusual octagonal building that could almost pass as a shrine or even tiny palace. But the only thrones you'd have ever see in this vespasienne were of the porcelain variety. But their stall doors to these public washrooms have slammed shut for the last time and the structures that remain serve as a reminder of this essential public service the city once provided.
The vespasiennes were constructed in the 1930s during the long mayoral reign of Camillien ...
Photo du jour : Samedi 19h à Banlieueville
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Arrêt d'autobus aux abords du centre commercial La Place Vertu, arrondissement de Saint-Laurent. 1er septembre 2007.
L’avenue Edgehill
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Le visage du boulevard René-Lévesque est resté sensiblement le même depuis la vague de démolition qui eut lieu dans les années 60 et 70. L'artère maintenant transformée en boulevard portant le nom d'un premier ministre du Québec fut à l'origine nommée Dorchester, en l'honneur d'un gouverneur britannique, Guy Carleton, le premier baron Dorchester.
En 1803, face à ce qui est maintenant le centre canadien d'architecture, fut construit le château St-Antoine pour William McGillivray. Celui-ci fut démolie en 1873 et le terrain fut subdivisé. Le portail de l'entrée fut conservé et il donna par la suite ...
September 8th, 2007
Photo du jour: Bubble tea smiles
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
La Gauchetière and Clark. April 14, 2006.
September 9th, 2007
Photo du jour: Biking along the Lachine Canal
By Spacing // No Comments
Bike path along the Lachine Canal. Snapped September 5th, 2007 by Daniel Séguin.
Photo du jour: Sikh, Greek
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Athena Square, Park Ex. April 21, 2006.
September 10th, 2007
Little mosque, big city
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
New mural on a mosque near the Main and Ste. Catherine
In last week’s issue of the Economist, a couple of interesting articles looked at the challenge of building mosques in Western cities. All too often, it seems, cities and neighbourhoods in Europe and North America become divided when faced with the possibility that a minaret might rise on the horizon. What is it, though, that scares people about mosques? Is it the fear of terrorism fed by media reports of radical imams preaching their jihadist rhetoric at suburban mosques? Or is it something more elemental, a ...
Photo du jour: Bicycle gang
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Athena Square, Park Ex. April 21, 2006.
Joining the medieval battle on Mount Royal
By Christopher DeWolf // 16 Comments
Most Montrealers know about the tam tams. Hell, the weekly drum circle, market and gathering around the Sir George Étienne Cartier Monument on Mount Royal is even used by Tourism Montreal to promote the city. But what about the fighting that goes on in the woods behind the tam tams?
Every Sunday, just a few minutes' walk from the traffic of Park Avenue, past the trinket vendors, dancers, drum players, drug dealers and picnickers that sprawl across the park lawn, is a weekly mock battle between dozens of people dressed as medieval warriors. They fight with elaborately ...
September 11th, 2007
Small-town France does it better
By Paul Erlichman // 3 Comments
It's easy for those with anti-car sentiments in North America to yell "everything's better in Europe", as if the generalization was a universal truth. But Rennes, France provides an example of a town that is doing its best to make life easy for those without a car. Montréal could take some notes.
Rennes is considered the gateway city to the Northwestern region of Brittany, and also serves as its capital. The city is, like most mid-sized towns in France, quite old. Many buildings in the city's old town (about twice the size of the Old Port and still serving as the ...
Photo du jour: Au Revoir
By Chris Erb // 9 Comments
This eclectic block of Ste-Catherine at Jeanne-Mance will soon be demolished to make way for a souless mid-rise office building housing a Best Buy at street level.
September 12th, 2007
What’s eating your money?
By Misha Warbanski // No Comments
Parking meter coins buy karma for drivers
(this is crossposted with The Link)
It’s been six weeks since the parking meters started reappearing on Montreal sidewalks. Dubbed “Parco-Don,” these meters don’t get you a parking spot, but the money collected helps a homeless person get a good meal.
“So far so good. We’ve made about $3,000,” says Émilie Moreau, a development counsellor at L’Itinéraire, the organization benefiting from the parking meter project. They publish the bi-weekly magazine of the same name, produced by street people, and run Café sur la rue, which offers ...
September 13th, 2007
Photo du jour: Triplex evening
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Triplexes. Clark near Duluth. May 30, 2007.
What do you want at the Pine/Park interchange?
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
By Montreal standards, it was a remarkably quick construction project. Perhaps that is because it mostly involved deconstruction: an entire interchange dismantled and replaced with a straightforward, easy-to-negotiate and pedestrian-friendly surface intersection. It has already been several months since the revamped Pine/Park interchange was opened. Since then, I've come to appreciate its wide sidewalks and broad vista of Mount Royal, uncluttered by highway signage and crumbling concrete bretelles. I don't think I'm alone, either, considering how much pedestrian traffic there seems to be at the new intersection.
Of course, the roads, sidewalks and light fixtures might be ...
September 14th, 2007
Photo du jour: Evening portrait
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Outside the Adams Building. McGill University. May 22, 2007.
The makeshift Dawson memorial
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
It has been exactly a year and a day since the Dawson College shootings. I remember hearing about them on television, and then heading downtown for work, passing by Dawson on the way and gawking at the assembled police, medics and bystanders. What I remember most, though, is what happened in the days that followed, when thousands of Montrealers ventured down to leave flowers, candles and messages of support at a makeshift memorial on Atwater Avenue.
I too felt the urge to visit, motivated by a sense of curiosity tinged, perhaps, with a bit of grief. When I ...
September 15th, 2007
Photo du jour: Laval metro
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Cartier metro on opening day. April 28, 2007.
Norman Bethune Square
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Norman Bethune Square, a tiny triangle wedged between the intersection of Guy St. and de Maisonneuve Blvd., is Montreal's shittiest square. I mean that literally: it quite possibly has more pigeon shit per square inch than any other public space in the whole of Greater Montreal. I have no idea why pigeons like this place so much, but it's almost like an homage to Trafalgar Square, filled as it is with twitchy flocks of little grey birds.
This small square also has the distinction of being the only square in Montreal named after a Communist. Born in ...
September 16th, 2007
Photo du jour: Gilford curves
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Gilford and Grand-Pré. May 30, 2007.
September 17th, 2007
Photo du jour: Alleyway café
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Café in an Old Port laneway. Duke and Wellington. April 30, 2007.
September 18th, 2007
Photo du jour: Montreal circa 1979
By Chris Erb // 9 Comments
Three pictures taken by my mom in 1979 while attending a Phil Collins concert. Anyone know what building they were taken from or what the building in the third picture was?
Note: The original photographs were not scanned, rather, I took various shots of them with a digital camera with different settings and under different lighting conditions then edited the best ones in Photoshop.
Tonight, the future of Griffintown, and more!
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
WHAT? Alternative vision of Griffintown presented at Pecha Kucha night, along with other interesting topics
WHEN? Tonight, September 18th, at 8pm
WHERE? Society for Arts and Technology, 1195 St. Laurent, near René-Lévesque
HOW MUCH? Free!
In response to the news that the developer of Dix30, a suburban lifestyle centre in Brossard, is interested in building something similar in Griffintown, Little Burgundy resident and man-about-town A.J. Kandy, along with friend Stephanie Troeth, will present an alternative, New Urbanist vision of Griffintown's redevelopment tonight at the SAT.
"A suburban mall at the foot of one of Montreal’s central boulevards, in the middle ...
Odd things around town
By Christopher DeWolf // 18 Comments
One of the best things about wandering around town is finding all sorts of architectural and infrastructural oddities like unusual street signs and bizarre decorative elements. Montreal is rife with these sorts of things. Over at Coolopolis, J.D. Gravenor recently pointed out a cryptic inscription on the cornice of a western NDG apartment building: "Mona's Isle." Turns out it's a reference to an 1844 poem about the Isle of Man.
My stomping ground is a bit further east, in Mile End, but there's no shortage of interesting urban details around here. On the west side of ...
L’évolution d’une rue #3
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1900-2003
Cette propriété fut construite en 1891 pour Robert Stanley Bagg à l'angle de la rue Sherbrooke et du chemin de la côte-des-neiges.
L’autre Montréal
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 1 Comment
QUOI? Balade contée dans les ruelles de Montréal (en autobus)
QUAND? Dimanche le 23 septembre, 13h30 à 16h30
OÙ? Square Saint-Louis
COMBIEN? 27 $
Pour tous les fans de Montréal, résidents ou visiteurs, l'organisme L'Autre Montréal organise des balades commentés dans les rues de la ville. Les circuits abordent des sujets aussi variés que le patrimoine bâti ou les grands enjeux sociaux et sont une excellente façon de découvrir les grandes lignes comme les petits secrets...
Extrait de leur site www.autremontreal.com
"Le Collectif d’animation urbaine L’Autre Montréal est un organisme sans but lucratif d’éducation ...
September 19th, 2007
Photo du jour : Art brûlant
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
« La Joute », par Jean-Paul Riopelle (1969) à la Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, avec le Palais des congrès de Montréal en arrière-plan. 3 octobre 2005.
Headlines / À la une : 2007.09.20
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
À la une est une selection hebdomadaire de nouvelles concernant l'espace publique de Montréal. Il paraîtra tous les mercredis.
Headlines is a weekly selection of news stories about public space in Montreal. It will appear every Wednesday.
IN THE STREETS / DANS LES RUES
L'insalubrité agace des citoyens dans CDN-NDG --- 09.19 (La Presse)
Le CREM veut que Montréal protège les parcs --- 09.19 (La Presse)
Choc architectural au Ritz-Carlton --- 09.19 (Le Devoir)
La STM offre une navette vers la malbouffe --- 09.18 (La Presse)
Fermeture surprise de la rue de Bleury --- 09.15 (La Presse)
Google's detailed streetscapes raise ...
St. Urbain Street comes to the CBC
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Tonight, at 8pm, the CBC will air the first part of a new miniseries based on Mordecai Richler's 1971 novel, St. Urbain's Horseman.
"The story is simple enough: Montrealer Jake Hersh is a filmmaker living in London, happily married to a woman much too good for him, when he's put on trial for a crime he didn't commit," wrote author and Richler obsessive Joel Yanofsky in Sunday's Gazette. "But it's those he has committed --- failing to measure up as a husband, an artist, a Jew, a man --- that haunt him. The novel's achievement ...
The spots on the sidewalk
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Next time you walk down the street, take a look down. See the spots? That's gum, pressed into the pavement by thousands of footsteps. I normally don't pay them much notice but, now that I think of it, they're a good indication of how busy a particular stretch a sidewalk is. The more pedestrians that use it, the more discarded rubbish and, consequently, the more black spots.
"Hardened gum underfoot is undeniably an urban hallmark," wrote Deborah Stead in a 2003 article that appeared in the New York Times. (What paper other than the Times ...
September 20th, 2007
English street signs
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Even now, 40 30 years (ed---oops!) after Bill 101 mandated that Montreal conduct its official business in French only, it is not uncommon to find old English or bilingual public signs. Forget the politics; these signs are a fascinating window into Montreal's past.
I've written about Montreal's street signs before --- you can find my photos and articles listed under Urbanphoto's Signage category --- but I'm still finding plenty of nice examples of old or unusual street signs.
The Ste. Catherine St. sign pictured above is particularly interesting because it does not seem to conform to any ...
It’s Car Free Day!
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Today is Montreal's fifth annual edition of Car Free Day, known officially (and awkwardly) as "In town, without my car!" The east end of the downtown core, between McGill College on the west and St. Urbain on the east, de Maisonneuve on the north and René Lévesque on the south, will be closed from 9:30am to 3:30pm. (Ste. Catherine in front of Place des Arts will be closed all day.)
The car-free zone will be divided into three sections: the "Active and Public Transportation District," featuring a sit-in "to take action in favour of streets ...
Urbania and TV5 launch Montréal en 12 Lieux
By Chris Erb // 2 Comments
It's been five days since Kate sent her readers to the teaser for Montréal en 12 Lieux and just based on how awesome the video they made for it was (now the background for the site, albeit somewhat obscured) I couldn't wait to see what it was going to be all about.
The site has finally launched and it is indeed pretty cool in how it attempts to show the city from twelve different points of view. Only four are available right now but a new topic is added each day. The four currently online ...
Photo du jour : Festival Osheaga 2007
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Festival Osheaga au Parc Jean-Drapeau et, derrière un écran de fumée de barbecue, le centre-ville de Montréal en arrière-plan. 9 septembre 2007.
September 21st, 2007
Infest Wisely to infest Montreal tonight
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? Sneak preview of public-space-shot sci-fi film!
QUAND? Ce soir, le 21 septembre, à 20h00
WHERE? The Park With No Name, at Clark and Arcade in Mile End, underneath the Van Horne Viaduct. 5 minute walk west of Rosemont metro or 55 bus to Bernard
COMBIEN? Gratuit!
A new, chewable nanotechnology lets people take pictures with their eyes and cures cancer. But the early adopters find out it’s hard to uninstall something after it’s spread through their bloodstream….
Shot entirely in Toronto and mostly in public spaces, Infest Wisely is a lo-fi sci-fi no-budget feature written by Spacing contributor Jim ...
Photo du jour: Verdun
By Chris Erb // 3 Comments
I believe this is 1re ave looking toward rue Wellington in Verdun. Taken on my first trip to Verdun, September 2006.
September 22nd, 2007
The ground is falling!
By Paul Erlichman // 5 Comments
Almost every day I pass the construction on Sherbrooke just below Parc Lafontaine. Work there was started months ago as a result of a large chunk of road falling out, an event resembling the Laval bridge collapse and the structural problems found underneath de Maisonneuve that caused a metro line to close last month. But while most people might think of events with fear, I think of them with a sense of wonder. I'm amazed that these things occur so infrequently. Cities have, for the most part, ceased to have become death traps.
Obviously, cities are not ...
Photo du jour: Downtown from Abandoned Silo
By Chris Erb // 2 Comments
Taken on September 15, 2007 while exploring an abandoned silo on the Pointe St-Charles side of the Lachine Canal.
September 23rd, 2007
Dying for road safety
By Misha Warbanski // 1 Comment
Montreal has a tradition of using performance art as a means of protest. Back in 1976 "Bicycle Bob" Silverman and his pro-bike cohorts organized the first "die-in". They were trying to draw attention to the number of pedestrians and cyclists who get killed every year from road accidents with vehicles. Combined with other miscrean activities -- like painting their own bike lanes on the road -- the city finally agreed that maybe they're a good idea.
In 2006, another die-in was held to celebrate the 30 year anniversary of the first. The message was the same, but there was added emphasis on the pollution created by cars and the geopolitical wars to secure oil reserves. Now an annual party, several hundred cyclists "died" yesterday on Ste-Catherine Street at McGill College.
Quebec's Taksforce on Road Safety reports there are 3.6 million cyclists in the province. Between 2002 and 2006, cyclists represented 3 per cent of road deaths and 5 per cent of road injuries.
You can see more news about the die in and monthly rides at critical mass
More photos after the jump.
Lancement de Spacing Montréal launch party!
By Spacing // 3 Comments
QUOI? WHAT? Lancement de Spacing Montréal launch party!
QUAND? WHEN? Dimanche le 23 septembre, 19h30 / Sunday, Sept. 23rd, 7:30pm
OÙ? WHERE? Le Cagibi (5490 St-Laurent coin St-Viateur)
COMBIEN? HOW MUCH?: Gratuit/Pay What You Can
Spacing is happy to have Spacing Montréal join our family of daily coverage of urban issues.
If you're looking for an excuse to go out on the town on a Sunday night, Spacing Montréal is throwing a launch party on September 23rd at the charming little club le Cagibi. We'll have a DJ spinning some tunes, photos of Montréal (captured by our ...
September 24th, 2007
Thrown for a loop on de Maisonneuve
By Jacob Larsen // 1 Comment
If you've ever biked east from NDG along the de Maisonneuve bike path, you might have found yourself feeling a little turned around at one point. It wouldn't have been your fault, though, since the bike path actually effectively terminates in a perplexing loop as you approach Boulevard Decarie. Or, if you chose to interpret the only dirt path out of this miasma as a bike path, you'll be led directly into de Maisonneuve's steady one-way, oncoming traffic. I have no idea what the planners were thinking when they installed this part of the bike path along de Maisonneuve. I ...
Photo du jour: Doin’ it
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Graffiti mural. Roy and St. Dominique. May 27, 2007.
Spacing Montréal launch party photos
By Matthew Blackett // 2 Comments
We officially launched Spacing Montréal this weekend and attracted a wonderful assortment of folks to le Cagibi. The place was packed and our newfound readers seemed eager to spread the word about our new blog. For those of you who turned up at the event, many many many thanks. You've made both the editors and contributors an excited bunch. (special thanks to the Toronto readers who made the trip up)
Check out the photos of the event (on our Flickr account) by Spacing Montréal's photo editor Daniel Seguin....
September 25th, 2007
Photo du jour: Laundry line
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Laundry line. Laneway behind Park near Bernard. May 26, 2007.
Anti-Semitic graffiti in Mile End
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Every so often there is a reminder that Montreal, for all its history as a capital of Jewish culture in North America, still has a problem with anti-Semitism. In the past year alone, a molotov cocktail was thrown at a Jewish school on Van Horne and a bomb exploded outside of a Jewish community centre on Victoria Avenue. It wasn't so long ago that a Jewish school's library was destroyed in a vicious firebombing.
Just the other day, a friend told me about this piece of graffiti on Clark Street, between St. Viateur and Fairmount. Someone ...
September 26th, 2007
Headlines / À la une : 2007.09.26
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
IN THE STREETS / DANS LES RUES
Et pourtant, on construit ! --- 09.22 (Le Devoir)
Un nouveau marché aux abords du métro Frontenac --- 09.22 (LCN)
Signage regulation worries Décarie merchants --- 09.21 (Saint-Laurent News)
Mount Royal project would reopen gateway to park --- 09.21 (The Gazette)
Des travaux majeurs pour restaurer la croix du mont Royal --- 09.21 (Arrondissement.com)
POLITICS / POLITIQUE
How estate was built on public, farm lands --- 09.22 (The Gazette)
La grande ville balkanisée --- 09.22 (Le Devoir)
ENVIRONMENT / ENVIRONNEMENT
Air pur au centre-ville de Montréal --- 09.21 (La Presse)
TRANSPORT
Alstom veut ...
Photo du jour: Into the sun
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Laneway behind Park Avenue, near Bernard. May 30, 2007.
Fresh Paint this weekend
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
WHAT? Urban art event with discussion, video, a book launch, interventions, music and walking tours
WHEN? Friday, Saturday and Sunday. See the schedule for specific times
WHERE? Park With No Name, near the corner of St. Laurent and Van Horne
HOW MUCH? Free!
This weekend, DARE-DARE, a multidisciplinary arts organization based in Mile End, presents Fresh Paint, a three-day event that will mix discussion with artistic interventions, a book launch, walks and video projections. Some of the highlights include a conference with Peter Gibson, aka Roadsworth, a street artist famous for his stencil work; walking tours hosted ...
Five walking tours, a bus tour and a boat tour
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
It's the last weekend of September. The leaves are beginning to change, the sun now sets at six and the evening air grows brisker with every passing day. In just a month we'll be locked into the drizzly grey purgatory that is November.
You know what that means? It's time to get out of the house --- and why not learn a bit about Montreal while you're at it? There's a plethora of outdoor activities this weekend including five heritage walking tours, a bus tour and a boat tour, all of which are outlined on the ...
September 27th, 2007
Urbania célèbre Montréal ce soir!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
QUOI? Lancement d'Urbania avec projections vidéo et musique
QUAND? Ce soir, le 27 septembre, à 19h00
OÙ? Au Club Soda, 1225 St-Laurent
COMBIEN? 10 $ (magazine inclus)
Un petit message de nos camarades d'Urbania, qui partagent la même disposition urbanophile que nous autres :
C'est ce soir (jeudi le 27 septembre) qu'a lieu LA rumba de l'automne, soit le lancement combiné du magazine édition MONTRÉAL, de Montréal en 12 lieux, notre série télé ainsi que de mtl12.com, l'expérience Web qui l'accompagne. La convergence réinventée. Pierre-Karl n'a qu'à bien se tenir.
Chris Erb a déjà écrit sur Montréal en 12 ...
Photo du jour: Montreal’s Tiniest Laneway
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Alley in the Latin Quarter. November 10, 2006
September 28th, 2007
Photo du jour: Van Horne Warehouse
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
The Van Horne Warehouse, at the corner of Van Horne and the Main, is not only covered with ghost signs and graffiti, it is capped by a water tower, an increasingly rare sight in Montreal.
September 29th, 2007
Photo du jour : Librairie arabe
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Librairie sur le boulevard Décarie, Ville St-Laurent. Le 10 novembre, 2006.
September 30th, 2007
Photo du jour : La Sauvegarde
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Publicité fantôme. Le 10 novembre, 2006
October 1st, 2007
Photo du jour: The Green Stop
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Green Stop Restaurant at Monk and Jolicoeur, Ville-Émard. May 6, 2005
The Art of Parking
By Spacing // No Comments
Editor's Note: Thus continues the investigation into the many parking lots of downtown Hull by Spacing’s Ottawa/Gatineau Region correspondent Amber Yared:
On our third interview for The Impervious P-lot we (Kathy, Malcolm, Michaela, and I) met with Brigitte Ann Epps, an attendant and valet for one of the parking lots behind the brown buildings in Hull. We were excited to talk to someone who would provide an insider perspective on parking lots. To start, I was curious about the small boxy structures parking lot attendants work from, like the one we stood in during ...
Une balade pittoresque à l’incinérateur des Carrières
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 4 Comments
L'incinérateur et ses deux tours avec le Mont-Royal en arrière plan
Cette fin de semaine je suis finalement allé rendre visite à l'incinérateur no. 3, ou l'incinérateur des Carrières. Pour ceux qui passent beaucoup de temps le long de la voie ferrée entre Rosemont et le Plateau, vous aurez sûrement déjà remarqué ses deux énormes cheminées de plus de 75m de haut. Inauguré en 1970 dans le but d'y incinérer des tonnes de déchets montréalais, l'incinérateur fut désaffecté en 1993. Les activités industrielles y sont maintenant complètement absentes, mais le bâtiment reste debout comme témoin impressionnant du ...
October 2nd, 2007
Visit the Mile End Exhibition Grounds
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Mile End Road, now known as Mount Royal Avenue, in 1859
WHAT? Bilingual presentation on the history of the Mile End Exhibition Grounds
WHEN? Wednesday, October 3rd, at 6pm
WHERE? Mile End Library, 5434 Park Avenue (near St. Viateur)
HOW MUCH? Free!
Did you know that the residential area between St. Laurent and Park Avenue, north of Mount Royal, was once known as the Annex? It's part of the legacy of the Mile End Exhibition Grounds, the site of several major industrial and agricultural exhibitions in the nineteenth century. When they were subdivided --- annexed --- in the 1890s, they formed a ...
October 3rd, 2007
Photo du jour : Église St-Joachim de Pointe-Claire
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Au bord du Lac Saint-Louis, devant l'Église St-Joachim de Pointe-Claire, en banlieue ouest de Montréal. Prise la même journée que la photo prise par mon collègue Daniel Seguin pour la carte du lancement de Spacing Montréal, à des lieux opposés de l'Île de Montréal. Cette plage était une de petits cailloux et l'amie qui nous accompagnait suggéra qu'en remplissant le bord de l'eau de sable, ça pourrait sûrement faire une belle plage publique, bonifiée par sa proximité au pittoresque village de Pointe-Claire.
Photo prise le 15 septembre 2007.
Headlines / À la une : 2007.10.03
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
POLITICS / POLITIQUE
It's clear the wheels are falling off the juggernaut that once was the city of Montreal --- 10.03 (The Gazette)
Labonté dumps mayor's ally --- 10.03 (The Gazette)
Outremont vows to cork the booze --- 10.02 (The Gazette)
Benoit Labonté règle ses comptes dans Ville-Marie --- 10.02 (La Presse)
More bad news, Mr. Mayor: Government funding will go where the votes are --- 10.02 (The Gazette)
Autre coup dur pour Outremont --- 10.01 (La Presse)
IN THE STREETS / DANS LA RUE
Les plus belles toilettes publiques de Montréal --- 10.03 (La Presse)
City ...
October 4th, 2007
Photo du jour : Fin de la saison du boulingrin
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Au boulingrin du village de Pointe-Claire, un lieu public de rassemblement privilégié des personnes âgées lors des soirées chaudes d'été. 15 septembre 2007.
Encore des condos
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
Cette photographie prise sur la rue de Gaspé dans le quartier Villeray en septembre 2007 illustre désormais une scène du passé.
En effet, ces 3 constructions furent démolis en date du 4 octobre 2007. Ces bâtiments qui dataient de 1912 et 1914 furent rasés pour faire place à un nouveau projet de 12 condominiums. Le triplex à l'extrême droite, fut lourdement endommagé lors d'un incendie à l'été 2006 mais les 2 maisons ...
October 5th, 2007
Wandering around Lachine
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
St. Joseph Street along Lachine's waterfront
Do you know Lachine? Thanks to the canal, pretty much every Montrealer is familiar with the name. I'm sure most are even aware of the borough. But have you been there? Do you know anything about it except as "that place at the end of the Lachine Canal"?
À Lachine, on fait le stop !
For those who don't know, I'll let you in on a secret: Lachine is one of the most fabulously bizarre places in Montreal. That shouldn't be a surprise because, according to the rules of Montreal weirdness, the more isolated, working-class and far-flung a neighbourhood, the stranger it is. Lachine wins on all three counts. Although it is located on the lakeshore-canal bicycle superhighway, and autoroute 20 passes along its northern border, Lachine is not exactly central. By bus, it's 35 minutes away from Angrignon metro, the end of the line. Downtown Lachine, a small area bordered by Victoria Street on the north and the St. Lawrence on the south, is removed from pretty much any major transportation corridor.
That is to say, any modern transportation corridor. Lachine's entire reason for existence is the Lachine Canal, through which every ship heading to and from the Great Lakes used to funnel. Although Lachine has existed as a settlement since the 17th century, when it was a fur trading post, it started to develop as a proper town only after the canal opened in 1835. By the early twentieth century, it was a burgeoning industrial suburb. Of course, by the 1970s, deindustrialization and the closure of the canal dealt a significant blow to Lachine. It's only now recovering.
I ventured out to Lachine last spring to check out its newly revamped public market, the smallest of Montreal's big four (the others being Jean-Talon, Atwater and Maisonneuve). To get there, I took the 90 bus west from Atwater. It dropped me off on Provost Street in the newer part of Lachine. Provost is a decidedly unattractive mix of depanneurs and fast-food joints; its one claim to fame might be a Kentucky Fried Chicken that has somehow escaped rebranding: its signs date from at least a few decades back.
Notre-Dame Street, Lachine's main drag
The real attraction in Lachine is the waterfront downtown area, a 15 minute walk from Provost. There, you'll find a quaint mix of twentieth-century duplexes, nineteenth-century cottages, the aforementioned public market and Montreal's most pleasant and relaxing waterfront. What really interests me, though, is Notre-Dame Street, Old Lachine's main drag. On a bright Saturday afternoon it was eerily quiet; look between the vacant storefronts, however, and you'll find a few surprises.
"We've moved downtown"
The first might be the number of new immigrant businesses. Some of the businesses along Notre-Dame's ten-block commercial stretch include French bakery run by a Cambodian guy, a Somali couple's halal butcher, a black anglophone grocery selling Caribbean products and a modest Chinese supermarket. Near 10th Avenue, a Russian man sells old tapes, CDs and records. Best of all is a huge, labyrinthine junk store run by an old couple from Texas. They say they've lived in Lachine for 30 years, but their accents are still as thick as if they had been plucked right off the Texan plain.
All along Notre-Dame, makeshift plywood boxes serve as community bulletin boards. They may look silly, but not even the Ville-Marie or Plateau boroughs offer this kind of legal postering space. It's a shame that, in Lachine, they remain half-empty, with nearly all of the posters advertising yard sales or lost animals. If these things were placed on St. Viateur or the Main, they'd be covered --- several layers thick, too --- within a week.
Notre-Dame, unfortunately, is not the main street it used to be. Most Lachine residents shop for their essentials at nearby malls and big box stores, of which there is an abundance in adjacent LaSalle and Dorval. Considering how quiet it has been every time I've visited, few people from outside the neighbourhood seem to stray onto Notre-Dame.
Instead, they head to the waterfront, and for a good reason: it's one of Montreal's most picturesque. It's also the finish line for many cyclists who bike along the canal from the Old Port. (Although the bike path continues all the way to Ste. Anne de Bellevue, it's a pretty ambitious ride from downtown.) St. Joseph Boulevard, which runs along the water, is dotted with pleasant cafés and restaurants whose terraces bustle on sunny days.
For me, though, the most rewarding destination after a stroll in Lachine is an unassuming restaurant located in an old cottage on Notre-Dame St. at the corner of 25th Avenue. La Shangri-la bills itself, somewhat dubiously, as a Nepalese, Indian and Italian restaurant. Turns out that it's run by a Nepalese family that worked in an Italian restaurant in Kathmandu before coming to Montreal. Normally, I would expect something like that in Park Ex or Côte des Neiges. But, well, you know... it's Lachine. You'll be surprised.
More photos after the jump.
Photo du jour : Place Sun Yat-sen
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
Des parcs Sun Yat-sen, du nom du vénéré fondateur de la Chine moderne, il y en a probablement presque autant que de Chinatowns dans le monde. Celui de Montréal est situé au véritable coeur de son Quartier Chinois, c'est-à-dire à l'angle des rues Clark et De La Gauchetière, cette dernière étant désignée rue piétonnière. C'est le lieu de rassemblement naturel pour la communauté chinoise à Montréal. Souvent, on y croisera les fervents de la secte interdite du Falun Dafa, et d'autres fois, un monsieur qui tire des lancers frappés ...
A ghost appears, but not for long
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
In a city with as many layers of history as Montreal, the demolition of a building usually entails the relevation of something else, like a ghost ad. I've written before about these old painted advertisements faded by time and the elements; they can be found in cities and towns right across North America and Europe, where the practice of painting advertisements on building sides was long ago usurped by billboards and other media. No matter how many I find in Montreal, though, there are always more lurking in tight corners, dark alleyways and, of ...
Your favourite laneway / Votre ruelle préferée
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Foggy alley off St. Viateur St. in Mile End
Montreal's laneways are the city's shadow streets. Unnamed and underrecognized, they cut through the city fabric like a knife through baklava, revealing the accumulated layers of human occupation behind the street's prim façades. Here you will see the unrenovated, unassuming backsides of buildings, all fire escapes and crumbling bricks or scattered backyard toys and laundry lines.
Les ruelles ont fait leur apparition à Montreal à la fin du XIXe siècle, grâce aux nouveaux codes de bâtiment qui avaient tenté de dissimuler tout ce qui était disgracieux de la ...
October 6th, 2007
Élections fédérales en novembre? Federal election in November?
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Allons-nous ou allons-nous pas à nouveau voir notre ville placardée de pancartes électorales? Les discussions sur la Colline Parlementaire s'animent et les médias s'accordent pour dire que nous aurons des élections générales au Canada au cours du mois de novembre.
Photo prise sur l'esplanade de la Place des Arts, le 11 juin 2004.
Avez-vous des photos intéressantes de pancartes électorales à nous faire parvenir? Envoyez le tout à cedricsam@gmail.com avec vos impressions, et on tâchera de publier les meilleures.
Do you have interesting pictures of electoral signs to ...
How to ruin and revive a main street
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Two of Montreal's newspapers turned their attention to the city's main streets today. The Gazette bemoans the state of "the black hole on Ste. Catherine" with a feature by Andy Riga on the block just east of the old Forum, between Lambert-Closse and Chomedey. After Bombay Palace closed and moved west to Bishop Street this week, the north side of the block is now completely vacant. Some blame the street's decline on the closure of the Forum in 1996, but the most likely culprit is the decrepit ruins of the Seville Theatre, which closed in 1985:
The ...
Photo du jour: Durocher Street
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Durocher Street below Jean Talon, Park Extension. September 28, 2006
October 7th, 2007
Photo du jour: Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Walking around Park Ex one day, I found this poster for Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham --- the first Bollywood movie I ever saw --- in an alley behind Jean-Talon. September 28, 2006
Photo contest: Montreal’s “green oases and toxic hotspots”
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
The Lachine Canal: green oasis and toxic hotspot, all in one package
The National Film Board, Maisonneuve and CBC Montreal have teamed up, once again, to bring you Montreal Matters. This year's theme is the environment. I know what you're thinking --- you've overdosed on green lately and the last thing you need is yet another eco-themed event. But wait: Montreal Matters has plenty of cool things to offer this month, including a photo contest inspired by the work of Edward Burtynsky.
The NFB has more:
What impact do Montrealers have on their city? The National ...
Election Signs: Defend NDG!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
In the provincial elections last winter, the Green Party's candidate in NDG, Peter McQueen, ran a campaign that appealed to neighbourhood angst more than anything else. Hand-written signs, exhorting voters to toss out the Liberals because they were "neglecting NDG," could be found all along Sherbrooke Street. McQueen ended up in second place, earning the Green Party's strongest showing anywhere in the province.
October 8th, 2007
Election Signs: Votez bleu!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Vous voyez rouge? Votez bleu! It was a catchy PQ electoral slogan that tried to capitalize on Jean Charest's profound unpopularity in late 2005, when a provincial by-election was held in Outremont. Given the timing of the election --- just after Gomery's report on the sponsorship program was released --- I wouldn't be surprised if the slogan was also meant to equate the dirty dealings of the federal Liberals with the PLQ.
In any case, it's all history: the PQ's candidate, Farouk Karim, lost to the Liberals' Raymond Bachand, who was promptly shuffled into cabinet. What ...
Photo du jour: Back to the burbs
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Rush hour commuters at Parc Station. April 21, 2006
L’amour au dernier regard / Love at last sight
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
photo par The Irish Samurai
The delight of the urban poet is love --- not at first sight, but at last sight.
-Walter Benjamin, "Charles Baudelaire: A Lyrical Poet In The Era of High Capitalism"
Dans cette courte phrase d'une incroyable complexité, Walter Benjamin fait ressortir l'une des expériences primordiales de la ville. Il n'est pas nécessairement question de Montréal, mais bien de chacune des villes.
Combien de fois avez-vous échangé un sourire avec une personne avant qu'elle ne disparaisse dans la direction opposée, avalée par la foule? Nous pouvons toujours revenir vers un lieu ou un bâtiment aperçu ...
Two strips of dirt: my favourite laneway
By Chris Erb // 1 Comment
The other day, Christopher DeWolf asked us all to think of our favourite laneways and I think I happened upon mine this week. I always knew there existed another NDG below the train tracks (known locally as Lower NDG) but had never actually been there. I finally visited this very neglected part of the city while biking around and enjoying the last warm days of the year and was extremely surprised to find an unpaved alley. The two strips of dirt, seperated by a lane of grass reminded me of the country roads of ...
October 9th, 2007
Photo du jour: Crossroads
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
St. Denis and Jean Talon. February 3, 2007
Slutsky and Buller do Mile End
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
"Mile End sucks it," wrote one respondent to the survey at our launch party last month. That person might want to avoid General 54 on Thursday when Mile End nogoodniks Mark Slutsky and Dan Buller fête their love of the neighbourhood. "Looking Around," their series of Mile End photos and paintings, will run until November 24th, but don't miss the vernissage, which will feature DJs, drinks and good hipster company.
More info from General 54's blog:
Here's the deal: Looking Around is a semi-sequel to this spring's Looking Up, Dan Buller's previous show at General ...
Outremont scotch and the City Hall schism
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
You must have already heart of the Outremont booze scandal. No? Well, let me refresh you: on September 27th, Le Devoir and La Presse revealed that "l'alcool coule à flots" --- the alcohol has flowed freely --- in Outremont since the arrival of Stéphane Harbour as borough mayor in 2002. In a private bar on Outremont town hall's second floor, the mayor and a few close associates have helped themselves to plenty of liquor bought on taxpayer time. $7,500 worth of it, in fact --- and that's just between January and June of this year. ...
October 10th, 2007
One-storey houses in Hochelaga
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
Montreal developed as a geographically disparate patchwork of independent municipalities. Many of these old towns and suburbs were long ago absorbed into the city, but traces of their past character can still be seen in their streets.
Last week, Guillaume St-Jean wrote about three one-storey buildings in Villeray that will be demolished for condos. Clad in brick, these kinds of flat-roofed brick houses were built mostly in the 1910s and 1920s in the neighbourhoods north of the CPR tracks, like Little Italy, Park Ex, Villeray and Youville (an old village ...
Photo du jour : Le sang des banlieues
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise à Kirkland, au coin des boulevards St-Charles et Brunswick, le 6 octobre 2007.
Quelques exemples de restaurations
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Au cours des dernières années, certains propriétaires ayant à coeur la sauvegarde du patrimoine ont accomplis des ouvrages de restaurations remarquable.
La maison de George Fendall, située à l'angle des rues Decelles et Fendall fut construite en 1906. Jusqu'à à la fin des années 1920, la compagnie Northmount Land développa dans ce secteur un pittoresque projet immobilier qui fut par la suite arreté par la venue de l'université ...
L’îlot Trafalgar-Gleneagles
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Devant être remplacées par une tour de 10 étages, les maisons Thompson et Sparrow furent sauvées de la démolition lorsque l'îlot Trafalgar-Gleneagles fut reconnu site historique en octobre 2002.
Depuis 2005, des travaux de retauration sont en cour. Le tout progresse lentement mais le résultat final sera grandiose.
2003-2007
La maison Sparrow fut construite en 1910. Elle fut utilisée comme résidence unifamiliale jusqu'en 1977 et par la suite occupée par des bureaux d'architectes de 1978 à 1988.
L'évolution de 2003 à ...
Headlines / À la une : 2007.10.10
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
IN THE STREETS / DANS LA RUE
Un nouveau tunnel pour contrer... l'étalement urbain! --- 10.10 (Le Journal)
Quebec mall puts West Edmonton on notice --- 10.09 (The Globe and Mail)
Mont Royal, le parc le plus sûr de Montréal --- 10.10 (La Presse)
Le fleuve attendra [la cessation des déversements d'eaux usées] --- 10.08 (Le Journal)
Les bons commerces à la bonne place --- 10.06 (Le Devoir)
Main mess: Prof blames poor planning --- 10.06 (The Gazette)
The outer limits of downtown --- 10.06 (The Gazette)
Business owners on St. Laurent believe worst still to ...
October 11th, 2007
Photo du jour : Édifice JMSB, Université Concordia (en construction)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise au coin des rues Guy et De Maisonneuve le 7 octobre 2007.
Election Signs: Winner Every Time
By Chris Erb // No Comments
Although most election signs for last month's by-election in the federal riding of Outremont were vandalised in some way or another, this one on St-Laurent was by far the weirdest. Unfortunately for Jocelyn Coulon, the graffiti was wrong. Coulon lost to NDP candidate Thomas Mulcair making this election only the second time the riding hasn't gone to a Liberal as well as the second time that an NDP candidate has ever won anywhere in Quebec.
Tell us about your Mount Royal
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
La Presse turned its attention towards Mount Royal yesterday with an interesting trio of features on social dynamics of the mountain. Not only is it the safest public park in Montreal, it is the city's best spot for secret noctural adventures. Éric Clément and Martin Croteau report:
La Presse y a circulé de 23h à 5h un samedi de la mi-août, sans rencontrer le moindre policier. Une absence qui pourrait toutefois avoir des conséquences graves à cause des feux à ciel ouvert qu'on y allume souvent, ce qui est pourtant interdit. Il suffirait de braises mal ...
October 12th, 2007
Photo du jour : Messes modernes
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Le groupe montréalais Clues (Alden Penner, Brendan Reed, Bethany Or) avant son concert dans le cadre des Bleating Hearts Shows au festival musical Pop Montréal. Un lieu d'abord conçu pour les célébrations religieuses, la chapelle Birks se prête pour un soir à la musique folk et rock.
Photo prise du balcon de la chapelle de l'édifice Birks (études religieuses) de l'Université McGill, le 7 octobre 2007.
October 13th, 2007
Les commerces sont ouverts durant les travaux
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Un panneau que l'on voit entre autres aux abords du boulevard Saint-Laurent, mais cette photo nous montre l'état du Boulevard De Maisonneuve, entre l'Avenue Union et la Rue Aylmer. Que se passe-t-il donc? Eh bien, c'est l'effet que l'affaisement de la structure de béton au dessus de la station de métro McGill, le 24 août 2007 (et qui avait entraîné la fermeture de la ligne verte entre Lionel-Groulx et Berri-UQAM pour toute la fin de semaine), et le prolongement de la piste cyclable sur De Maisonneuve, entre Greene et Berri produisent sur le paysage urbain.
Photo du jour: Hydro’s edge
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Hydro Quebec and Niu Kee. Clark and René Lévesque. September 26, 2007
An unusual ride on the metro
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
"Point de fuite." Photo by MTL Guy on Flickr.
I was going to wait until I'd seen it myself before writing about it, but Fagstein has beat me to the punch: there's a spooky metro car going around on the orange line.
Spacing Montreal contributor Jacob Larsen was the first to tell me, at our last meeting, about his strange experience of riding in a metro car with a dark blue interior and creepy music playing over the PA system. Then, earlier this evening, my friend Mary told me that she too was in dark blue ...
October 14th, 2007
Photo du jour: The back end of Belgo
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
I've always liked this Bleury Street view of the Belgo Building, how it seems to envelop its small greystone neighbour. As a bonus, there's a ghost sign meant to look like a scroll, reading "The Belgo Building."
Election signs: Vote Votez Votate ψήφος
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
We when launched our election sign project last weekend, we did so with the potentially imminent federal election in mind. But it turns out there's already an election underway. Over the past couple of weeks, signs promoting the candidates for next month's school board election have appeared around town.
It's hard enough getting people to vote for their own mayor and city councillors; getting them to vote for school commissioner must be unimaginably difficult. It's understandable why public interest might be low --- I don't have any kids, so I really have no interest in ...
October 15th, 2007
Photo du jour : The reds are coming
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Most trees are still green, at least here in Mile End/Outremont, but I spotted some beautiful red foliage on Waverly Street last week. The reds and oranges are just arriving, but they won't last long...
My favourite laneway: a bit of the Parisian banlieue
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Contrary to what most tourist brochures will tell you, the "Paris of North America" actually has very little in common with the real Paris. Montreal looks absolutely nothing like the French capital and the culture is totally different. But, every so often, it's possible to find in this distinctly New World city a glimpse of something distinctly Parisian. Consider the laneway just north of St. Louis Square: with horse stables on one side and a tall, narrow house providing a nice visual terminus, it wouldn't be out of place in one of the old villages in ...
Il fait beau dans l’métro: behind the advertisement
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
[youtube]DcC31r1BxBY[/youtube]
By now, most of you have probably seen Il fait beau dans l'métro, a 1976 television advertisement for Montreal's metro and bus system. In today's Gazette, though, I look at the ad's origins how it has been embraced online as a kitsch icon. An excerpt:
Il fait beau dans l'métro was created by BCP, a Montreal-based ad firm whose founder, Jacques Bouchard, pioneered the use of distinctly Québécois cultural references in French-language ad campaigns.
"BCP's role was enormous," recalled Marie-Claude Ducas, editor of Infopresse, a marketing magazine. "It was the first Québécois ad company. It played into the Quebec star system ...
October 16th, 2007
Road to Nowhere: Bike Riding in New York
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
Video
Urban thinker, former Talking Head, and writer of songs about architecture and buildings David Byrne recently did a presentation called "How New Yorkers Ride Bikes" for the New Yorker Festival in Manhattan. From Streetfilms:
Of course our MC for the night, Mr. Byrne, who has been using a bike for transportation for 30 years, pedaled to the theater. In fact, the night started with helmet cam footage he shot as he biked thru Times Square to the venue. Some Byrne-musings which drew the most applause/ laughter as he navigated the entanglement of ...
What Vancouver can teach us about street furniture
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Last week on Urbanphoto, I wrote about street furniture and sidewalk decoration in Vancouver. While Vancouver is a much newer, smaller city than Montreal --- one still coping with adolescent growing pains and an identity that consists in large part of being an escape, a Terminal City, for both immigrants and Canadians alike --- it has some lessons for us in urban design.
Compared to Montreal, Vancouver takes a much more proactive approach to planning new residential and commercial development than Montreal, for instance. It also pays more attention, at least in some areas, to ...
Photo du jour : RIP, Restaurant Bens
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
En passant devant le Bens De Luxe Delicatessen and Restaurant, comme l'appelle son article dans Wikipedia, on ne peut s'empêcher de remarquer que des panneaux d'un bleu corporatif contrastant d'avec le rouge et vert pâle Bens.
Photo prise au coin du boulevard de Maisonneuve et de la rue Metcalfe, le 10 octobre 2007.
CFC Media Lab Info Soirée
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
CFC Media Lab in Toronto -- the place where we developed [murmure] -- is holding an information session in Montreal tomorrow. In fact, at a [murmure] location -- listen to the stories here.
CFC MEDIA LAB INFORMATION SOIRÉE AT FESTIVAL DU NOUVEAU CINÉMA
Create the future of entertainment - Join the CFC Media Lab at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma for an information session about the TELUS Interactive Art & Entertainment Program (IAEP), Canada’s first post-graduate program for new media training and production.
Our philosophy is innovative new media content is created through collaboration that ...
Willowdale Avenue
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
There's something serene about Willowdale Avenue, a broad residential street that runs from Édouard-Montpetit metro in the east to the Université de Montréal's HEC in the west. It must be a combination of the thick foliage and unassuming architecture, apartment blocks on one side and Tudoresque houses on the other.
Although it is surrounded by Côte des Neiges, the oval streets signs along Willowdale remind you that it is, in fact, part of a little Outremont panhandle that juts west along Côte St. Catherine Road. It's not the only remarkable thing about this street. While the ...
October 17th, 2007
Montreal’s bike-rental program: will it work?
By Christopher DeWolf // 9 Comments
Parisians enjoy their city's Vélib' bike-sharing program. Photo by malais
Earlier this month we found out that Montreal plans to be the first city in North America to establish a wide-scale bike-sharing program. The first bikes will hit the streets next fall; by 2009, you should be able to rent one of 2,400 bikes, and for about $1 per half-hour, from 300 stations scattered around town.
"The idea is to encourage Montrealers and tourists to use the public bicycles instead of cars for short, inner-city trips. Users will be able to pick up a bike at one ...
Photo du jour : Centre Eaton, section nord
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Bien plus intéressante est en faite l'œuvre d'art situé de l'autre côté d'où cette photo du Centre Eaton a été prise, et qui fera peut-être l'objet d'un autre article sur Spacing Montréal. Elle se compose de bouteilles de plastique recyclées en gigantesque serpent translucide parcourant l'antre du Centre Eaton.
Photo prise au Centre Eaton de Montréal, le 10 octobre 2007.
Headlines / À la une : 17.10.07
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
IN THE STREETS
DANS LA RUE
Superhospital must avoid Big O's fate --- 16.10 (The Gazette)
When it comes to jaywalking, Montrealers are slow to see the light --- 16.10 (The Gazette)
Private donation bolsters Montreal fine arts museum's expansion --- 15.10 (CBC)
Le Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal s'agrandit --- 11.10 (La Presse)
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
CULTURE ET COMMUNAUTÉ
Survival [of anglo schools] is key issue as vote looms --- 17.10 (The Gazette)
Il fait beau dans l'metro --- 15.10 (The Gazette)
La vitrine culturelle ouvre ses portes à Montréal --- 11.10 (Le Devoir)
Aboriginal homelessness proving deadly ...
The suburbs finally get their due
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
"Bridge to Laval." Photo by caribb
A week after the Gazette ran an exposé on downtown's "black hole" and Le Devoir taught us how to revive commercial streets, La Presse decided to outdo all of its competitors with a lengthy and ambitious series on Montreal's suburbs. You probably saw the posters around town --- "Quattro cinq cero," they read, referring to the banlieue's area-code nickname --- but what you might not have guessed is that, far beyond a simple weekend-edition special, the focus on suburbia would span four entire days.
Credit goes to reporter Isabelle ...
Faulty towers
By Paul Erlichman // 6 Comments
Most people will say that the idea of an 11.25-metre tall billboard sitting on a sidewalk is offensive to them. But the seeming lack of general opposition to the Astral Media "Street columns" and "MegaColumns" makes me wonder if people are becoming apathetic or just unaware of street advertising.
People in Montreal are faced with other forms of advertising more blatant or tiresome. Ad trucks seem more ridiculous. Bus shelter ads get a ton of your attention when you're waiting ten minutes for your ride. In comparison, these columns can seem restrained, ...
October 18th, 2007
One less space for cars, twelve more spaces for bikes
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
St. Viateur St. near Waverly
In just the past few years, Montreal has made some pretty big steps forward in developing its bike infrastructure. The new bike lane on Maisonneuve might have caused a crack in the street that threatened to pull the whole of downtown into a giant sinkhole, but it's otherwise pretty snazzy. The counterflow bike lanes and sharrows in the McGill Ghetto are pretty cool. The new bike racks being installed on parking meters around town are a vast improvement over the old ones.
What I really like the most, though, are the seasonal ...
Photo du jour: The market and the alien mothership
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Maisonneuve Market and the Olympic Stadium. September 25, 2007
Share Montreal’s Chinatown with the world
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ynENhI30jI[/youtube]
Take a Look: New York City Chinatown Post-9/11, by Kevin Lee
New York's Museum of Chinese in the Americas wants you to share your Chinatown with the world.
The Chinatown Film Project, launched last month, is a worldwide examination of the world's Chinatowns through film and video. Although the first part of the project will consist of ten commissioned films by New York filmmakers, including well-established Wayne Wang (director of The Joy Luck Club and, uh, Maid in Manhattan) and rising star Rich Wong (Colma: The Musical), the second part is open to contributions from ordinary people across the ...
October 19th, 2007
Photo du jour: Morgan Avenue
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Morgan Avenue and the Maisonneuve Market. September 25, 2007
Listen to the city’s dreams tonight
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? An outdoor broadcast of Karen Spencer's Dream Listener project
WHEN? Tonight, October 19th, between 6pm and 11pm
WHERE? The Park With No Name, near St. Laurent and Van Horne
HOW MUCH? Free!
You might have seen Karen Spencer's cryptic dreams scattered around town --- she's written them in English, French and Spanish on pieces of cardboard --- or you might have read about her blog in Steve Faguy's weekly blog column in the Gazette. Tonight, though, you'll get to hear Spencer's dreams in person.
Dare-Dare, the arts organization located in Mile End's Park With No Name, ...
Fall Ecogardening at (where else?) the Park With No Name
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Dare-Dare's Park With No Name is a busy place, it seems. Not only will Karen Spencer's Dream Listener project take place there tonight, it will host a series of workshops and discussions on the theme of gardening and green space, hosted by Émily Rose Michaud and Catherine Beau-Ferron. The two-day schedule of activities starts tomorrow with a workshop on garden building, with information on types of soil, plants and recycled materials needed to create a successful garden.
Later that afternoon, a discussion will be held on the future of the Park With No Name. ...
Le monument Chénier
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Bordé par des terrains de stationnements et par les rues St-Antoine et St-Denis, où le débit de circulation automobile est élevé, le monument Chénier semble avoir totalement sombré dans l'oubli.
Il n'en fut par contre pas toujours ainsi. La statue de l'artiste français Peltzer fut inauguré dans le carré Viger le 24 août 1895 à la gloire du Dr Jean-Olivier Chénier, un patriote mort héroiquement à St-Eustache lors de la rébellion de 1837.
À l'époque, le carré Viger était un des plus beaux jardins ...
October 20th, 2007
Photo du jour: Castro Motor Oil
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Poster at Metcalfe and Ste. Catherine. September 20, 2007
October 21st, 2007
Photo du jour: A day without billboards
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Park Avenue at Villeneuve. September 18, 2007
Bienséance publique / Public etiquette
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 9 Comments
File d'attente pour l'autobus, métro Mont-Royal. photo par "nothing"
for english follow the continue reading link
Vous vous sentez enragés quand quelqu'un bloque le côté gauche de l'escalier roulant? Ou quand les gens entrent dans le métro sans attendre que les passagers en descendent? Ou encore quand personne ne laisse son siège à une personne âgée? Enragé est un bien grand mot, mais reste qu'un manque de bienséance publique peut parfois nous sembler tragique, un signe d'une société décadente! D'un autre côté, être témoin d'une civilité particulière peut nous redonner espoir en tout et nous faire oublier que quelqu'un vient de couper la file d'attente pour l'autobus.
Lors du lancement de Spacing Montréal, nous vous avons demandé de remplir un sondage. Une des questions portait justement sur la bienséance publique. Nous espérions voir comment les Montréalais(es) se comportaient en société... Je note ici quelques réponses disparates:
OUI
- Attendre que les gens sortent du métro avant d'y entrer
- Faire la bise
- Vérifier pour les vélos avant d'ouvrir la porte de son auto
- Faire la queue pour attendre l'autobus
- Redresser les vélos tombés
- Saluer et remercier le chauffeur d'autobus
NON
- Entrer dans le métro avant que les gens n'en sortent
- Rester immobile du côté gauche des escaliers roulants
- Laisser la merde de son chien sur le trottoir
- Cracher
- Ne pas retenir la porte pour la prochaine personne
Les réponses les plus populaires sont celles de la file d'attente pour l'autobus et celle des entrées et sorties de métro. Je dois avouer que bien des fois, en sortant du métro, il me vient l'envie de sortir droit devant moi en repoussant soigneusement la personne (pour qui je n'existe pas) essayant d'entrer dès que les portes s'ouvrent. Un jour viendra.
Quelques réponses méritent aussi une mention toute particulière. Comme "la façon dont les gens se tassent pour ne pas s'asseoir à côté de quelqu'un dans l'autobus." J'y réfléchis mais je n'arrive pas à me convaincre si c'est une bonne ou une mauvaise chose. Aucun doute pour celle-ci par contre: les "fusillades policières"; effectivement un manque flagrant de savoir vivre. Ou bien encore ce manque de civilité qu'est "n'avoir aucune bienséance ou la moindre conscience de la présence d'autres êtres humains." Rien de plus vrai.
On ne fait que toucher la pointe de l'iceberg, par contre. Laissez-nous donc vos commentaires, histoires, tirades, etc. Petit à petit, on arrivera bien à créer un petit guide pratique de la bien-et mal-séance publique montréalaise.
Election signs: “So let me get this straight…”
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
You know, I always wonder if politicians actually pay attention to the many ways in which their election signs are defaced. Often enough, the vandalism consists of a bit of grassroots (though usually poorly articulated) criticism.
Take this ADQ sign for example. I spotted it in front of the Rialto on Park Avenue during the 2005 provincial by-election in Outremont. This was just over a year before the ADQ's unexpected surge across the province, but since we're talking about the centre of Montreal, you can pretty much guess which party won. (Hint: it starts with an "L.") ...
October 22nd, 2007
Photo du jour: Rue Christin
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Christin Street behind UQAM's Pavillon J.A. DeSeve
Imaginer la place d’Armes
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
QUOI : atelier de design "Imaginer la place d'Armes"
QUAND : atelier (20 au 31 oct) exposition (20 oct au 16 déc)
OÙ : gallerie MONOPOLI (181 Saint-Antoine Ouest)
Présentement et jusqu'au 16 décembre se tient l'atelier de design "Imaginer la place d'Armes". L'atelier est organisé par la Ville de Montréal, en partenariat avec le ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine et la Chaire UNESCO en paysage et environnement de l'Université de Montréal. Trois équipes formées de designers montréalais et internationaux se penchent sur cette place située en plein coeur historique de la ville.
Cet ...
October 23rd, 2007
Photo du jour : Sur la 80
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Photo prise à bord de l'autobus 80 Du Parc, à la hauteur du Monument à Georges-Étienne Cartier, le 21 octobre 2007.
Place Falun Gong
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Place Sun Yat Sen, a small square in the heart of Montreal's Chinatown, is almost perenially occupied by members of Falun Gong, a psuedo-religious spiritual movement that originated in 1992 in China. Banned seven years later by the Chinese government, which insisted that it was a cult and devoted itself rather heavy-handedly to crushing it, Falun Gong has earned supporters and followers worldwide.
Here in Montreal, its members are a common sight on downtown streets, where they hand out pamplets explaining the movement's philosophy and outlining the tactics used against it by ...
October 24th, 2007
Photo du jour : Métro Place-des-Arts
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise à la station Place-des-Arts de la ligne verte du Métro de Montréal, le 21 octobre 2007.
October 25th, 2007
Photo du jour : Monument Georges-Étienne Cartier
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
La phase deux de la restauration du monument construit en l'honneur de Sir Georges-Étienne Cartier s'étirera d'avril 2007 à avril 2008.
Photo prise le 21 octobre 2007.
Place Monseigneur-Charbonneau
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Montreal's office district, running between Dorchester Square in the northwest and Victoria Square in the southeast, is not terribly exciting. Compared to Midtown Manhattan, or even Bay Street, it lacks a certain high-stakes punch, the relentless energy of money being made in vast amounts, of high-stress streetlife scurrying from one meeting to the next. It feels provincial. But at least it's pretty: over the past four years, this section of downtown Montreal has seen some huge improvements to its urban environment.
The change started with the overhaul of the so-called Quartier international, which included the construction ...
Will the UN move to Montreal — and how will it affect the waterfront?
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Last week, La Presse reported quite breathlessly that the federal government, which owns the Port of Montreal and much of the land along its waterfront, has been lobbying the United Nations to move its headquarters from New York to Montreal. The rationale, apparently, is that the UN's current headquarters, housed in an iconic complex built in 1949 along the East River, needs nearly $2 billion worth of renovations over the next couple of decades. It would cost a lot less to simply pack up and move to Montreal, where a state-of-the-art new headquarters would be waiting ...
Touring the TOHU recycling complex at St-Michel
By Misha Warbanski // 3 Comments
This corner of the old quarry and garbage dump in St-Michel is slated to become a pond by 2020. Photo by Misha Warbanski
Every Thursday morning there's a rush to get the recycling out to the curb. But other than the scramble to throw everything into a flimsy clear-plastic bag (in the Centre-Sud they've done away with the green bins), and get it out to the curb in time, I don't really think about curbside recycling that much. In the city we're very much disconnected from the garbage we produce. And ...
De Maisonneuve bike lane update
By Chris Erb // 7 Comments
Construction is coming along at a decent pace on the downtown bike lane along de Maisonneuve. La Press is reporting that it should be open by the end of the month but based on how much work is left to be done on the western portion, I have my doubts that a Hallowe'en bike ride on the new bike lane will be a reality.
The section behind The Bay building is of course still closed and the work that was completed is being ripped up as workers continue to make repairs on the collapsing tunnel beneath the ...
October 26th, 2007
Lessons in urban planning from Vancouver
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Highrise living in downtown Vancouver
WHAT? "Making a Great City by Design," a lecture by Vancouver's former planning director, Larry Beasley
WHEN? Monday, October 29th at 6:30pm
WHERE? McGill's Macdonald Harrington Building (aka the Architecture Building), Room G10
When it comes to urban planning, the so-called "Vancouver Model" has a lot going for it: high-density downtown living, ample green space, public amenities paid for by developers, quality urban design and priority for pedestrians over cars.
Sure, it has its critics, who accuse it of transforming downtown Vancouver into a bland condoscape, or of promoting residential construction at the expense of ...
Photo du jour : Éco-quartier Peter-McGill
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
Photo prise devant l'Éco-quartier Peter-McGill, le 21 octobre 2007.
Explore Montreal with your own two feet — and psyche
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
When I opened this week's edition of the Mirror I was surprised to find, right next to my own article about Larry Beasley, another story about fellow Spacing Montreal contributor Jacob Larsen. Jacob is the "de facto organizer" of the Montreal Psychogeography Society, a group that organizes random strolls around different parts of Montreal. So far, the walks have taken the society's members to St. Michel, Côte des Neiges, upper Westmount and Outremont. On July 1st, they wandered around various residential neighbourhoods to witness the madness of moving day.
The Mirror has more:
Inspired by ...
October 27th, 2007
Photo du jour: Leo’s Horse Palace
By Chris Erb // 5 Comments
Leo's Horse Palace on rue Ottawa as it looked on October 20th. Although this stable is nowhere near the largest of a handful in and around Griffintown, it is by far the best known. If you want to know a bit about Leo and his stable, this 2004 Mirror article by Kristain Gravenor (writer of the Coolopolis blog) is quite good.
Public edifices and places publiques in today’s Devoir
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
This weekend's edition of Le Devoir includes a couple of interesting articles on public space in Montreal. On the front page, Stéphane Baillergeon pens a feature on the state of our public architecture. The verdict is not good: today's public buildings are mediocre and underfinanced, beholden to a public that views any sort of significant public investment askance. Dinu Bumbaru, the policy director of Heritage Montreal, who has an especially keen understanding of Montreal's urban landscape, se désole:
«Les lieux de représentation du pouvoir parlent beaucoup», commente à la place du défunt maire le bien portant ...
October 28th, 2007
Photo du jour: Tuned in — but moved out
By Jacob Larsen // No Comments
I was struck by this little electronics repair shop on a bike ride through Ville Émard. With the advent of flat screen TVs, produced in distant places more cheaply with each passing year, electronics repair shops are becoming a rare sight in our city. Given the curtains over the storefront windows and low vacancy rates, the owner, Bergeron, must have realized that a greater income could be had by simply converting the storefront into a rental unit. The sign that remains may only be a reminder of times past.
October 29th, 2007
Photo du jour: Red, green, orange, yellow
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Fall colours at their peak on McGill's lower campus. October 22, 2007
October 30th, 2007
Photo du jour: Ten Ten, Dix Dix, 雙十節
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Chinatown on "Double Ten Day," Taiwan's national holiday. October 10, 2007
A river flows to it: The Charles J. Des Baillets water filtration plant
By Jacob Larsen // 1 Comment
Beneath the streets of our city lies two vast networks of pipes and conduits. One to ensure a steady supply of fresh water is always on hand and another to carry it away for cleansing just as quickly. Barring any unforeseen clogs, frozen pipes or volcanic hydrants, we often fail to consider the energy that is expended on this massive infrastructure. Realizing how little I knew about our water infrastructure, I took a tour of the Charles J. Des Baillets water filtration plant in Lasalle - one of the city's two purification facilities - ...
Densité, intensité, tensions: a colloquium
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
This Thursday and Friday, UQÀM's Centre interuniversitaire d'études sur les lettres, les arts et les traditions will present a colloquium on art, culture and urban space entitled "Densité, intensité, tensions." Five sessions, on topics such as "Zones grises," "Montréal discontinuités et
potentiels" and "Penser comme à l'ouest et vivre comme à l'est," will take place over two days. Unfortunately, there isn't any detail on their actual content (there will be a "Soundwalk" on Friday at 10am, but we aren't told exactly what that will entail), so we're left to guess about ...
My favourite laneway: an outdoor art gallery
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Every time I walk through the laneway just east of St. Urbain, between St. Viateur and Bernard, I come across some striking pieces of street art. It's also one of the more picturesque alleys in Mile End, lined with rusty old garages, clotheslines and overlooked by the Byzantine tower of St. Michael's Church.
October 31st, 2007
Photo du jour: Happy Halloween!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Pumpkin's pride of place. Esplanade St., Mile End. October 28, 2005
Halloween metro party tonight at 9pm
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
What better way to celebrate Halloween than to descend deep beneath the surface of the earth? This evening, at 9pm, costumed revellers will descend on Côte Vertu metro, pack into the last car of a departing metro train and visit all of the Orange Line stations while listening to spooky music and gorging themselves on candy. There's a Facebook group with more information for those interested.
As far as I know, the last time there was a successful metro party in Montreal was when the people from Toronto's newmindspace came to town. I missed ...
Another main street to be reconstructed
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
In the midst of endless complaints about the slow pace of renovation work on the Main, another, much smaller main street is about to get a makeover: Ste. Anne Street, the main drag of cutesy suburb Ste. Anne de Bellevue. Between 2008 and 2009, it will be completely reconstructed in three phases at a cost of $5 million.
Obviously, the town, which is on the western tip of Montreal Island, is not far enough to escape the macabre spectre of St. Laurent. "It’s going to be done after the big season, making sure ...
Celebrating Halloween in the streets
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
I don't really get excited about Halloween, mainly because I hate getting dressed up. But even I have fond memories of trick-or-treating when I was a kid, and I have to admit, there was a kind of infectiously fun atmosphere in the streets this evening.
Just down the street from my apartment, a raucous bunch of people lined up outside the Rialto for the first showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Over on Bernard and St. Viateur, groups of costumed kids paraded from one store to the next, collecting candy. In the alley next to ...
November 1st, 2007
Photo du jour : Avenue du Mont-Royal
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise sur l'Avenue du Mont-Royal, coin Avenue Du Parc, le 21 octobre 2007, un dimanche d'été indien.
Montreal’s industrial history, cookie version
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
La Biscuiterie, photo by André Joly
Who knew that Montreal's history could be so gooey and delicious? Last month, "Viau, des biscuits, une histoire" opened at the Écomusée du fier monde, an exhibition on the east end's Viau cookie factory --- the makers of the famous marshmellow-and-chocolate Whippet --- and its impact on Montreal.
Charles Viau, born in in Longueuil, opened his first bakery on Notre Dame St. in 1867. By the time he died in 1898, though, business was good enough that the Viau family started scouting out for a new home, finding it on ...
We need more legal space for postering
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Posters on a traffic control box, including an election sign
The ongoing school board election in Montreal has revealed, as with every election, an unacceptable double-standard in Montreal's attitude towards postering. While politicians have the right to plaster the city with their campaign signs, virtually no legal space has been set aside for community groups, musicians, artists, and other individuals and low-budget organizations to make themselves heard.
Like it or not, posters give them a chance to effectively target a local audience that might not otherwise be reached. It's a medium that is unfiltered, flexible and, above all, ...
November 2nd, 2007
Photo du jour: Ste. Catherine Street
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Ste. Catherine and Drummond. July 15, 2007
De Maisonneuve bike lane opens
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
After 20 years of demands by local cyclists, and a construction process that inadvertently cracked a tunnel beneath the street, the de Maisonneuve bike lane is finally open. Spanning the entire length of downtown, from Berri St. in the east to Atwater Ave. in the west, the lane buckles a huge gap in Montreal's bike network, giving cyclists a crosstown alternative to busy streets such as Sherbrooke. Also, unlike the bike lanes on Rachel or Brébeuf, this one will be open year-round.
By next summer, the bike lane will extend all the way to Lachine, passing through ...
Public space, from Beirut to Montreal
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Café in Cairo. Photo by Patrick Donovan
WHAT? Discussion, in French, on Arab cafés in Montreal and North Africa
WHEN? 6pm, Sunday, November 4th
WHERE? The Gesù, 1200 Bleury St., near Ste. Catherine
HOW MUCH? Free!
I've always been fascinated by cafés and the unique social setting they offer. Even though they are, technically speaking, private spaces, they are nonetheless places of public interaction, in some ways extensions of the street, the neighbourhood and the city as a whole. This is especially true in the case of Arab cafés, which are part of a rich tradition rooted in North Africa ...
November 3rd, 2007
Photo du jour: On the bus
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
On the 80 bus in Park Extension. July 23, 2007
November 4th, 2007
Photo du jour : Prestige chez les amis
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Rue Ontario, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Le 25 septembre 2007
November 5th, 2007
Save our city’s kitsch!
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
The Orange Julep. Photo by afternoon_sunlight
Montreal has lost one of its more remarkable pieces of kitsch architecture. Today, the Canada Motel, a 47-year-old landmark on Taschereau Blvd. on the South Shore, closed its doors for good.
The motel, topped by a giant neon sign, is designed in the style of a typical Quebec farmhouse, and it's surrounded by old habitant-style cottages containing rooms with themes like "lumberjack" and "garage." Roxanne Arsenault, an UQÀM student who is writing her master's thesis on kitsch architecture, has launched a petition to have Longueuil designate the building as an ...
Montrealers: Gérald Tremblay is good enough
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
La Presse reports this morning that, according to a new opinion poll, Gérald Tremblay is more popular now than at any time since he was elected in 2002. 70 percent of respondents said his leadership was "very good" or "good enough," compared to 60 percent for Stephen Harper and 43 percent for Jean Charest. If a city election were held today, Tremblay would win with 45 percent of the vote, compared to 7 percent for Ville-Marie mayor Benoît Labonté and 6 percent for Projet Montréal leader Richard Bergeron. (More than a third of the electorate, ...
Photo du jour: MusiquePlus
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Corner of Bleury and Ste. Catherine. September 26, 2007
Walking Hochelaga
By Jacob Larsen // 3 Comments
Following the minor splash made by a recent article in Mirror, Montreal's fledgling Psychogeography Society turned its gaze --- and its feet --- east. On a gray day that bore a hint of the chillier winter still to come, a few brave souls headed into Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, starting at Papineau metro. The choice seemed an obvious one: like many Anglos, I have too few reasons to explore the city's more easternly side.
We started by heading past Ste. Catherine to the river, where the Jacques Cartier Bridge looms over a few neglected residential streets and ...
November 6th, 2007
Photo du jour: Club Social
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Social Club café, St. Viateur and Esplanade. July 23, 2007
McGill students offer ideas for Pine and Park
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
On a crisp evening early last week, I joined about two dozen other people in a crowded studio on the fourth floor of McGill's Macdonald-Harrington Building. We were there to see what ideas for reshaping the Pine/Park interchange four teams of McGill urban planning students, led by former Vancouve planning director Larry Beasley.
I won't go into details, since I arrived halfway through the presentations, but, among the plans was a "recreational archipelago" that scattered various points of interest around the Pine/Park site. Another proposal focused quite intensely on the actual intersection of Pine and Park ...
Headlines / À la une : 06.11.2007
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
TRANSPORT
TRANSPORTS
Des chauffeurs de la STM perturbent le conseil de Verdun (La Presse)
Ça presse, clame le maire Gladu (Le Journal de Montréal)
Viaducs: des chercheurs favorisent l'acier et les matériaux composites (La Presse)
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
CULTURE ET COMMUNAUTÉ
Montréal, lieu-clé de 1837-38 (Le Devoir)
Public service retirees demand better deal (The Gazette)
Local lawyer gets CBC's top job (The Gazette)
Un autre million contre les graffitis (La Presse)
POLITICS
POLITIQUE
En photo: Journée d'élections (Le Devoir)
Hausser le salaire des commissaires (Le Journal de Montréal)
Voters ignore school board elections (The Gazette)
Tremblay scores best in absentia (The ...
November 7th, 2007
Photo du jour: Fortune teller
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Fortune teller's street kiosk. La Gauchetière and Clark. July 24, 2007
South Shore politicians want their light rail
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Earlier this fall, on Car Free Day no less, the Journal reported that the South Shore light rail project was dead. It would cost too much, said the federal corporation that manages the Jacques-Cartier and Champlain bridges. This, despite millions of dollars worth of studies that declared the project to be both desirable and fiscally feasible.
No bother to South Shore politicians: they're fighting as hard as ever for the light rail line that would link Brossard with Central Station, by way of the Quartier des multimédias. "Il faut absolument faire quelque chose. C'est ...
Will the Big Bibliothèque finally open its book market?
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
When it opened at the end of April, 2005, the Grande Bibliothèque defied expectations when it attracted tens of thousands of people who were eager to check out its airy architecture and multimedia, multilingual collection. The crowds never let up: even today, two and a half years later, a visit to the library reveals an always-crowded place enjoyed by a large cross-section of Montreal's population. It is, quite clearly, Montreal's most important public building of the past three decades.
There's just one problem: shortly after it opened, big chunks of the green-glass cladding popped out and ...
November 8th, 2007
Photo du jour: Dirty skyline
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Downtown through a dirty window. July 24, 2007
Is Montreal once again bulldozing neighbourhoods?
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Montreal has lost a lot of neighbourhoods over the years, thanks mostly to postwar mega-projects. In 1964, Goose Village, a working-class Italian neighbourhood that was also home to many English, Irish, Polish and Ukrainian families, was bulldozed for Expo '67 parking. 330 families were displaced. Around the same time, the slow death of Griffintown was encouraged by Mayor Drapeau, who had never liked the area or its councillor, Frank Hanley.
In 1966, the old village of Longue Pointe made way for an approach to the Louis H. Lafontaine Bridge-Tunnel, even though it ...
Today in the News…
By Misha Warbanski // No Comments
The Gazette reported the Ville-Marie borough manager resigned. Guy Hébert held the position for 27 years. This is the latest news in a politically turbulant season for the municipal bureau. In September Ville Marie mayor Benoit Labonte severed his ties with Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay's Union Montreal.
November 9th, 2007
It’s Tempo season!
By Christopher DeWolf // 11 Comments
It's that time of year when people in many Montreal neighbourhoods start installing much-maligned Tempo shelters to protect their driveways. Although they're most common in the suburbs and in outer neighbourhoods like Rosemont, St. Leonard or Ville St. Laurent, I've even seen them in more urban neighbourhoods, where they are used to shelter apartment building entrances.
Tempo shelters are ugly and possibly dangerous --- some say that, when it snows, they seal in carbon monoxide. A lot of people say they despise them, yet they remain immensely popular with hundreds of thousands of Montrealers, ...
Headlines / À la une : 09.11.2007
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
TRANSPORT
TRANSPORTS
Montréal à la recherche du vélo idéal (Le Devoir)
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
CULTURE ET COMMUNAUTÉ
Fresh off the bus, kids are easy mark (The Gazette)
History buffs want Jeanne Mance statue at Pine-Park (The Gazette)
Montréal, ville avec enfants (La Presse)
Montréal, métropole interculturelle (La Presse)
Les résidants de l'Ïle-des-Soeurs inquiets de leur sécurité (La Presse)
POLITICS
POLITIQUE
La tension monte entre Labonté et l'équipe Tremblay (La Presse)
Taxe d'amusement: «ce n'est pas ce qu'on a demandé» (La Presse)
Des tarifs qui font mal à Verdun (La Presse)
Firefighters' tactics cut service, city charges (The Gazette)
DEVELOPMENT
DÉVELOPPEMENT
Qualification des consortiums ...
Photo du jour: Fiesta-Pilipino
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Victoria Avenue near Van Horne. January 10, 2007
November 10th, 2007
Ma ruelle préférée : alignement informel
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 2 Comments
En général, on s'attend à ce que ce soient les grands boulevards et les grandes rues qui s'enlignent sur les points de repères de la ville. Cette ruelle de Rosemont / la Petite-Patrie (entre les rues de la Roche et de Normanville) fait exception à la règle en nous dirigeant droit vers le clocher de l'église Saint-Ambroise sur la rue Beaubien (l'église est l'oeuvre de l'architecte Montréalais Ernest Cormier, 1925) . On ressent encore plus l'importance des repères visuels lorsqu'ils viennent nous surprendre comme ici - comparé à un paysage "formel" tel que celui offert par l'avenue du ...
Photo du jour: Night lights
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Ste. Catherine and Drummond. December 23, 2006
November 11th, 2007
Les vélos à la fourrière / Bikes to the impoundment lot
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
...
For your amusement, a laundry list of Montreal evils
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Montreal and Quebec City have long had a rather intense rivalry. Thing is, it's entirely one-sided. Quebec City exists only on the periphery of Montreal's imagination but, in the minds and media of our provincial capital, la métropole looms very large. Quebec City's fixation with Montreal could only be described in terms of a massive inferiority complex. It usually manifests itself in snide talk-radio quips, but in today's Le Soleil, it came in the form of a perplexing rant about Montreal and everything that is wrong with it by Pierre Desjardins, who is apparently a ...
Marché Central going green? Yeah, right
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Marché Central, the big box power centre that has emerged recently around the corner of Acadie and Chabanel, just north of the Metropolitan, is installing recycling bins throughout its property, for the benefit of its customers. It will also provide bins to its retail tenants, allowing them, finally, to recycle.
The Marché Central's management claims that this effort is a big step towards helping the environment. "Ici, l’environnement, c’est devenu une priorité. Maintenant, quand le temps est venu de faire une dépense, on essaie toujours de trouver un moyen de réduire nos dépenses en énergie. ...
Photo du jour: On a slope
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
St. Urbain near Rachel. September 22, 2006
Headlines / À la une : édition du week-end
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
INFRASTRUCTURE
INFRASTRUCTURES
Près de la moitié des ponts et viaducs sont déficients (La Presse)
Montreal one of the ring road holdouts (Financial Post)
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
CULTURE ET COMMUNAUTÉ
Chez Truffert: le petit dernier de l'autre avenue Laurier (La Presse)
No fence or locked door can turn away these explorers (The Gazette)
Picking up the pieces after homelessness (The Gazette)
«Montréal, métropole culturelle» - Le directeur du MOMA prend part au débat (Le Devoir)
Montréal et Québec investissent 37,5 millions dans les bibliothèques (Le Devoir)
POLITICS
POLITIQUE
Le maire Tremblay candidat aux élections de 2009 (La Presse)
Tremblay starts early: ...
November 12th, 2007
Photo du jour: Papeles para todos y todas!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Protest posters on Jean Talon near St. Denis. September 24, 2006
Headlines / À la une : 12.11.2007
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
CULTURE ET COMMUNAUTÉ
City's libraries get $37.5 million for expansion (The Gazette)
Party scene dries up at university pubs (The Gazette)
Une école à «Chameauland» (La Presse)
À la piscine en hijab (La Presse)
POLITICS
POLITIQUE
Cemetery workers' vote ends long hostilities (The Gazette)
DEVELOPMENT
DÉVELOPPEMENT
Quartier des spectacles: Québec et Ottawa s'engagent (La Presse)
November 13th, 2007
Learn about Mile End’s religious heritage this Wednesday
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Menorah-mobile on Park Avenue last December
WHAT? Lecture on Mile End's multicultural religious heritage
WHEN? 7pm, Wednesday, November 14th
WHERE? Mile End Library, 5434 Park Avenue (near St. Viateur)
HOW MUCH? Free!
This Wednesday evening, Mile End Memories will present a lecture by Susan Bronson, architect and Université de Montréal professor, on Mile End's religious heritage:
Since 1993, the Mile End Library, which possesses a rich multilingual collection, has occupied a former Anglican church dating to 1904. This illustrated lecture, offered as part of the program to celebrate the library’s 25th anniversary, will trace more than 150 years in the history of ...
Photo du jour: Harbour Clock
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Under the Notre-Dame viaduct. November 16, 2004
À la une / Headlines : 13.11.2007
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
DÉVELOPPEMENT
DEVELOPMENT
Quartier des spectacles: Québec et Ottawa s'engagent (La Presse)
Coup d'envoi du Quartier des spectacles (Le Devoir)
Let's see how this show ends before applauding the politicians (The Gazette)
Les gouvernements crachent le cash (Le Journal de Montréal)
LOI
LAW
Road safety laws are on the fast track (The Gazette)
POLITIQUE
POLITICS
En bref - Tremblay candidat (Le Devoir)
ÉDUCATION
EDUCATION
Corbo chahuté (Le Journal de Montréal)
Les étudiants se préparent à manifester (La Presse)
Angry students swarm UQÀM prof (The Gazette)
$120 million to build the Quartier des spectacles
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
After years in the making, the plans for the Quartier des spectacles are finally coming together. Yesterday, it was announced that all three levels of government will be chipping in with $120 million to reshape the area around Ste. Catherine St. between Bleury St. in the west and St. Denis St. in the east. Four phases of development will be spread over four years. Today's Gazette has a decent rundown of what we can expect:
PHASE 1
Timing: Summer 2008 to June 2009.
Budget: $35.5 million.
Location: Jeanne Mance St. to the east, Balmoral St. to the west, ...
November 14th, 2007
Photo du jour: Crowded metro
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Lionel-Groulx station at rush hour. September 7, 2006
Living in a laneway: why not?
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Abandoned laneway triplex near St. Louis Square
This summer, while wandering through one of the sidestreets between Prince Arthur and Sherbrooke, I veered off into a laneway. Expecting to find some interesting graffiti, a picturesque clothesline or maybe some discarded furniture, I was surprised to come across an entire triplex at the intersection of two alleyways. It appeared to be abandoned --- windows boarded up, balconies rotting --- despite its prime location.
Montreal has a long tradition of laneway housing. In many of its neighbourhoods, especially those built before the 1920s, you'll find old houses, duplexes and ...
Pedestrian Streets: Should MacKay be pedestrian only?
By Chris Erb // 10 Comments
This is the beginning of a series of articles concerning pedestrian and shared streets in Montreal. Each article will either focus on an existing pedestrian only or shared street or propose that a street be turned into one.
Anybody who has spent some time on Concordia's downtown campus will agree that it has very little accessible student space. Take a visit to the sprawling lawns of McGill or Université de Montréal and you'll see people studying on the grass or socialising on grand stairways into even grander old buildings. This is not the case on Concordia’s Sir George ...
Park Extension gets its due
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
The Bouchard-Taylor commission on reasonable accommodation has touched down in Laval, the most polyglot city it has yet visited. (About 15 percent of Laval residents are immigrants, and 20 percent are allophones, which is not much by Montreal standards but way more diverse than anywhere else in Quebec.) Its proceedings have been, until now, frustrating and emotionally draining, especially for anyone who cherishes cultural and linguistic diversity. There seems to be an excess of rhetoric --- usually of a nationalist or, often, downright xenophobic nature --- without any grass-roots reality check as to how things ...
Where to get a drink in Montreal in 1950
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
You can thank the brothers Gravenor at Coolopolis for this map of every single tavern, pub and brasserie in Montreal, circa 1950. (Don't ask me how they did it --- these guys are machines. Or maybe it was just because they have the data-entry help of their super-intelligent chimpanzee, Chimples.) Unless you're time-travelling, this isn't likely to be of any practical use, but I find it very interesting to see how the concentration of bars has shifted in ...
Headlines / À la une : 14.11.2007
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
CULTURE ET COMMUNAUTÉ
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
Laval appears divided at Bouchard-Taylor commission hearings (The Gazette)
Quartier de spectacles just a start (The Gazette)
Un quartier de l’histoire verra aussi le jour (La Presse)
À la découverte du quartier portugais (La Presse)
La Course des morts (La Presse)
Arts et affaires: le dialogue se noue à Montréal (Le Devoir)
La Commission Bouchard-Taylor à Laval - Des musulmans disent subir l'impact du 11-Septembre (Le Devoir)
TRANSPORTS
TRANSPORT
Public transit workers okay strike mandate (The Gazette)
Mandat de grève à la STM (La Presse)
POLITIQUE
POLITICS
L'ADQ promet une part de la TVQ ...
November 15th, 2007
Photo du jour: McGill Book Fair
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Redpath Hall, McGill University. October 21, 2005
The only constant is change: Mile End’s religious heritage
By Jacob Larsen // 3 Comments
Constant cultural change has long been the signature of multi-ethnic neighbourhoods like the Mile End. Yesterday, in a lecture at the Mile End Library, this social history was explored through the transformation of its places of worship. With her exhaustive collection of photographs, Susan Bronson, an architect and professor of Montreal history at the University of Montreal, guided a small group of enthusiasts on a journey through the neighbourhood's religious transitions. The Mile End Library is itself part of this story of transition. Originally built as an Anglican church in 1904, it was transformed into ...
This is a construction site: why don’t you come in?
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
This month, Caroline Dubois and Julie Favreau, have taken over a storefront at 280 Beaubien St. East for an artistic intervention organized, in part, by the multidisciplinary arts centre Dare-Dare. Every day, the two artists will engage in a perpetual construction and deconstruction project. I wrote an article about it for this week's Mirror. Here's an excerpt:
Admit it: at least once, while walking past a big construction site, you’ve stopped to gaze down at the workers below, scurrying like safety-vested ants as they pour concrete and install girders. You probably weren’t alone. Chances are, ...
Talking about the Latin Quarter
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? Roundtable discussion on the Latin Quarter
WHEN? 5pm, Monday, November 19th
WHERE? L'Amère à boire, 2049 St. Denis (near Sherbrooke)
The Latin Quarter is something of an enigma. Since its development in the mid-nineteenth century as the home of the city's French-Canadian intelligentsia, it has morphed into a neighbourhood of contrasts, a sometimes-seedy succession of bars and cheap hotels that doubles as a francophone cultural hub and tourist destination.
It's the kind of place that can spur a lot of interesting discussion, which is exactly what the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada is hoping for this ...
November 16th, 2007
Photo du jour: Autumn pool
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
John F. Kennedy Pool, Outremont. October 2004
November 17th, 2007
Photo du jour: Stop art pollution evolution?
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Stop sign on Milton St. November 22, 2006
November 18th, 2007
Public hearing on Turcot reconstruction tomorrow
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Turcot Interchange near completion in 1967, looking north. Photo from Walking Turcot Yards
I recently wrote about the threat posted to the western part of St. Henri by the impending reconstruction of the Turcot Interchange. It isn't just residents below the hill who are concerned, though. Many people who live in NDG, especially the lower NDG neighbourhood of St. Raymond, are just as anxious about what the reconstruction will entail.
Tomorrow, the Ministère des transports du Québec will hold a public hearing to answer questions and let people know what's up. Some concerns that will be raised ...
November 19th, 2007
Photo du jour: Fraternal twins
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Rue du Couvent, St. Henri. September 16, 2004
November 20th, 2007
Photo du jour: Couche-Tard
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Sherbrooke St. near Grand Boulevard, NDG. November 5, 2005
STM lands to become new neighbourhood
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Last month, the STM announced that it would start selling off some of its property for development, following the lead of many other transit agencies around the world, including Toronto's TTC. It has already announced that the bus depot it owns at Fullum and Mount Royal, on the Plateau, will be redeveloped. Now comes word of another major development will take place at the depot on the corner of St. Denis and Rosemont.
According to La Presse, STM has signed an agreement with the Société d'habitation et de développement de Montréal to develop the ...
NDG and the Turcot Interchange
By Jacob Larsen // 4 Comments
As the ramifications of the mega overhaul planned on the Turcot Interchange become clearer, it appears that NDG residents will be affected as well. Originally overlooked by MTQ officials - who initially only planned public hearings in the southwest borough - residents had the opportunity to make their case before officials last night.
The primary issue on concern for those who brought their questions to the floor was that of the Falaise St. Jacques. While once extensively used as a trail by Iroquoian peoples prior to European contact, it became an obstacle during Montreal's twentieth century development, ...
À la une / Headlines : 20.11.2007
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
POLITIQUE
POLITICS
Labonté tend la main à Tremblay (Le Journal)
Outremont : En bref - Demande d'enquête (Le Devoir)
City core at centre of mayors' conflict (The Gazette)
Le choc des idées entre Labonté et Tremblay (La Presse)
Pierre Bourque reçoit l'Ordre du Soleil levant (Le Devoir)
DANS LA RUE
IN THE STREETS
Contentieux autour du pylône du mont Royal (La Presse)
HABITATION
HOUSING
Place Jarry: Faire des logements sociaux (Le Journal)
Ce n’est pas la place qui manque pour du logement social dans Rosemont (Arrondissement.com)
Maison de chambres à vendre…un potentiel pour du logement social (Arrondissement.com)
DÉVELOPPEMENT
DEVELOPMENT ...
The Gazette’s three-part series on Mile End
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Is Mile End at the pinnacle of coolness? Some think so. The eclectic, multicultural neighbourhood now finds itself at the centre of Montreal's music and art scenes, brimming with the kinds of creative jobs that Richard Florida promises will catapult Montreal into the top ranks of the new economy. But what about the future? Will rents continue to rise, pushing out the very people that made Mile End so desirable in the first place? It's a cycle of gentrification that has repeated itself over and over again throughout the developed world.
In a series this ...
November 21st, 2007
Photo du jour: Bicycle man
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Durocher near Jean-Talon, Park Ex. September 28, 2007
Montreal’s new smart card: lessons from Boston
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Next March, Montreal will join dozens of public transit systems around the world when it adopts a new contactless smart card that will allow you to store cash value and monthly passes on a single card that will give you access to the bus, metro and commuter train, as well as transit systems in Laval and Longueuil.
Just to give you an idea of the card's potential, you could load it with an STM monthly pass for unlimited travel on the bus and metro as well as $15 for those times you need to use the ...
«Cette fois, c’est la bonne»
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
It's been decades since politicians have promised to upgrade the east end of Notre-Dame Street into something more than a dangerous four-lane arterial. Now, finally, the city and the province appear to have committed to a plan to transform the street into an eight-land "urban boulevard." What exactly does that mean?
Between the end of the Ville-Marie Expressway in the west and Highway 25 in the east, Notre-Dame will be expanded from four to eight lanes. Two will be reserved for public transit and two for high-occupancy vehicles. The entire length of the street will be accompanied ...
Headlines / À la une : 21.11.2007
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
INFRASTRUCTURES
INFRASTRUCTURE
Rue Notre-Dame: «Cette fois, c'est la bonne» (La Presse)
Notre Dame to get overdue facelift (The Gazette)
Les protocoles [pour la rue Notre-Dame] pas encore signés (Le Journal)
Rue Notre-Dame : On s'est enfin entendu (Le Journal)
ENVIRONNEMENT
ENVIRONMENT
On roule au biodiesel à la STM (Le Journal)
HABITATION
HOUSING
Des inspecteurs s'attaquent à des immeubles insalubres de Saint-Léonard (La Presse)
Tétreaultville : Un condo en cadeau (Le Journal)
CULTURE ET COMMUNAUTÉ
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
La Commission Bouchard-Taylor dans Côte-des-Neiges - La tolérance colore le premier forum montréalais (Le Devoir)
Bouchard et Taylor, des «colons blancs» (Le Devoir)
Hearings are a ...
November 22nd, 2007
ATSA’s État d’urgence on now until Sunday
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Download link
The Action terroriste socialement acceptable's annual État d'urgence event, which is meant to raise awareness for poverty and homelessness, will once again occupy Berri Square from today until Sunday, 24 heures sur 24. Here's more from ATSA itself:
L’État d’Urgence est un Manifestival artistique interdisciplinaire et solidaire qui prend forme tel un camp de réfugiés effectif en plein centre-ville avec trois repas par jour, une collation en tout temps, des dons de vêtements chauds, un dortoir pour 150 personnes de la rue et plusieurs services de première ligne.
L’ATSA y ...
Photo du jour: Rachel Street reflection
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Reflection in the mirror of a parked scooter. Rachel and St. Laurent. September 22, 2006
More details on the Griffintown redevelopment
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
New details have emerged today on the redevelopment of Griffintown, which we first wrote about last July. Radio-Canada reports that it will cost at least $1.3 billion, cover 1.1 million square feet, and will include 3,900 housing units, a theatre or music venue, a cinema, office space, two hotels and underground parking. Devimco, the developer, will also invest $10 million in a future tramway station along Peel Street. The city will also require the construction of 900 housing units to be reserved for low-income housing.
Here's more information from a news release issued ...
Yiddish community activism on the Main
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
WHAT? "Hirsch Wolofsky, un demi-siècle d’activisme communautaire yiddish sur la Main," a lecture by Pierre Anctil, director of the University of Ottawa's Institute of Canadian Studies
WHEN? Saturday, November 24th, from 3:00pm to 5:30pm
WHERE? Club Espagnol du Québec, 4388 Saint-Laurent Blvd., near Marie Anne
HOW MUCH? $10 regular, $5 students, includes Friends of Saint-Laurent Blvd. membership
This Saturday, the Friends of Saint-Laurent Boulevard will be presenting a special lecture by Pierre Anctil, one of Quebec's foremost Jewish historians, on Hirsch Wolofsky, the founder of Keneder Odler, Canada's foremost Yiddish-language newspaper, and Yiddish community activism on the Main. Here's more ...
November 23rd, 2007
Photo du jour: Posters on Milton
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Milton Street near Aylmer, McGill Ghetto. October 30, 2007
Reaction to the Griffintown mega-development
By Christopher DeWolf // 9 Comments
Since news broke yesterday afternoon with details about Devimco's plan to massively redevelop Griffintown, the blogosphere has been abuzz with reaction.
Some are concerned about the effect on current Griffintown residents. Although Devimco insists that no homeowners will be expropriated, Kristian Gravenor isn't buying that assurance at face value. He has lived through the Overdale boondoggle, in which an entire nineteenth-century downtown block was demolished, and hundreds of residents evicted, for a luxury property development that never materialized. "[Some] suspect that this will end badly, that they'll kick people out and the developers ...
November 24th, 2007
Photo du jour: 24 hour studying
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Milton Street near Park Avenue, McGill Ghetto. October 30, 2007
Spacing Montréal et Expozine, together at last!
By Spacing // 1 Comment
QUOI? Expozine, le salon des fanzines, bandes dessinées et petits éditeurs
WHAT? Expozine, the annual small press, comic and zine fair
QUAND? Samedi le 24 novembre et dimanche le 25 novembre, entre midi et 18h
WHEN? Saturday, November 24th and Sunday, November 25th, between noon and 6pm
OÙ? WHERE? L'Église Saint-Enfant-Jésus, 5035 Saint-Dominique
L'automne prend fin, Expozine s'approche. C'est encore une fois le temps du salon annuel des fanzines, bandes dessinées et petits éditeurs de Montréal, sans doute l'événement le plus attendu du mois de novembre ! Cette année, Spacing Montréal sera un des ...
November 25th, 2007
Photo du jour: Little mosque on St. Dominique
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Newly-expanded mosque near Ste. Catherine and St. Laurent. October 29, 2007
Public hearing: Pine/Park to stay as it is
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Yesterday, while a handful of Spacing Montreal contributors sat in a musty church basement with hundreds of other Expozine exhibitors and visitors, about 150 people attended a public forum on the future of the Pine/Park interchange. Dozens of proposals were submitted on how to deal with the newly-reclaimed space, but the verdict that emerged from yesterday's consultation was this: the space will not be developed. Currently, it is zoned to allow buildings up to four stories high, but Plateau mayor Helen Fotopulos said that it will be soon be rezoned for parkland....
Montreal’s suburban villages: Pointe Claire
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Over the course of Montreal's history, plenty of old towns and villages have been swallowed whole by the insatiable appetite of its suburban sprawl. One of these is the town centre of Pointe Claire, deep within the wilds of the West Island. Although there has been a settlement at Pointe Claire since 1698, the village remains a surprisingly modest affair, no more than a few square blocks of old houses and duplexes, clustered along Lake St. Louis between St. Joachim Church on one side and the Beaconsfield Golf Club on the other. At the centre of ...
November 26th, 2007
Photo du jour: Squat Préfontaine
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Kate McDonnell took this photo of the old Préfontaine squat. She provides a bit of background: "This was originally built in 1886 as a smallpox hospital, used for isolating people during epidemics. By 1911 it was falling apart and was rescued from demolition by being renovated. Another renovation in 1979 would be responsible for the mismatched bricks and ugly little windows in the middle section.
"After the mid-1950s it became a shelter for the homeless and in the late 1970s and early 1980s was used to temporarily shelter an influx of boat people. After being officially sanctioned ...
What makes a good library?
By Christopher DeWolf // 9 Comments
Earlier this month, the city and province announced that they will team up to invest $37.5 million in Montreal's libraries, with plans to create five new ones, renovate others, hire more people and expand collections. There's still no word on where the new libraries will be built, but this raises an important question: what makes a good library?
I think the success of the Grande Bibliothèque testifies to the need for good design and a good location. Only a handful of people use libraries because they absolutely must; most do so by choice, looking for ...
Demain, une conférence sur le Quartier des spectacles
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
QUOI? Conférence sur le développement du Quartier des spectacles
QUAND? Le mardi 27 novembre, 17h
OÙ? Amphithéâtre Hydro-Québec, local 1120, 2940, chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine (coin Darlington)
Quel effet le développement du Quartier des spectacles aura-t-il sur les environs de la Place des Arts? En vue de l'annonce récente que l'espace publique entre les rues de Bleury et St-Urbain sera transformée de façon dramatique d'ici quatre ans, trois urbanistes en discutera demain soir dans une conférence organisée par l'Institute d'urbanisme de l'Université de Montréal. Voici un extrait de leur communiqué :
Montréal est reconnue pour son animation, ...
November 27th, 2007
Photo du jour: A vanished market
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
This compilation was created by Spacing Montreal's own Guillaume St-Jean. The first photo, taken in 1985 by flickr user ifotog, shows the Marché Créole at the corner of St. Dominique and Charlotte, right behind the present-day SAT. The second photo, taken earlier this year, shows a vacant lot where the Haitian grocery store once stood.
Where NYC manhole covers come from
By Shawn Micallef // 1 Comment
Yesterday's New York Times had a piece (and a neat audio slide show) on the the origin of that city's manhole covers. Foreign worker safety is an issue at the Indian foundry.
Eight thousand miles from Manhattan, barefoot, shirtless, whip-thin men rippled with muscle were forging prosaic pieces of the urban jigsaw puzzle: manhole covers.
Seemingly impervious to the heat from the metal, the workers at one of West Bengal’s many foundries relied on strength and bare hands rather than machinery. Safety precautions were barely in evidence; just a few pairs of eye goggles were ...
Thanks a lot, Laval, now the metro is too crowded
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Montrealers are full of complaints. Sometimes they're even willing to fill out of a form to make an official complaint, which is what 326 people have done in response to the STM's last round of fare hikes at the beginning of this year. But that's not all they're unhappy with: transit users are now complaining that the Laval extension has made the metro too crowded and that the STM isn't doing enough to keep up with the increased ridership.
When the Laval metro opened in April, its three stations were expected to be used by a ...
À la une / Headlines : 27.11.2007
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
POLITIQUE
POLITICS
Labonté-Tremblay: un premier face à face sans éclat (La Presse)
Vision Montréal déclare la guerre au maire Tremblay (La Presse)
Labonté steps into Vision Montreal role (The Gazette)
For a man who can expect to be dismissed as a turncoat, councillor is remarkably calm (The Gazette)
Le choc Labonté-Tremblay n'a pas eu lieu (Le Devoir)
Relations de travail - Les cols bleus menacent de couper court aux activités de la fête des Neiges (Le Devoir)
Cold shoulder for snow fête (The Gazette)
CULTURE ET COMMUNAUTÉ
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
Jouer au touriste dans sa ville (La Presse)
Les jeunes Montréalais s'attachent ...
November 28th, 2007
Photo du jour: Chase the fire hydrant
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Lincoln Avenue near Chomedey, July 12, 2007
Voice of the Tube fired
By Shawn Micallef // 1 Comment
With the recent introduction of the pleasant automated voice announcing TTC stops in Toronto, it is interesting to read that the voice actor behind the familiar London Tube announcements has been fired sacked. She was let go because she posted a series of spoof announcements on her website (listen to them here).
The spoofs by Emma Clarke, one of the country's most successful voiceover artists, included a reminder to "our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly" and an appeal to the passenger in the red shirt to stop ...
Steps are good for sitting
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
McGill University's "Arts steps"
It would hardly be an original observation to point out that a simple set of steps can become a well-used hangout. One of the world's most famous public spaces is, after all, known as the Spanish Steps. But for all their ubiquity, only some steps become popular places to sit. What makes some gathering places and others just passages to somewhere else?
There are at least three key elements to making a successful set of hangout steps. The first is openness: no matter how wide they actually are, the steps must feel and appear ...
Last stop for reasonable accommodation
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
After slogging its way through 16 other towns and cities --- 14 of which were nowhere near Greater Montreal, the only place in Quebec with a large concentration of immigrants --- the Bouchard-Taylor commission on reasonable accommodation has finally landed on the island. Since it began its work in late August, the commission has been criticized by many for providing a platform for bigots, racists and xenophobes to rant against immigrants and minorities in Quebec. Throughout the province's rural regions, the commission's public forums were plagued by so many complaints about Jews and, in particular, the ...
Expanding a museum, saving a church
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
At the end of the year, the Museum of Fine Arts will start work on a new expansion that will engulf the former Erskine and American Church, located across the street at the corner of Sherbrooke and du Musée. Built in 1910, the church contains one of the world's most important collections of Tiffany stained glass windows. Its interior and exterior will be restored while a new museum building, designed to house the MFA's collection of Canadian art, is built around it.
As attendance at many of Montreal's traditional Catholic and Protestant churches dwindles, we're faced ...
November 29th, 2007
Photo du jour: Beaver Lake
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Sunday at Beaver Lake on Mount Royal. July 29, 2007
Montreal in the latest issue of Spacing
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Even Torontonians like to hear about other places from time to time. That's why the latest green-themed issue of Spacing features articles from Rotterdam, San Francisco, Los Angeles and, yes, Montreal. The magazine's editors were kind enough to give me space to talk about our contaminated community gardens and some of the creative ways that people here are dealing with that problem. Here's a taste of what I wrote:
Montreal’s city-wide garden program was launched in the 1970s, but after a thirty-year increase, the number of people who use it seems to have levelled off. Now, faced ...
Psychogeographically stroll the Falaise St. Jacques
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Does this look like NDG to you? Photo by Andy Riga
WHAT? Psychogeography walk along the Falaise St. Jacques
WHEN? 1pm, Saturday, December 1st Noon, Sunday, December 2nd
WHERE? Place St. Henri metro
This Saturday Sunday, Spacing Montreal's own Jacob Larsen will be leading the Montreal Psychogeography Society to the Falaise St. Jacques, the protected "eco-region" that sits along the escarpment separating lower NDG from the Turcot Yards and Highway 20 below. With so much uncertainty about how the Turcot Interchange reconstruction will affect the Falaise, this could well be the first and last time you get to see ...
Taking ephemeral art to the streets
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Nobody like a self-promoter, so it feels awfully gauche to be writing about my own articles twice in a single day. Don't judge me too harshly!
In the Urban Life section of today's Gazette you'll find an article about a new wave of ephemeral public art projects, many organized by Dare-Dare, an artists' centre based in Mile End. Among those that I write about are Franck Bragigand's painted manhole covers and Karen Spencer's Dream Listener project. Here's an excerpt:
It glowed amid its sombre surroundings, a giant Lego-brick lantern underneath the Van Horne Viaduct. For three weeks ...
Transit fares increase, but so does level of service
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
First, the bad news: fares on the STM will go up yet again next year, with the cost of a monthly pass rising from $65 to $66.25 and the cost of a strip of tickets going up from $11.75 to $12.
But there's also good news. Lots of it, in fact. Montreal's 2008 budget, tabled yesterday, contains more money for public transit than we have seen in years. All told, the city will invest $100 million more in the STM next year than it did in 2007, including $29 million to pay off its deficit, an ...
November 30th, 2007
Photo du jour: “No parking” in three languages
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Alley behind Park Avenue. July 23, 2007
SPACING MONTREAL POLL: Do you jaywalk?
By Spacing // 5 Comments
Montrealers are known for the tendency to cross the street wherever they want. Simply put, most of us have no aversion to jaywalking, and there's no greater proof than the corner of Ste. Catherine and Stanley. One a bone-chilling February day in 2006, I stood for five minutes at this busy downtown intersection and witnesses no fewer than 100 people crossing against a red light. Take a close look at the colour of the light in the photo above: it's green. All of those people are jaywalking.
Lately, though, we've noticed more and ...
Naoya Hatakeyama’s Scales at the CCA
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
New York at Japan's Tobu World Square theme park
If you're heading to the Canadian Centre for Architecture anytime soon to check out their latest headlining exhibition, 1973: Sorry, Out of Gas, don't overlook the Octagonal Gallery, where another, captivating exhibition is running until February 3rd, 2008. Back in 2003, the CCA commissioned Naoya Hatakeyama to take photos of three scale models of New York and Japan. The result is Scales, which explores the tension between representation and reality, pausing along the way to ponder the meaning of scale.
I wrote about Scales for Maisonneuve, so here's ...
Greening Milton Park
By Misha Warbanski // 6 Comments
Hutchison Street in Milton Park, aka the McGill Ghetto
The neighbourhood of Milton-Parc is tucked into a corner of downtown between McGill University and the mountain. The area has been known for community engagement and co-operative housing projects that are home to some 1,500 of its 11,000 residents. Green space is scarce. After months of meetings and public forums the Urban Ecology Centre of Montreal has published a sustainability plan for the neighbourhood.
MUEC coordinator Luc Rabouin told the Montreal Mirror they're "implementing helpful changes, like creating community compost bins and giving priority to pedestrians ...
December 1st, 2007
Photo du jour: Le pont Jacques Cartier
By Misha Warbanski // No Comments
photo by Misha Warbanski
The Jacques Cartier Bridge spans the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Longueuil, Quebec. Here it is on a rainy night from the overnight Greyhound to New York.
Chinatown’s changing, but it’s still a vital place
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Chinatown is changing: new businesses are opening and a set of vacant lots on St. Laurent is set to be transformed next year into a $20 million shopping and retail complex.
At the same time, Montreal's Chinese population, now estimated at about 80,000, is changing, too. A surge of immigrants and students from mainland China, most of them Mandarin-speakers, are making their influence felt in a community traditionally dominated by Cantonese-speakers from Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Many of the city's best regional Chinese restaurants, grocery stores and boutiques are found outside of Chinatown in neighbourhoods ...
December 2nd, 2007
Photo du jour : Pas d’espèce de cochon
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
This sign, located in an alley near Mount Royal and St. Denis on the Plateau, is meant to encourage cleanliness, but I can't help but feel sorry for the poor rat. Such stereotypes!
November 4, 2007
Cultural guerrillas restore Paris’ Pantheon clock
By Matthew Blackett // 4 Comments
TORONTO -- Here in Toronto, we like to revel in the actions of guerrilla activists who do things to try and better our everyday lives: the Urban Repair Squad (creating bike lanes on roads using spray cans), the City Beautification Ensemble (applying "colour therapy" to hundreds of ring-and-post bike racks), and the ever popular Guerrilla Gardeners. But Paris beats us, hand's down, when it comes to subversive acts that better everyday life.
"Cultural guerrillas" in Paris, known as the Untergunther, were recently cleared of charges of breaking into the Pantheon. What did they do ...
Welcome, winter
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
This year, winter came early, with an endless week of snow and slush. The snowstorm last night was nice, though, a reminder of the calm that descends over the city in mid-winter, its noise muffled under a blanket of heavy snow.
One year ago winter arrived not with snow but with verglas. I remember very clearly on the evening of last December 1st, falling asleep after an exhausting day, only to wake up to a dark apartment and the eerie echo of freezing rain outside. It was the middle of rush hour and the power was ...
The problems with the Griffintown project
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Raphaël Fischler, a professor of urban design at McGill University, has weighed in on the Griffintown project with an op-ed published in today's Gazette. "Mayor Gérald Tremblay is telling us not to be negative about the huge project just proposed for Griffintown. Well, if the project were perfect and the administration's stance beyond reproach, there would be no need for criticism. But as things stand, a couple of critical comments are called for," he writes by way of introduction.
Fischler starts by critiquing the size of the proposed development:
First, the project is simply too large. This ...
December 3rd, 2007
Photo du jour: The Lower Main
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
These metal shutters, common in so many cities around the world, are mostly absent in Montreal --- except in the area around Ste. Catherine and the Main.
St. Laurent near de Maisonneuve. July 24, 2007
Blast from the (very recent) past
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
I was rummaging through some of my old photos this evening when I came across some that were taken in the fall of 2002. It is so recent yet, in some ways, so much has changed since then. Not long after I took the photo above, for instance, a large residential development was built on the land at the corner of Mountain and Notre Dame. There's now a Couche-Tard where I was standing.
Across the street, the old Émile Bertrand Restaurant, the only place in town that served home-brewed spruce beer, is now gone. Its owner, ...
Street market? No, a railway market
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
[youtube]xSqNx7vJLDE[/youtube]
Spacing reader Mark Slutsky sent us a link to this video today, showing a market lining a railway in Thailand. Within seconds of a train passing through, the market springs back to life.
Naturally, the video raises some pretty obvious questions, like why on earth would a market be located on a set of train tracks? Andrew Leonard, on Salon's How the World Works, points the way to some explanations. Apparently, the train tracks in question are actually part of the the Mae Klong Railway, an interurban line that runs diesel trams along local roads from Bangkok in the ...
Collège Français, en quatre temps
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
Fondé en 1959, le Collège Français est un établissement d'enseignement privé situé au coeur du Mile End, sur l'Avenue Fairmount. En 1972, le Collège inaugurera son campus longueuillois, qui servira d'abord au niveau primaire, et par la suite, secondaire.
C'est en me promenant hier dans le quartier que j'ai remarqué pour la première fois que le Collège était en fait plusieurs édifices sur deux ou trois coins de rue. Il faut dire que lorsqu'on ne porte pas attention, on pourrait penser que ce sont plusieurs écoles différentes ...
Norman Bethune Square gets a makeover
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Norman Bethune is getting a bath. His statue, which normally stands encrusted in bird poop at the corner of Guy and de Maisonneuve, in the most pigeon-infested square in Montreal, has been removed for restoration. Norman Bethune Square, meanwhile, will be redesigned and expanded, part of the ongoing Quartier Concordia project that aims to turn Concordia's downtown campus into an attractive, pedestrian-friendly environment.
There are no details on what the newly-reconfigured square will look like, although preliminary renderings released by Concordia in 2005 offer an idea. Pretty much anything will be better than its ...
What? You’ve never seen a bike in the winter?
By Misha Warbanski // 1 Comment
Snowed-in cars on Beaudry Street. Don't feel like shoveling? Take your bike! Photo by Misha Warbanski
I like the community spirit sparked by the first big snowfall. People chat as they shovel out their cars and are quick to lend a push when someone gets stuck. As a cyclist I don't have to shovel, but I like the camaraderie with the the couriers and other cyclists and the occasional cheers of 'way to go' from passing pedestrians.
I try to bike all year, though ...
December 4th, 2007
Photo du jour : de l’ancien au nouveau Chinatown
By Cédric Sam // 4 Comments
Le vieux magasin d'import-export Swatow, le nouveau complexe commercial Swatow. Photo prise le 9 septembre 2007. Lisez l'article par Christopher DeWolf paru sur Spacing cette fin de semaine passée (en anglais).
Avant et après la tempête…
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
En prévision de notre première super grosse de l'année (jugez-en par l'impressionnante liste d'établissements scolaires fermés), je m'étais donné comme défi de documenter visuellement le avant et après du passage d'une tempête de neige autour du pâtelin où j'habite. Les photos d'avant ont été prises le dimanche 2 décembre, 2007 vers 15 h 30, et celles d'après l'ont été le lendemain matin vers 11 h (et dire qu'on en a encore pour deux jours de neige...)....
CCTV Fashion Police
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
In much of Canada, the introduction of CCTV by police to monitor public space is still in its infancy, passionately supported in some quarters, denounced by others, with the rest either indifferent or (myself included) not yet in possession of a fully formed opinion. In the UK, however, CCTV is a ubiquitous part of life and London's Metropolitian Police are looking into taking its use to an even higher level by using video software -- designed by a firm called "OmniPerception" -- that can pick out suspects based on what they are wearing. The technology can ...
2006 Census: Montreal’s changing demographics
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Statistics Canada released its latest batch of information from the 2006 census today, this time covering the sensitive topics of language and immigration. While the Globe and Mail has already prepared a full dossier on the new information, with a look at nationwide trends, none of Montreal's media outlets has published anything yet.
The new census results give us an idea of Montreal's current linguistic makeup. I've crunched the numbers and here's some of what I found:
Percentage of population by mother tongue, Montreal Island, 2006
French: 49.3%
English: 16.3%
Other: 33.5%
Percentage of population by language spoken at home, ...
The Main is back and ready to party
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
After fourteen brutal months of non-stop construction, the closure of several prominent businesses and some eerily quiet days on a street normally known as the Main, St. Laurent Boulevard is back: work is now officially finished on the renovations between Sherbrooke St. and Mount Royal Ave. New water mains have been installed, fire-optic cables laid and sidewalks widened, all in the name of modernizing Montreal's most iconic street.
To celebrate the symbolic re-opening of the street, St. Laurent merchants will be hosting a party this Saturday, December 8th. In the afternoon, ...
Mon cagibi, mon shed, mon débarras, mon…
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 2 Comments
J'ai compris à quel point le cagibi était un élément caractéristique de Montréal en visitant les ruelles en compagnie d'un groupe d'amis Ontariens. Ni à Toronto, ni à London, ni à Kitchener, ni dans aucune autre ville où ces personnes habitaient pouvait-on trouver des structures semblables. J'ai fouillé ma mémoire, et j'ai la vague sensation d'en avoir déjà vu un à Toronto, mais ce n'est qu'un souvenir très flou...
Ce qui est particulier à Montréal, je crois, serait ce cagibi de plusieurs étages, entièrement détaché de la bâtisse principale sauf pour de minces passerelles. Ce type est ...
December 5th, 2007
Photo du jour : Attention à la déblayeuse, ti-gars!
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise le 4 décembre 2007, sur Ste-Catherine, dans le Village.
The snowplow ballet
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
It's the famous day after the storm, when the snow has stopped falling but huge piles of it remain on the ground. Normally busy streets are quiet and the city feels like a giant playground of sorts. Here on Park Avenue, whose three lanes of traffic have been narrowed by the snow to just two, tow trucks are driving by blaring their horns, warning people to move their cars off the street. Soon, the elaborate ritual of snow removal will begin.
Two years ago, Frank Hashimoto, a transplanted Chicagoan whose blog is appropriately titled Chicagoan in Montreal, ...
Who Killed the Electric Car? Find out tomorrow
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
[youtube]MSBykAngDpY[/youtube]
WHAT? Screening of the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?
WHEN? 7pm, Thursday, December 6th, 2007
WHERE? CCA, 1920 Baile St. (near Fort and René Lévesque, 5 min. from Guy metro)
HOW MUCH? Free!
Tomorrow night, the Canadian Centre for Architecture will launch a new series of films, Running on Empty, that will examine Western society's "addiction to oil." The first movie? Who Killed the Electric Car?, a 2006 documentary that takes a wry, cynical look at the "birth, limited commercialization, and subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically GM’s EV1 of the 1990s."
Other highlights ...
East enders oppose the Notre-Dame highway
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
East end residents aren't taking too kindly to the changes planned for Notre Dame St. between downtown and Highway 25. La Presse is reporting that a new group, La Coalition pour humaniser la rue Notre-Dame, has been formed to oppose the Notre Dame project. They've set up quite a nice blog detailing their alternative vision for the street, which involves creating a "human-scaled" pedestrian space instead of a de facto expressway. Here's more from today's La Presse:
Des riverains de la rue Notre-Dame Est, qui ont créé une coalition qui rejette l'aménagement de l'artère en ...
December 6th, 2007
Psychogeographers take to the Falaise St. Jacques
By Jacob Larsen // 2 Comments
A huge neglected strip of nature running almost to the city's core? While the downtown portion of this slope teams with traffic, what is stunning about the Falaise St. Jacques – approximately half the hill’s length, running from the Turcot Interchange in the east to Angrignon in the west – is its wildness.
Accessing the falaise from St. Henri is not for the faint of heart. After walking under the ghostly rush of traffic on the Turcot Interchange, one passes a barbed wire enclosure where two German Shepards welcome you with raspy barks. After a Transport Quebec ...
Photo du jour : éléphant mécanique
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Photo prise le 16 septembre 2006, au Parc Jeanne-Mance.
Why is the STM not shovelling the Square-Victoria Metro entrance?
By Chris Erb // 4 Comments
Tonight, while walking home from work through the Quartier International, my co-worker pointed out that the entrance to the Square-Victoria Metro station has yet to be ploughed, despite the fact that the most recent snowstorm ended more than a day ago. As a result, narrow, haphazard paths (about six in total) made by commuters wind their way to the stairs from different parts of the square. The aforementioned co-worker noted that this isn’t the only station with this problem, citing Lionel-Groulx as another example, although I haven't been there to see for myself.So why is the STM ...
Montrealers, cherish your clothelines
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Nobody hangs their laundry out to dry in Calgary. In fact, there are hardly any clothelines. My grandmother's house had one, but I don't think she ever used it. She, like everyone I knew while growing up there, had a washer and dryer set tucked neatly in a musty corner of her basement, across from a half-century-old furnace.
It was an eye-opening experience to travel to Newfoundland as a teenager, where I discovered that St. John's was precisely the opposite of Calgary: everyone had clotheslines. Clothes hung over alleyways and backyards, billowing in the salty Atlantic breeze ...
Montreal vs. Toronto: battle of the bus transfers!
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
French Panic, a local blogger who may or may not be my neighbour, recently spent some time in Toronto. She came back with some pertinent observations about the way that each city's character manifests itself in bus and subway transfers. Yes, transfers. Read on:
Now, I know it's dull to compare Toronto and Montreal. They are very different from each other, and shouldn't be compared. But. These transfers say all sorts of interesting things. The Montreal transfer is devoid of all information, save for a set of arrows ...
December 7th, 2007
Photo du jour: Centre Street
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
This Bengali grocery is part of a new wave of immigrant businesses around Centre Street in Point St. Charles, most of them catering to the area's growing numbers of people from South Asia and the Caribbean.
December 1, 2007
Community groups want to reduce the number of cars in Montreal
By Misha Warbanski // 9 Comments
The Montreal Gazette has a report today about the Coalition for the Reduction of Montreal Traffic, which represents some 42 community groups. They say building new highways is not the answer. Instead they want the number of all-day parking spots reduced, making it more difficult for people to bring cars into the city.
The number of motor-vehicle registrations on the island jumped 10.5 per cent between 1999 and 2006, to 845,086, according to the Société d'assurance automobile du Québec. That far outstrips the three-per-cent population growth during the same period, Porlier said.
Increasingly, he added, Montreal drivers ...
Marching on climate change
By Misha Warbanski // No Comments
Saturday is the Global Day of Action Against Climate change. A demonstration starts at 2:30 p.m. from Dorchester Square and will move through downtown to Place des Arts. Demos are taking place in 30 other cities in Canada and 70 countries around the world.
For more information on tomorrow's protest, email climat@syc-cjs.org, environment.ssmu@gmail.com or call 514-562-5809.
South Shore dwellers might be interested in another intervention taking place in Brossard earlier that afternoon. From 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm, the Youth Climate Action Committee will stage a rally in support of the Bali talks on ...
Privately-run buses on Pie IX?
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Today's La Presse reports that the Agence métropolitain de transport, which oversees transportation infrastructure in Greater Montreal, wants to develop a bus rapid transit line on Pie-IX, which would be built and operated by a private investor. Thing is, the STM is already planning to build its own BRT line on the boulevard. Needless to say, it is not at all happy with the AMT's plans. An epic showdown between the two agencies appears to be in the works.
La Presse has details on the two different BRT lines envisioned by the AMT and ...
December 8th, 2007
Photo du jour : Allons, tous dans le Métro
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Montréal subit sa première grosse tempête de la saison 2007-08, le 3 décembre. Photo prise au Métro Place-des-Arts.
Beaminster, Bradford, Campden: three odd streets
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Back in October, on one of those unseasonably warm and humid days we had towards the end of fall, I was on the 129 bus heading west to Victoria Avenue when I noticed three odd streets on the south side of Côte Ste. Catherine. Unusually for streets in Côte des Neiges, which tend to be very wide, they appeared to consist of nothing more than a simple pathway surrounded by greenery.
Later, I returned to investigate and discovered that the streets I had seen were Beaminster Place, Bradford Place and Campden Place, a trio of ...
Keeping the streets alive in the winter
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
As quiet as the city can get in the winter, it never truly goes to sleep, at least not until the windchill dips to something abominable. Montrealers live in the streets more than people in all but a few other North American cities and this is true even during our cold, snowy winters. Part of the reason is that, whatever the season, there's stuff to do outside. The annual winter High Lights festival (better known as Montréal en lumière) is one of my favourite annual events because it turns Montreal's winter climate into something that actually ...
December 9th, 2007
Photo du jour : randonnée urbaine
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Ce n'est pas parce que c'est l'hiver qu'on ne peut plus sortir dehors! Les skieurs sur le Mont-Royal hier après-midi n'étaient pas rares. Bien que la neige sur nos routes ait été dégagée (puis empilée dans des bancs de plus de 10 mètres de haut parfois) ou transformée en sloche, un mélange de gravier, sel et eau glacée qui se passe de présentation au Canada, celle du Parc du Mont-Royal est encore blanche immaculée, seulement traversée de lignes doubles dessinées de façon plutôt aléatoire. (Nos randonneurs ...
You will listen to our music!
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
[youtube]k5rSj8lcDVQ[/youtube]
I was walking along the Main with a friend yesterday when he pointed out that music was being broadcast from loudspeakers attached to the street's lampposts. "That's so weird," he said.
The fact that many of Montreal's commercial streets broadcast music in December is one of those seasonal oddities I notice and then forget as soon as the snow melts. Usually, it's schmaltzy holiday music that is being played, but yesterday on St. Laurent, a DJ was in charge of the programming, part of a daylong celebration of the street's official "reopening" after more than a year of construction. My ...
Montreal population density since 1971
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/analysis/popdwell/maps/animations/CMAs/Montreal.swf" width="525" height="325"/]
This map, which comes courtesy of Statistics Canada, shows the evolution of Montreal's population density since 1971. Basically, what you can see is that Montreal has become significantly less dense over the years. Between 1971 and 1991, high-density zones shrunk while the city sprawled outwards; since 1991, things have been more or less stable.
Some of this has to do with depopulation, especially in working-class neighbourhoods that fell on hard times in the 1970s and 80s. But most of it comes thanks to a decrease in household size; while a typical Plateau apartment would have been ...
December 10th, 2007
Photo du jour : Café Cléopâtre
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Café Cléopâtre, au coin de la Main et de la rue Sainte-Catherine.
Vendredi le 8 décembre 2007.
Shedding light on the Quartier des spectacles
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
La Presse reports today that a new "visual identity" will be given to Ste. Catherine St. between St. James United Church and Berri Square, part of the ongoing development of the Quartier des spectacles.
More lighting installations will be added to the street, similar to what has already been done to the area's cultural landmarks, including Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Club Soda, the SAT, the National Monument, the Metropolis and the National Film Board. Lighting pillars containing information about shows and cultural events will also be installed along the street.
Some details from the paper:
L'identé ...
Plaza Saint Hubert before the green awning
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Plaza Saint Hubert, the shopping district on St. Hubert St. between Bellechasse and Jean Talon, is notorious for its chintzy stores and green-trimmed glass awning. It's one of my favourite Montreal streets, even in its somewhat ragtag state, but I was absolutely astonished when I saw these photos of it in the 1960s. Forget Ste. Catherine St.: the place to be in sixties Montreal was the Plaza Saint Hubert!
Back then, traffic flowed in both directions and the street was lined by a seemingly endless procession of neon signs. It was a quintessentially middle-class street, with plenty ...
December 11th, 2007
Photo du jour: St. Michael of the snow
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
St. Michael's Church seen from Jeanne Mance St. December 3, 2007
R.I.P. Montreal Exchange
By Paul Erlichman // 6 Comments
Yesterday marked an end of an era of sorts. In what some are calling a "combination" and others just a plain "acquisition", it was announced yesterday that the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Bourse de Montreal (Montreal Exchange) will become the mighty TMX, which apparently isn't the name of a George Lucas film. This essentially means that the Montreal Exchange, which has existed in some shape or form since 1832, ceases to exist as an institution.
The importance of ...
Laval wants more metro
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Whet by this year's new metro extension, Laval's appetite for public transit is now insatiable. Last summer, long-time mayor Gilles Vaillancourt asked the provincial government for a billion dollars to buckle the orange line loop by connecting Montmorency and Côte-Vertu stations, via Chomedey and Bois-Franc. Yesterday, he repeated his demand, adding that he plans to ask Quebec City to create a dedicated tax fund to pay for the extension.
Now, there's nothing I love more than the thought of building more metro, but is this really the right way to do it? Probably ...
The McTavish Reservoir exposed
By Christopher DeWolf // 11 Comments
Andrew Chau has a great post on the McTavish Reservoir today at urban-ism:
many people don’t realize that the large grassy field above the mcgill campus hides enormous tanks of water that feed into the city’s water systems. the curious castle-like structure that seems so out of place, the strange manhole covers that litter the fields, and the artificial flatness of the site are hints of what lies beyond. the cavernous spaces below are from another world: the underground grottoes of the stockholm metro, the troglodyte dwellings in matmata, the sahara.
where people now play ...
Phantom Shanghai
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
Click over to CBC.ca - Arts where photographer Greg Girard narrates a neat slide show of pictures from his book Phantom Shanghai. The book looks at the collision of old and decaying colonial Shanghai with the new glass-and-steel city rising from its ruins. Some shots look like Detroit, others like Vancouver's Coal Harbour and some suburban ones that could be on the edge of any Canadian city.
Photo by Poagao.
Help create Spacing Montreal’s blogroll
By Spacing // 17 Comments
Bien que Spacing Montréal propose déjà des liens vers les médias traditionnels sur des questions d'espace publique, nous souhaitons dorénavant inclure plus de liens vers les nombreux blogues montréalais, à propos de Montréal.
Nous vous invitons à nous suggérer des liens dans la section commentaire de cet article, vers des blogues que vous aimez, et via lesquels vous vous renseignez sur des sujets qui touchent à Montréal. Ils peuvent par exemple être des blogues collectifs, ou personels, parlant de thèmes aussi spécifiques (ou vastes) que le transport en ville. Évidemment, ne vous gênez surtout pas pour soumettre ...
Chinatown gets a New York makeover
By Christopher DeWolf // 10 Comments
I was walking up St. Laurent this evening when I noticed that Wah Fung, a gift shop located just above Viger, had a new sign. It was nice, but something was off. That's when I noticed that it was in Chinese and English. "Meubles, paravents, pots & fleurs, vases, cadres, lampes (2ème étage)" had become "Furniture, umbrellas, flowers and pots, vases, frames, lamps (2nd floor)."
Hmm, I thought. That will make some people upset.
Walking down the street a bit, I noticed that almost every store on the block had new signs, all of which were ...
December 12th, 2007
Photo du jour: Summer fog
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Steam drifting away from Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle. July 16, 2007
Bali: Canada, Climate Change, Harper and You
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
With the release of the Spacing "Green" issue, we have faith that many solutions to the widely-acknowledged-climate-crisis will come at the local level -- but there are times when solutions, and leadership, must come from the Federal government. This week Canada is increasingly the target of worldwide scorn as we are seen as a major roadblock in moving forward on climate change. From the Globe and Mail:
The federal government is under withering criticism for its negotiating stance at the Bali conference – and not just from environmental activists. The latest attacks are coming from ...
Countdown to the smart card begins
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
The Gazette's Andy Riga reports that Montreal's smart card, which will be used to store transit passes and cash value for the STM, RTL, STL and AMT, will be tested early next month with a "few select Montreal bus and métro users." The results of the test will determine any last-minute changes that need to be made before the smart card system is fully unveiled next spring. It's a nice, clearly-written article so I'll provide an excerpt that deals with some of the smart card's details:
The MTC is spending $169 million on the technology. Users ...
Quebec’s politicians: let’s build our public buildings out of wood!
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
Quebec's provincial leaders are tripping over each other to support a new initiative, proposed by natural resource minister Claude Béchard, that would require publicly-funded buildings to be constructed out of wood. The idea is that incorporating more wood into our buildings would be a boon to Quebec's flagging forestry industry. "Not only would constructing more public buildings and institutions out of wood help the struggling industry and create jobs, [politicians] argued, it is environmentally friendly and an excellent showcase for Quebec's know-how in the business," reports the Gazette.
Wood is a flexible building material that can ...
December 13th, 2007
Photo du jour : en face du square Phillips
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise le 29 juillet 2007, en face du Square Phillips.
Bibliothèque nationale to preserve posters
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Montreal's posters are finally getting the respect they deserve. It was just announced that the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec will work in collaboration with Publicité sauvage, an ad agency that specializes in commercial postering, to preserve two copies of every poster it creates. Kollectif has the full announcement:
“Publicité Sauvage et Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) ont signé un partenariat pour conserver les affiches en tant que trace de l’histoire culturelle de Montréal.
Depuis octobre, Publicité Sauvage remet à BAnQ deux exemplaires de chaque affiche qui lui est confiée. BAnQ recevra ainsi, sur ...
Exploring the hidden corners of McGill
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Earlier this week, while looking for information for my post on the McTavish Reservoir, I came across a page I'd never seen before: Urban Exploration Montreal's McGill University, from Top to Bottom. Turns out that some of our local urban explorers have penetrated pretty much every crevice of Montreal's oldest university.
Part of their exploration took them to the McTavish Reservoir, which they were intrepid enough to, well, break into enter surreptitiously and photograph. The pumphouse is interesting enough, but what's really spectacular is the underground reservoir, its millions of gallons of water held ...
Opposition keeps mounting to Notre Dame plan
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
If the Ministère du transport du Québec expected a smooth ride for its plan to upgrade Notre Dame Street between the east end of downtown and Highway 25, it was sorely mistaken. As we reported last month, a coalition of citizens has emerged with an alternative vision, one that would see Notre Dame converted into a truly urban boulevard that is well-integrated into the urban fabric of Montreal's east end neighbourhoods. Today, two newspaper articles shed more light on the opposition to the province's Notre Dame plan.
In today's edition of the Mirror, news editor ...
December 14th, 2007
Photo du jour : lanternes chinoises au Jardin Botanique
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise le 8 septembre 2005, au Jardin Botanique de Montréal, lors de La Magie des lanternes.
Armchair flâneur: Google Street View
By Shawn Micallef // 5 Comments
Since that day in 1993 when the University of Windsor gave me my first internet account (that required a bureaucratic sign-up process and a two-week wait for the precious UNIX password) the internet has had moments of futuristic change so deeply immersive one might forget to eat, just like how Walter Benjamin described the intoxicating allure of wandering the city streets as a flâneur. Discovering Google Street View was another of those moments.
Launched earlier this year, Google has an armada of cars outfitted with special 360° cameras driving around snapping photos every few meters ...
Montreal’s vanished synagogues
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, McGill College near Sherbrooke
WHAT? Makom: Seeking Sacred Space, a photo exhibition of former synagogues in Montreal and North Africa
WHEN? Until March 18, 2008; open Tuesday, 12pm-8pm, Wednesday and Thursday, 12pm-5pm, second Sundays, 1pm-5pm
WHERE? Emet Gallery, Congregation Dorshei Emet, 18 Cleve Road, Hampstead
Anyone interested in Montreal history should check out a new exhibition at the Emet Gallery in Hampstead. In the setting of a recently-built synagogue, Makom: Seeking Sacred Space "looks at how sacred space is created, experienced, preserved, and transformed over time," with photos by David Kaufman of former synagogues ...
December 15th, 2007
Photo du jour : Statue James McGill
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Photo de la statue James McGill, prise le 8 juin 2007 à l'Université McGill.
Keep de Maisonneuve closed to traffic
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Downtown motorists will have to wait until March to drive down the block of de Maisonneuve Blvd. between Aylmer and Union, the city has announced. By then, it will have been six months since the street was closed, after bike path construction cracked a concrete foundation underground. Currently, pedestrians and bicyclists are allowed on the block, but it remains closed to cars, trucks and buses.
Here's an idea: why not keep this short stretch of de Maisonneuve closed to traffic? Pedestrians, bikes, buses and emergency vehicles could still be allowed to pass through, but ...
December 16th, 2007
La vie urbaine vue par Thien Vu Dang et Yasuko Tadokoro
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
[youtube]Cf_BkdyxYCk[/youtube]
Je Ne by Thien Vu Dang
VJ Pillow, whose real name is Thien Vu Dang, is a local videographer who has been making waves in Montreal's art scene. He's the founder of Minute Moments, a monthly showcase of minute-long videos that takes place at the Moment Factory on Hutchison Street. He's also responsible for "Montreal in Motion," a new video installation at Trudeau Airport's customs hall featuring 20 video portraits of prominent Montrealers.
Pillow often works with Yasuko Tadokoro (aka VJ Mademoiselle) another video artist. Together, the two have created some videos with interesting and eye-catching takes on urban ...
Photo du jour: Another day, another snowstorm
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
This photo was from the other storm this month, on December 3rd.
Maison Radio-Canada to be converted into hotel, condos, offices
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Montreal is awash in development. Between the two megahospitals, the Quartier des spectacles, Griffintown, Viger Station and countless smaller residential, commercial and infrastructural projects, we haven't seen this much activity since the 1960s.
Now you can add another big initiative to that list: the CBC building, an east end landmark that was itself a major urban renewal project built in 1970, will be converted into hotel, condo and office space. Its expansive parking lots will be developed, too. La Presse broke the story this morning; they have more details:
Le service d'urbanisme de l'arrondissement ...
La voie est libre sur Hutchison
By Cédric Sam // 4 Comments
Sur la rue Hutchison, petite soeur de l'Avenue du Parc sur presque toute sa longueur, il n'est pas rare de voir des skieurs de fond déambuler en journée de tempête, comme aujourd'hui. Ceux-ci choisissent Hutchison peut-être parce que ses trottoirs sont beaucoup moins achalandés que ceux des St-Laurent ou St-Urbain. Hutchison débouche sur un grand parc enneigé, permettant à nos skieurs urbains de se frayer par la suite un chemin jusqu'aux terrains de l'Université McGill et au Centre-Ville.
Spacing Montréal demande donc ...
December 17th, 2007
Photo du jour: Craig Terminus
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
Until Montreal scrapped its streetcars in 1959, the Craig Terminus was one of the hubs of the city's sprawling tramway network. Located near the corner of St. Urbain and Craig (now Viger St. Antoine), 14 different tram lines merged into this imposing stone building, built in 1925. It was demolished in 1970 when the Ville Marie Expressway tore through a huge swath of downtown Montreal. Everything you see above is gone.
UPDATE: Check out this 1925 photo of the building's construction, including a floor plan. There was a pharmacy, Royal Bank, tabagie, candy shop, newsstand ...
Please buy this theatre
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
The Rialto, a Park Avenue landmark for three quarters of a century, is up for sale. Saturday's Gazette reported that Elias Kalogeras, who has owned the theatre since 1983, wants out:
Kalogeras is the owner of a defunct theatre in a city laden with once proud theatrical gems - The York, Seville, Cinema V, Van Horne, Snowdon, Monkland - that no one seems to know how to manage in a manner that won't hemhorrage money for owners or taxpayers.
The 60-year-old former shipping magnate tried to turn [the ...
Michel Dallaire to design new downtown street furniture
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
"Les amoureux se bécoteront sur de nouveaux bancs publics," reads a headline in this morning's Le Devoir --- "Lovers will kiss on new public benches." Michel Dallaire, the renowned industrial designer responsible for the street furniture in the Quartier international, has been commissioned by the Ville-Marie borough to design new benches, garbage cans and other pieces of street furniture for downtown Montreal. Dallaire's design firm will receive a $25,000 contract for the designs, which will be put into place in 2009.
"We want to create a distinctive brand for ...
Tarnished by corruption? Apparently not
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Gérald Tremblay's Union Montreal maintained control of Outremont in yesterday's by-election, despite last fall's booze-and-financial- irregularities scandal that forced the resignation of the borough's mayor, Stéphane Harbour. Marie Cinq-Mars, the interim mayor appointed after Harbour's departure, will get to keep her position until at least 2009, when the next city-wide elections are scheduled to occur.
The real story here is not that Union Montreal won but that Projet Montréal, the grassroots party with a strong focus on sustainable planning, public transport and the environment, finished a strong second. In the race for borough ...
December 18th, 2007
Photo du jour: Dorchester Boulevard
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
It has been 52 years since Dorchester Street (renamed after René Lévesque in 1987) was transformed into an eight-lane boulevard. In this 1960 photo, you see the construction of the Hydro-Quebec tower, one of three iconic skyscrapers that were completed along Dorchester in 1962.
Read more about Dorchester's widening on Urbanphoto.
Snowy gridlock on Montreal’s streets
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
Earlier today, Montreal City Weblog's Kate McDonnell posted a story from the Toronto Star that compares the response to Sunday's blizzard in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. While the two Ontario cities seem to be dealing with it fairly briskly, Montreal --- which received nearly 40 centimetres of snow, by far the most of the three --- is lagging behind. Two days after the storm, most snow has yet to be removed, even on busy thoroughfares. The city will only promise that the snow will be gone by Christmas.
Since I work from home, I'm mostly immune ...
The night owls are watching your bike
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
This note was attached to a bike on Sherbrooke Street in NDG. It's one of those heart-warming reminders that our neighbours really are looking out for us. But why the hell would somebody lock a bicycle to a parking meter with a cable lock?
Photo by urbanmkr
Snowdon discoveries
By Christopher DeWolf // 48 Comments
On my snowy walk from Hampstead to Snowdon today, I stopped to check in on one of my favourite urban oddities. The only sign of its existence is a non-descript staircase located at 5257 Queen Mary, in between a drycleaner and a Chinese restaurant. Climb up the stairs and you'll enter a small second-floor courtyard containing a few shops and an apartment building entrance. There's a tailor, a driving school and a Korean hair salon; a couple of other retail spaces seem as if they've been converted into apartments.
According to the ...
December 19th, 2007
Photo du jour: Even the Outremontais hang their laundry
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Alley behind Durocher St. in Outremont. June 13, 2007
Bâtiment disparu #3 : La Knox Presbytherian church
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
La Knox church construite en 1865 était situé au coin des rues René-Lévesque et Mansfield.
Elle était l'oeuvre de l'architecte Edward Maxwell, un architecte de renom au début du 20e siècle à qui l'on doit entre autre, la maison de Charles R. Hosmer sur la rue Drummond et la maison Lady Meredith sur l'avenue des Pins.
D'un style ''french cathedral'', elle était doté d'une abside coiffée d'une tourelle gothique, surmontée d'une balustrade.
Le bâtiment fut vendu le 13 juin 1911 pour la somme ...
Les lignes séparatrices
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
De l'origine de l'histoire humaine jusqu'au début du 20e siècles, les routes ne comportaient pas de ligne séparatrices puisqu'elles étaient surtout utilisées par des piétons et par des chevaux circulant à basse vitesse.
Avec l'apparition des voitures, autobus et camions, il n'était pas rare d'être témoin de colisions frontales. En effet, les conducteurs étaient porté à rouler vers le milieu de la chaussée plutôt que sur les côtés.
En 1911, Edward N. Hines, le président de la commission des routes de Wayne County au Michigan ...
A day in the life of 1975 New York City
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=C-3wza6rnck[/youtube]
Despite the wave of happy-urbanism that has gripped Canadian cities over the past few years, one still hears tales of various relatives and old high school friends living in deepest suburbia who truly believe the city is a dangerous place full of the perps and perverts featured in the Taking of Pelham One Two Three trailer posted on Spacing Toronto in October. It's sort of how one hears an urban legend, not knowing that person personally, but assured they're out there. I wonder how much of this false city-view is the result of the gritty films of the 1970s ...
Montreal on the movie screen
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
[youtube]Pd7m35CTHQ4[/youtube]
Unlike other Canadian cities, Montreal has the pleasure of seeing itself on the big screen quite often, the agreeable consequence of having a robust local film industry. Most of these movies are produced by Quebec's mainstream film industry and, even if many have no ambitions outside of being crowd-pleasing blockbusters (Nitro, anyone?), there are still some standouts.
Monica la mitraille, a biopic of bank robber Monica Proietti, sticks out in my mind for its depiction of working-class Montreal in the 1950s and 60s. C.R.A.Z.Y. is memorable for many reasons, not the least of which are its scenes of north ...
Snowy streets in 360 degrees
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
[kml_flashembed movie="http://multimedia.cyberpresse.ca/neige/cybermtlsousneige.swf" width="500" height="300"/]
Cyberpresse is featuring three new 360-degree photos on its website. One shows a woman shovelling out her car on Mentana Street in the Plateau, another shows a snowy Gilford Street nearby and a third takes you to the scene of a truck accident on Crémazie Boulevard.
"It’s just another example of how big media companies like Cyberpresse understand the Internet and are prepared to use cutting-edge 1994 technology to bring things that are cool but uninformative to users," writes Steve Faguy on his blog. It's true that these images have no news value ...
December 20th, 2007
Photo du jour : Le Plateau d’en haut
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Vu depuis l'édifice Cooper, boulevard Saint-Laurent, le 22 novembre 2006
Foux De Fa Fa
By Matthew Blackett // 5 Comments
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=EHuOrJQua_c[/youtube]
The comedy sitcom that caught my attention in 2007 was the folk-parody Flight of the Conchords, a New Zealand duo who move to New York to make it big. In each episode two or three songs flow into the narrative of the show, with those songs acting like music videos. The song I've chosen riffs on the stereotypical view that English-speaking people have of French culture. In typical Flight of the Conchords-style, they end up making themselves look silly and ignorant. What I also find kinda interesting is that this depiction of French culture (by a pair of ...
Les amoureux des bancs publics
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
[youtube]UlmyNpn_mnc[/youtube]
When I reported on Monday that Michel Dallaire has been commissioned to design new downtown street furniture, I noted that Le Devoir's article on the subject was titled, "Les amoureux se bécoteront sur de nouveaux bancs publics," which struck me as awfully whimsical for a newspaper headline.
Turns out it's a cultural reference that I completely missed. (You'll have to excuse me: I'm an anglo born in the 1980s. How could I have known?) Spacing Montreal reader BJ explains that the headline refers to a 1952 song by French singer-songwriter Georges Brassens, "Les amoureux des bancs publics."
Les gens ...
Snowball fight tonight at 7pm
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? Public snowball fight!
WHEN? Tonight, December 20th, at 7pm
WHERE? Near the Roddick Gates on McGill's campus
If you happen to be downtown right now, you might want to stick around awhile longer for a snowball fight tonight, at 7pm, on the McGill campus.
It's not a flash mob, just a bit of old-fashioned winter fun. (This being 2007, it's only natural that it would be announced on Facebook.) Sana Saeed, the fight's organizer, promises "forts, armies and all." Participants will meet at the James McGill statue, not too far from the Roddick Gates at Shebrooke and McGill ...
New York deprived of its Montreal Christmas connection
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
In the streets of Manhattan, you can buy habichuelas con dulce from a Dominican, kebab from an Egyptian and... Christmas trees from a Quebecker.
Apparently, a number of people from Quebec travel to New York every December to sell Christmas trees grown in farms in the Eastern Townships. One of the more famous of these tree vendors is Daniel Lemay, a Montreal graphic designer who takes a month off every year to work in New York. He gained notoriety for building a makeshift dwelling on Second Avenue in the East Village, across from ...
Vivement l’autobus!
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Les autobus continuaient malheureusement à être une denrée rare plusieurs jours après la tempête de neige du 16 décembre 2007. Ce n'est rien de scientifique que de dire que les lignes d'autobus 80 et 165 promènent probablement le plus de gens en une journée de travail. Je dois moi-même prendre la 80 Du Parc pour la plupart de mes déplacements quotidiens.
Même jeudi soir cette semaine, c'est-à-dire quatre jours après la tempête, on collait les autobus ...
Un party dans la neige
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? Noël dans le parc's outdoor solstice celebration
WHEN? Friday, December 21st, 8pm
WHERE? Lahaie Park, on St. Laurent between St. Joseph and Laurier
Noël dans le parc, the annual festival that takes place in Lahaie Park, at the corner of St. Laurent and Laurier, continues tomorrow with a number of special solstice events. The evening begins at 8pm with Afro-Brazillian percussion performed by Zurumba, followed by a raï concert by the local collective Syncop, kora by Zal Idrissa Sissokho, traditional Quebec music by Genticorum and solo guitar by Eric Mongrain.
Finally, at 10pm, Laïka and MEG Montreal ...
December 21st, 2007
Photo du jour: Giant snowbank
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Park and Van Horne. December 18, 2007
Poor NOLA: The violent struggle to rebuild a great city
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
On his blog yesterday Richard Florida posted "Shades of Robert Moses" and asked "So you thought urban renewal and the destruction of neighborhoods and tearing down of historic buildings was a thing of the past. Think again: Not in New Orleans." He first linked to a CNN article describing the violent clash yesterday at New Orleans city council (video of this is looping on CNN TV this morning) where "the members voted unanimously to allow the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish 4,500 public housing units."
Much has been written about ...
Les fleurs c’est pour la rue Demers
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
I've always been intrigued by Demers Street. It's a tiny street in the north end of the Plateau, running parallel to Villeneuve between Coloniale and Hôtel de Ville, lined mostly by cute duplexes built around 1900 to house workers from the nearby quarries.
Demers was just another back lane in a working-class neighbourhood full of them. That is, until 1969, when a group of five architecture students decided to embark on the renovation of the street, an early example of grassroots restoration at a time when the normal impulse would have ...
Old Montreal in 1964
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Over the years, the National Film Board has produced a lot of great films on Canada's cities. Unfortunately, they haven't done much to make them web-accessible, so unless you order it online or head down to the Latin Quarter's Cinérobothèque, where you can watch any NFB film ever made, you're stuck looking at crummy RealPlayer clips online.
Still, there's some interesting stuff. One film in particular caught my eye: 1964's Down Through the Years, by Jacques Giraldeau, which offers a wordless tour of Old Montreal. The neighbourhood we see is not the quaintly touristy one we're ...
December 22nd, 2007
Photo du jour : les Martiens s’en viennent!
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise sur le Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges au coin de Côte-Sainte-Catherine, vers la fin de cette journée de tempête, 16 décembre 2007.
Reclaiming streets in the name of hockey
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
During the holiday season Spacing will re-publish articles previously seen in our print edition. This article appeared in Spacing #3, winter '04/spring '05.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I was a 10-year-old revolutionary. I didn’t lead a brigade out of the jungle with lofty dreams of overthrowing a government, like the 12-year-old twins who, a few years back, led God’s Army through the jungles of Thailand and Burma. No, I simply put down a less-than-sturdy set of metal pipes and poorly tied mesh netting onto the street, like thousands of boys and girls in Toronto do every day, and reclaimed the street in the name of Hockey.
I grew up in Toronto in the neighbourhood of Willowdale. My buddies and I started off playing ball hockey on our driveways at the age of 6 or 7. By the age of 10 we were venturing into the street, where we’d spend the better part of a weekend’s daylight hours playing imagined Stanley Cup Final games that had ridiculous scores like 32-27. Cars were the sworn enemy as they’d always bring the game to a sudden halt, usually during a goalmouth scramble or breakaway. Someone would yell “Car!” or “Wheels!” and the team on the offensive would collectively moan.
There were always sweet spots to play, like a dead end. Sometimes if that spot was being used by other neighbourhood kids we’d challenge them to a game. After school, while I waited for my parents to come home from work, I’d kill time and stay out of trouble by lugging my net down the driveway onto the road to practise my snapshot or backhand. This is how I’d meet other kids who had moved on to my block — they’d come slinking down the street, a tapeless hockey stick dragging at their side, and ask if they could fire shots off with me.
Willowdale is a typical Toronto suburb, but has recently seen a condo boom along fable Yonge Street. In the '80s and early '90s vehicles were plentiful, but side-streets like the one I lived on were car-free enough for large street hockey games to flourish. I never realized it at the time, but we were risking our lives as human traffic-calmers. Most everyone in the neighbourhood knew that you should take the turn slowly when approaching Longmore Avenue so as not to run down a kid chasing a stray ball. Sometimes, when an aggressive driver whipped by us too quickly, we’d flick the tennis ball off a car door or rear trunk as a warning — we may not have had 3,000 pounds of metal on our side, but this was our street, too. And we had sticks in our hands.
This weekend, visit Vegas in Montreal
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? Photo exhibit of vanishing Las Vegas
WHEN? Until Sunday, December 23rd
WHERE? Galerie le 1040, 1040 Marie Anne East
We've written about kitsch in Montreal, but what about the kitsch capital of the world, Las Vegas? If you have some time to kill this weekend, you might consider a foray into the Plateau to catch the final days of Westmount photographer John Archer's week-long exhibition, Once Vegas: Motels, swimming pools and trailer parks. Archer has trained his lens on the "off, off the strip" districts of Vegas to capture the city's fast-disappearing postwar landscape.
"Here is an ...
Market day at Place Jacques Cartier
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Once upon a time, before it became a playground for tourists, the east end of Old Montreal was a real, functioning neighbourhood. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the Place Jacques Cartier, one of Montreal's oldest and most picturesque squares. For more than 150 years, from 1803 until the end of the 1950s, it was the heart of a busy market district that extended down from City Hall and east towards the Bonsecours Market. Twice a week, merchants from across Quebec gathered in the square to sell fresh produce and other goods.
While the farmers' market ...
Fermeture du McDonald’s à l’intersection Parc et Mont-Royal
By Cédric Sam // 9 Comments
Le 16 décembre, la succursale des grandes arches jaunes au coin de Parc et Mont-Royal ferma ses portes à tout jamais, à la grande surprise de beaucoup de gens dans le quartier.
C'est sûrement un peu étrange que de parler de la fermeture d'un McDo dans un magazine en ligne traitant d'espaces publics. Pourtant, dans le quartier, c'était une version cheap des cafés qui pullulent sur Laurier, lieux où on y flânera des heures après avoir acheté sa consommation. J'y apercevais souvent ...
December 23rd, 2007
Photo du jour: Tirez/Pull
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Laurier metro, December 20, 2007
Turn on the red light
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
The video screen of a silhouetted stripper was once a landmark at the corner of Ste. Catherine and the Main. It was a symbol of sorts for Montreal's rapidly-dwindling red light district, a seedy neighbourhood of cheap bars, diners, peep shows juxtaposed with music venues, theatres and university buildings. It was about the only remarkable thing left on the building it occupied, a hideous, dilapidated, mostly-abandoned structure that was an eyesore even for a scuzzy part of town.
It's a bit of a surprise to look at the photos on the right, compiled by ...
December 24th, 2007
Photo du jour : La veille de Noël en 1870
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Estampe, "Le Marché Bonsecours la veille de Noël", 1870
Collection du musée McCord
Apartment buildings on Decarie
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Decarie Towers, built 1955
Lately, I've found myself fascinated by something I had never noticed before: apartment building names. My interest was piqued in September when J.D. Gravenor posted a 1910 list of apartment buildings in Montreal on Coolopolis. Some were more fanciful than others --- there's the San Remo on Durocher, the Smithsonian on Selkirk, the Lochinvar on Crescent, the Imperial on Hope.
I came across a treasure trove of cool apartment building names last week when I walked down Decarie from Van Horne to Queen Mary. It's not an obvious street down which ...
Turning the place over
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
[youtube]ZXn6PXBOyRY[/youtube]
What do you do with an abandoned building? Turn it into art. Such is the case in Liverpool where the British sculptor Richard Wilson has created Turning the Place Over, an ambitious intervention that removes an eight metre chunk of façade from a building in central Liverpool, rotates it and puts it back into place. An introduction to the piece by the Cass Sculpture Foundation describes it in more detail:
Turning the Place Over consists of an 8 metres diameter ovoid cut from the façade of a building and made to oscillate in three dimensions. The revolving façade rests on ...
December 25th, 2007
Photo du jour: Beaver Hall Hill Square
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Snowbanks in Beaver Hall Hill Square (at Beaver Hall Hill and Dorchester, now René Lévesque) around 1870
‘Tis the season for Christmas kitsch
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
One of Montreal's greatest cultural assets is its endless capacity for kétainerie. Holiday decorations are a case in point. Every year, Montrealers seem to outdo themselves by planting inflatable Christmas decorations on their balconies and in their front yards, usually accompanied by lights, plastic figurines and other things that can be bought at the local hardware store for under $50.
I've seen a lot of elaborate Christmas displays, but my all-time favourite can be found on St. Urbain just above Laurier, where a grey duplex provides the stage for a most exciting holiday drama: the ...
December 26th, 2007
Photo du jour : Chinatown, l’hiver
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise sur De La Gauchetière, entre St-Urbain et St-Dominique, le 22 décembre 2007.
What we lost to the Ville-Marie Expressway
By Christopher DeWolf // 18 Comments
Craig looking east from near St. Urbain, 1953
While Bostonians have engaged in three decades of self-flagellation over the neighbourhoods they lost to inhuman highway and urban renewal schemes, Montrealers are different. Most of us don't seem to realize just how much of the city was destroyed in the 1960s and 70s for massive renewal projects that, arguably, left Montreal in worse shape than it was before.
One of these projects was the Ville-Marie Expressway, which tore through a swath of downtown from Victoria Square to the Molson Brewery. Its construction in the late 1960s entailed the demolition ...
Jack Dylan makes Montreal look good
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Last fall, you might have noticed a spate of Pop Montreal concert posters plastered on hydro poles, lampposts, mailboxes and traffic control boxes around town. Many of these were created by Jack Dylan, a poster artist who moved to Montreal in 2003 from London, Ontario.
Dylan's style is unmistakable: each of his posters looks like it was plucked from the pages of something published by Drawn and Quarterly. In a single frame, he manages to build characters and convey a sense of narrative. Many of Dylan's ...
Walking Montreal’s streets in 1987
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
As much as I like photos of Montreal from 100 years ago, it's shots from more recent decades that really pique my interest. Luckily, Flickr has prompted a lot of people to dust off the boxes of slides, prints and negative they've kept in their closets and post their old photos online. That's the case for Mike Gericke, a Montreal native who now lives in Ottawa. He's uploaded a nice set of 37 photos that were taken on the streets of Montreal in the late 1980s. Here's a few.
Mount Royal ...
December 27th, 2007
Photo du jour : Pont Champlain
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise le 25 décembre 2007, sur le pont Champlain
December 28th, 2007
Photo du jour: Mutilated in Mile End
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
In this before-and-after shot we can see the evolution (some would say devolution) of the Park Avenue retail strip between Bernard and St. Viateur. In the top photo, taken in the 1930s, the Reding Apartments housed a location of Metropolitan Stores, a Canadian five-and-dime chain that competed with the American Woolworths (which I believe also had a location on Park) and can be seen as a predecessor to today's Dollarama.
Last spring, when I took the bottom photo, the Reding Apartments had been so transformed it is unrecognizable at first glance. Virtually all detail has been stripped ...
Nouvelles machines de cartes à puce et Métrovision à Lionel-Groulx
By Cédric Sam // 5 Comments
2007 aura vu l'apparition dans la plupart des stations de métro du réseau de la STM, des appareils qui serviront durant le printemps 2008 à propulser les utilisateurs du transport en commun dans l'ère des cartes électroniques.
Montréal est loin d'être une figure de proue dans le domaine des cartes à puces en transport en commun. Il y a dix ans, le métro de Hong Kong, le MTR, lançait la carte Octopus. Une carte prépayée, ...
Je fais mon Steinberg
By Christopher DeWolf // 16 Comments
It's hard to overstate the importance the Steinberg family played in the postwar development of Montreal. Their grocery store chain single-handedly introduced the modern supermarket concept to Quebec, with stores like the one you see above, which was built on Côte St. Luc Road in 1959.
As property developers operating under the name of Ivanhoe Investments (now Ivanhoe Cambridge), the Steinbergs built many of Montreal's first shopping malls, too, including Fairview Mall (1965), the Galeries d'Anjou (1968) and the Champlain Mall (1975). Naturally, all of them were anchored by a Steinberg's when they first opened....
Montreal in the snow… in February 1972
By Christopher DeWolf // 11 Comments
Peel Street looking north from Sherbrooke
It must be end-of-year nostalgia: after Mike Gericke's photos of Montreal in 1987, I can't help but revisit some other old photos I came across earlier this year.
February 20, 1972 was a snowy day in Montreal and Colin Rose was there to capture it. His images of early-70s downtown Montreal, scanned from transparencies and as clear as any photo taken yesterday, show a city that is at once completely familiar but also, in some ways, entirely foreign.
Don't forget to click on all of these photos to go ...
December 29th, 2007
Photo du jour: הצלה
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Hatzoloh is a volunteer EMS organization that functions in Orthodox Jewish communities around the world, including the west end of Montreal and Kiryas Tosh, a Hasidic Jewish town in the north shore suburbs.
Decarie Blvd. near Van Horne, December 18, 2007
December 30th, 2007
Photo du jour : l’argent et la religion
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo de la tour CIBC et de la Basilique-Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde prise le 25 décembre 2007.
Griffintown’s citizen activists
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
This weekend in the Gazette, Steve Faguy spoke to a handful of the citizen activists who are casting a critical eye on the Griffintown redevelopment scheme, including Urbanphoto contributors AJ Kandy and Desmond Bliek.
Kandy, Bliek and their associates aren't necessarily opposed to the project, they explain, but they want to make sure it's pedestrian-friendly, well-integrated into the surrounding neighbourhoods and loaded with the amenities that a new neighbourhood of nearly 10,000 people will require, like health clinics and parks. They're also concerned with the way the project seems to be evolving behind closed doors, ...
GST cut gives the city a $500,000 windfall
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Canada's GST will be cut by one more percent on Tuesday, bringing the national sales tax down to 5%. Rather than bringing down the price of its municipal services, though, City Hall will take the opportunity to pocket the difference.
"If the hourly rate for parking meters is $2, the GST reduction would lower the price to $1.97 or $1.98," a city spokesperson told La Presse. "It would be a problem. We'd have to modify all of our systems and it would cost as much as the GST cut would provide in additional revenues."
Parking prices ...
Montreal’s postwar neighbourhoods
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Jean Talon Street in Saint Michel
For all of its historic neighbourhoods, Montreal is really a postwar city. In the twenty years after 1941, the number of people living on the island swelled from 1.1 million to well over 1.7 million and tens of thousands of new apartment buildings, plexes and houses were built to accommodate the steadily growing population. Old neighbourhoods expanded, new neighbourhoods were built and the suburbs blossomed, stretching east and west towards the edges of the island.
Lately, I've found myself drawn to these parts of town, placers where the urban fabric seems ...
December 31st, 2007
Photo du jour: Sixties Ste. Catherine
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Ste. Catherine and Mansfield, looking west, in 1961
New life for Montreal’s park chalets
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Beaver Lake chalet, photo by Frédéric Saia
Original 1955 plans for the chalet
Earlier this year, after two years of renovation, the Beaver Lake chalet on Mount Royal re-opened in all of its 1950s glory. Not only is the park pavillion entirely restored, its food offerings have been upgraded. It now features a table service restaurant alongside a revamped cafeteria that offers espresso-based coffee and pastries baked on the premises. Since the chalet is still officially recognized as a public space, though, people are welcome to bring their own food.
The Beaver Lake chalet's ...
Greening Montreal’s laneways
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Montrealers across the city are taking a renewed interest in their laneways. Since many of them are too narrow to work as service corridors, their original purpose, lanes can be used in different and more imaginative ways.
In October, the Plateau borough announced that an old alley behind St. Louis Square would be converted into a "country lane," but that won't be the first time something interesting has been done to a Plateau laneway.
That's what I discovered when I came across the laneway running behind Milton Street between St. Urbain and Clark. Some time ...
January 1st, 2008
Happy new year et meilleurs voeux pour 2008!
By Spacing // 4 Comments
So, tell us --- what did you get up to on New Year's Eve?
Photo du jour : Tramway d’hiver
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Horse-drawn tram on Ste. Catherine Street near Greene Avenue, 1877
January 2nd, 2008
Photo du jour : Découvrez les Irrésistibles
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise au Centre Eaton de Montréal, lors du Boxing Day 2007.
Montreal’s suburban villages: Sainte Anne de Bellevue
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Compact, walkable and attractive, Ste. Anne de Bellevue is one of the nicest old towns in suburban Montreal. It's also about as far west as you can go in Montreal before falling off the island, which might as well be the edge of the earth, as far as I'm concerned. (I crossed the Champlain Bridge once but everything after that is a blank.) It takes about thirty minutes to get there by train from Central Lucien L'Allier Station, an hour from Lionel-Groulx metro on the 211 bus and anywhere from half an hour to an ...
Tango de Montréal
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
[youtube]lej1kLzaIgA[/youtube]
"Montreal Tango" was made last year for a National Film Board workshop by Tarek al-Nosir and two of his Dawson College classmates, Hernan Wu and James Jacobo-Mandryk. It's a portrait of immigrants in Montreal that draws its name and inspiration from a 1983 poem by Gérald Godin, "Tango de Montréal."
The poem, which is an homage to Montreal's immigrants, is displayed outside Mont-Royal metro as part of an installation created by Les industries perdues in 2000; the artists were inspired by Godin's old habit of painting his poems on the side of his St. Louis Square home.
Tango de Montréal
Gérald Godin
Sept heures et demie du matin métro de Montréal
c'est plein d'immigrants
ça se lève de bonne heure
ce monde-là
le vieux coeur de la ville
battrait-il donc encore
grâce à eux
ce vieux coeur usé de la ville
avec ses spasmes
ses embolies
ses souffles au coeur
et tous ses défauts
et toutes les raisons du monde qu'il aurait
de s'arrêter
de renoncer
Montreal’s lost Expo opportunity
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Expo 67's 40th anniversary has passed, but there's one aspect of the world fair that I find strangely overlooked: its transportation system. While the Minirail and pedicabs moved people around the Expo site, more serious transit links were needed to get them to and from Notre Dame and St. Helen's islands.
That's where the metro, Expo Express and hovercrafts came into play. Hovercrafts were used to speed people between the South Shore, La Ronde and the Cité du Havre. The metro's yellow line was built between Montreal and Longueuil because it offered a stop ...
Montreal’s Chinatown in 1984
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
I almost had to twist my father's arm to get these photos onto Flickr, but it was well worth it. Since Boxing Day, he has been busy scanning our family slides, including some pictures of Montreal Chinatown back in 1984. The first photo is showing the block on St-Laurent, below De La Gauchetière, where the Hong Kong Chinese rôtisserie and deli currently stands, just minus the open flight of stairs serving the basement floor. The second floor restaurant Joy Inn (in standard "Chinese font") was ...
January 3rd, 2008
Photo du jour: Glen Road
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Glen Road is, along with Greene Avenue, one of just two links between Lower Westmount and St. Henri. Whereas the Greene Avenue connection is fairly seamless, Glen Road passes under the CPR tracks through a mysterious-looking tunnel. In a children's novel there would be a wonderland on the other side, but in real life there's just a statue of Louis Cyr (although I suppose that's already pretty wondrous).
Sauvons l’église Saint-Sauveur!
By Christopher DeWolf // 15 Comments
The saviour is in need of saving. One of Montreal's last-remaining mid-nineteenth century churches, the Église Saint-Sauveur at the corner of St. Denis and Viger, is threatened by demolition.
Saint-Sauveur was built in 1865, thirteen years after a fire swept through the Faubourg Saint-Laurent, reducing most of it to rubble. What emerged from the ashes of the old suburb was the new bourgeois neighbourhood of Montreal's francophone elite. New greystone houses and imposing institutional structures rose near Viger Square. In 1895, a branch of Laval University (which would eventually become the Université de Montréal) was ...
A condo tower done right
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
A certain segment of the population seems hard-wired to scoff at any mention of the word "condominium." It's certainly true that most new condo projects don't do themselves any favours with humdrum architecture and crass lifestyle marketing. But there are indeed good condo projects out there that can serve as models for new real estate development in Montreal.
One of these is Louis Bohème. Despite the somewhat ridiculous name, this 28-storey apartment tower, currently under construction at the corner of Bleury and de Maisonneuve, is a good example for new downtown development to follow. Most impressive ...
Visionary architecture at the Cinéma du Parc
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
WHAT? Visionary Architecture: Great Expectations & Kochuu and Moshe Safdie, The Power Of Architecture, three films on architecture
WHEN? 7pm and 9pm on January 8th, 9th and 10th
WHERE? Cinéma du Parc, 3575 Park Avenue (at Prince Arthur)
HOW MUCH? $10 general, $7 students and on Tuesday
Next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the Cinéma du Parc will present three documentaries on architecture: Great Expectations, and Kochuu, a double bill, and Moshe Safdie, The Power Of Architecture. Here's a description of the first two:
You are invited to a journey through innovative, futurist, revolutionary and ecotopist architectural visions. Great Expectations introduces us ...
January 4th, 2008
Photo du jour : métro Verdun
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise au Métro Verdun, le 22 décembre 2007.
January 5th, 2008
Photo du jour : les ponts de Montréal
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Pont Victoria à l'avant-plan, et Jacques-Cartier à l'arrière-plan. Photo prise à partir du pont Champlain, le 25 décembre 2007.
January 6th, 2008
Photo du jour: Verdun Annex
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Advertisement, from the late 1900s or early 1910s, for new real estate development in Verdun. Found in the BANQ's Massicotte Albums.
La crise du verglas de 1998
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Le grand verglas de 1998, par François Rodrigue de Blog Story
Il y a dix ans, au retour des Fêtes, une dépression venant du Golfe du Mexique remontait les Appalaches. Elle se heurtera à un anticyclone positionné au-desus du Labrador pour donner la grande tempête de pluie verglaçante de 1998. Entre le 5 et 10 janvier 1998, c'était de 50 à 100 millimètres tombés dans certaines régions du sud-ouest québécois et de l'est ontarien.
Dans les grands médias en ligne québécois, comme Radio-Canada.ca, on a déjà préparé ...
Mysterious igloos appear on Mount Royal
By Christopher DeWolf // 11 Comments
The Journal de Montréal reported yesterday that two igloos have appeared on Mount Royal, one near Park Avenue and the other further west, near Beaver Lake. They're both about six feet high, made from large blocks of snow, cut and assembled quite solidly, and big enough to hold two or three people. Nobody seems to know who built them, though, or for that matter, why. The Journal offers some ideas:
«C'est tout à fait plausible qu'un sans-abri d'origine inuite ait construit cet igloo pour y passer la nuit», affirme Craig Ross, coordonnateur du centre des jeunes du ...
Increased metro, bus service tomorrow
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Metro trains will come more often on the orange, green and blue lines starting tomorrow. The headway between trains will be reduced by about two minutes throughout the day, meaning that trains coming every 7 or 8 minutes will now come every 5 or 6 minutes.
Service on some important bus lines, including the 24 Sherbrooke, 18 Beaubien and 121 Sauvé, will also be increased. If you ask me, though, none of these buses come often enough, especially in the evening. Even after the service improvements, the westbound 24 still comes every 30 minutes after ...
January 7th, 2008
Once upon a time, St. Louis Square had a basin
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
St. Louis Square, often known as Carré St-Louis (though this is, to the surprise of many, actually an anglicism), is one of Montreal's greatest public spaces. A traditional Victorian park, ringed by beautiful old greystone rowhouses and villas, it first came into existence as a reservoir in 1851. In 1880, the reservoir was drained and the square as we now know it was built, complete with walking paths and a fountain.
Except that wasn't entirely the case. The beautiful fountain that now stands in the middle of the square, serving as a central focus for ...
Photo du jour: Schoolyard hockey
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Schoolyard hockey at Marie Anne and Henri Julien on the Plateau. November 4, 2007
Should the blue line be converted into a subway/surface tram line?
By Christopher DeWolf // 13 Comments
Underground trams in Boston's Green Line
Today's Gazette reports that the Montreal agglomeration council's transportation committee is studying a proposal by UQAM doctoral student Pierre Barrieau to convert the metro's blue line into an subway/surface tram line. More detail:
Barrieau suggests replacing the métro cars that now run on the Blue Line with new tramway cars that would run inside the métro tunnel, then surface at either end and continue on above-ground lines that could be laid at a fraction of the cost of digging more tunnel.
Barrieau says that for the $945-million price tag to extend ...
Axel Morgenthaler on the Quartier des spectacles
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Even the best cities are better at night. Hong Kong's frenzied streets are bathed in neon; Paris takes on a desultory air as the streets grow dark.
Everywhere, dusk brings with it a dark intimacy, something the promoters of the Quartier des spectacles seem to have recognized. I've never seen a neighbourhood revitalization project so deliberately evoke the mystery and excitement (with hints of danger and debauchery) of the city at night. I probably shouldn't be surprised. This is Montreal's old red light district, after all, and people flock here for shows and drinks only after the sun has set. You'd have to be pretty clueless to ignore its nighttime potential.
Over the past year or so, the Quartier des spectacles has sponsored a new lighting scheme that highlights and ties together the neighbourhood's cultural attractions. So far, the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (TNM), Club Soda, Monument National, Metropolis and National Film Board have been lit with multihued LEDs, along with the Vitrine culturelle, a new arts-and-culture information centre in Place des Arts. Red lights projected on the sidewalk are meant to create a sense of cohesion throughout the area.
Axel Morgenthaler is the man behind those lights. Since moving to Montreal in 1991, he has designed lighting installations for architectural projects, museum exhibitions and stage performances. His work can be found in the W Hotel, the international arrivals wing of Trudeau International Airport and in Henri Bourassa metro.
Over the holidays, I sat down with Morgenthaler at his western NDG home and chatted with him about the Quartier des spectacles. Read part of our conversation after the jump.
Building a new market in Vieux-Longueuil
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Most real estate developments don't have their own blogs. The Marché du Vieux-Longueuil is different. Louis Voizard, its developer, is tracking its planning and eventual construction with frequent and unusually frank posts. Here's his description of the project, which which would be built on the site of a former car dealership on St. Charles Street, the main drag in Longueuil's old downtown:
Ce secteur de la rue Saint-Charles a grandement besoin d’être revitalisé à plusieurs points de vue. D’abord, au plan architectural, cet immeuble, indigne de l’artère commerciale Saint-Charles, sera rasé et remplacé par ...
January 8th, 2008
Photo(s) du jour: Schoolyard basketball
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Basketball in a schoolyard at Victoria and Van Horne in Côte des Neiges. January 10, 2007
Great expectations of films on architecture
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFqzBmjuAQE[/youtube]
Anyone interested in architecture should remember to head down to the Cinéma du Parc this week for the screenings of Kochuu: Japanese Architecture / Influence & Origin and Moshe Safdie: The Power of Architecture.
The films will be shown at 7pm and 9pm tonight, tomorrow and on Thursday. You can find out more information in our post from last week.
In the meantime, here's a the trailer for the short feature Great Expectations: A Journey Through the History of Visionary Architecture, which will be showing with Kochuu at 7pm each night.
January 9th, 2008
Photo du jour : lieu de rencontre
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Au Complexe Guy-Favreau, des personnes âgées d'origine chinoise s'assoient sous un arbre (en plastique) pour bavarder.
Un édifice du gouvernement fédéral, connu du grand public pour son bureau de passeport, le Complexe Guy-Favreau fait partie intégrante du Quartier Chinois de Montréal, depuis sa construction en 1983. On s'y donne rendez-vous (généralement près de la porte est, sur Saint-Urbain), on y stationne sa voiture pour faire son épicerie et déjeuner au dim sum, on y passe à travers pour aller rejoindre ...
STM service improvements a cutback in disguise?
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Waiting for a bus that just won't come
It seems that the STM's service improvements might not be much of an improvement after all. By all accounts, metro trains really are coming more often: midday and evening headways have been reduced from 8 minutes to just under six minutes.
The bus system, however, is still a mess thanks to the bus shortage that plagued the STM since earlier this year. Bus drivers claim that, technical problems kept 202 buses off the roads on Monday morning, so riders who had been promised more frequent service were ...
Exploring Montreal’s linguistic space
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Two weeks ago, using newly-released data from the 2006 census, the Toronto Star created a map showing the dominant language (after English) in every census tract in Toronto. The result is a fascinating ethno-linguistic portrait of the city, perhaps the best visual representation of the city's diversity I have ever seen.
I wish someone would do the same for Montreal. The closest we've gotten are maps showing which census tracts are mostly anglophone, francophone or allophone, but that is hardly a good representation of the city's true linguistic diversity.
Still, even a map like the ...
January 10th, 2008
Photo du jour : Ahuntsic vu du ciel
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Les avenues Christophe-Colomb et Papineau, traversant le quartier Ahuntsic, au nord de l'Île de Montréal. La rivière des Prairies coupe le haut de cette image. Photo prise le 24 mars 2005.
Long way ahead for new metro cars
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
After delays, bus shortages and unhappy drivers who might strike in February, there's even more bad news for the STM.
French manufacturing giant Alstom has won its case against Quebec for awarding a $1.2 billion contract to replace all of the green line's 336 metro cars to Bombardier without an open tender. Whatever its final outcome, the STM says, the court ruling will set the delivery of new metro cars back by another year. Here's more background from La Presse:
C’est le ministre Béchard qui a ouvert le bal en juillet 2005 en déclarant que ...
Chicago’s Festival of Maps
By Spacing // No Comments
CHICAGO -- Not much sounds more appealing than a Festival of Maps, and Chicago delivered that holiday gift (and continues to deliver it) in its multi-site ongoing exhibit and lecture series that runs the gamut from tablet to tube map.
While home for the holidays I was able to check out two exhibits, Maps, Finding Our Place in the World at the Field Museum (through Jan 27) and Mapping Chicago: The Past and the Possible at the Chicago History Museum (closed Jan 6).
Though the History Museum (nee Chicago Historical Society — I guess ...
Welcome to Little Maghreb
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Walk a few minutes east from Saint-Michel metro and you'll find yourself in one of Montreal's most recent ethnic neighbourhoods: the Petit Maghreb, a 15-block strip of North African businesses along Jean Talon Street between St. Michel and Pie IX boulevards.
Nearly half of Montreal's 63,000 immigrants from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia arrived here after 2001. They're quickly making their presence felt. Last spring, a group of Jean Talon St. business owners announced their intention to create a "Petit Maghreb" business district along the lines of Little Italy and Chinatown.
It seems that this would ...
January 11th, 2008
Photo du jour: West End dusk
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Westmount and NDG, seen from a downtown apartment tower, with Lake St. Louis in the background.
October 8, 2006
URBA 2015 looks at urban art in Montreal
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
WHAT? Presentation on urban art
WHEN? 5:30pm, Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
WHERE? Room DR-200, Pavillon Athanase-David, 1430 St. Denis
RSVP? Email urba2015@uqam.ca to reserve a place
Art is one of those essential urban ingredients that is too often overlooked or dismissed ("Why do we need art in the metro? I just want to get from point A to B!"). But it gives us a universally engaging way to ask questions about ourselves, our cities and our relationship to public space.
You'll get your chance to explore this topic on January 22nd, when UQAM's urban studies department hosts a presentation ...
More transit ideas: tram-train link to the airport and beyond
By Christopher DeWolf // 17 Comments
New ideas keep emerging for public transit in Montreal even as the day-to-day operations of the bus, metro and commuter train systems struggle to keep up with demand.
Today, the Gazette reports that the Agence métropolitain de transport is working with other government bodies to implement a rail connection to Trudeau International Airport and improve commuter service on the West Island. Its latest idea is to lay new track for a tram-train --- a type of light rail vehicle that can run on both streetcar tracks and heavy rail tracks --- that would ...
January 12th, 2008
Photo du jour: Sherbrooke East
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
I love this photo, taken by Flickr member and east ender Caribb, because it's such an unusual view of the city. Unlike most aerial shots, there's no Mount Royal and no river to guide our attention. Instead, our eye follows the path of Sherbrooke St. as it cuts diagonally through the city towards Lafontaine Park, the Olympic Stadium and beyond.
Photo taken October 24, 2006
January 13th, 2008
Photo du jour : Drink Pepsi-Cola
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Aperçu à Saint-Lambert, sur la Rive-Sud de Montréal. Photo prise le 6 janvier 2008.
Mount Royal’s igloo mystery unfolds
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Last week, when I wrote about two mysterious igloos that were discovered on Mount Royal by a Journal de Montréal reporter, Stefan Ohrhallinger posted a comment claiming that he had created one of them. He also sent a note to the Journal, which promptly dispatched a reporter and a photographer to get the full scoop.
Turns out that Ohrhallinger, a doctoral student at Concordia, was inspired by a 1949 National Film Board documentary on the construction of an igloo, so he set out to Mount Royal to make one for himself. "I used a saw ...
January 14th, 2008
Photo du jour: Fortune teller
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
On warm, snow-free days, there are at least a couple of people in Chinatown who will discuss your fortune. One of them is this man, who often sets up shop in a small booth on La Gauchetière St., gesturing expressively as he discusses his customer's fate. Another, much older man sits every day on the red benches outside the bakery just west of Clark. He was the subject of an article in Urbania's Summer 2006 issue, which, unfortunately, is not available online.
Planting fruit trees on city streets
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Over the holidays, the Tyee, a Vancouver-based webzine, published a series of twelve "New Ideas for the New Year." Here's one that really caught my attention: planting fruit trees on city streets.
While the benefits of greening the city are well-known --- street trees provide shade, suck up storm water, remove carbon from the atmosphere and reduce the urban heat island effect --- the notion of actually eating the things we plant in our streets is still quite novel. By doing so, however, we would gain an important local food supply and a way to ...
Opening up to the city: one building’s transformation
By Christopher DeWolf // 13 Comments
There's nothing inherently special about a downtown building with Starbucks, Quiznos Subs and Zyng Noodlery on its ground floor. In fact, that's exactly the kind of generic chainscape we'd probably do best to avoid. But look beyond the surface and you'll see something interesting: a once-hostile steetscape that has been opened up thanks to a simple and profitable renovation.
Until 2006, Le Chatel, a 30-storey apartment tower built in 1967, met the corner of Guy and de Maisonneuve with cold indifference: its ground floor consisted of barren planters and a blank concrete wall. It made ...
January 15th, 2008
Photo du jour : L’Hôpital Général de Montréal en 2001
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
L'Hôpital Général de Montréal, avant la construction juste devant de l'immeuble en copropriété à l'intersection de Des Pins et Côte-des-Neiges. Photo prise le 9 juillet 2001.
Devimco presentation on Griffintown: Residents not welcome?
By Chris Erb // 9 Comments
A couple weeks ago, I and a fellow resident of Griffintown were invited to attend a presentation on the planned redevelopment of the area by developer Devimco. The presentation was hosted by L'Action Gardien, an umbrella organisation for the various community groups in Pointe St-Charles.
The presentation was well attended by representatives from the different community groups (although, the presentation was only part of a larger meeting). Two people gave the presentation; Luc Ouimet from "Le Centre de Consultation et de Concertation" and George Bossé who, as I understand, has a fairly colourful and somewhat controversial history (Le Devoir ran a story on him last year outlining some problems he had with conflict of interest issues due to his past job as mayor of Verdun). Mr. Bossé gave most of the presentation and Mr. Ouimet fielded the majority of the questions.
As soon as my neighbour and I had taken off our jackets, Mr. Ouimet approached us and began asking questions. He asked where we lived and why we were interested in the presentation. We have suspected that Devimco has been quite ignorant towards the entire area and our suspicions were somewhat validated when said that he thought there were only people living on de la Montagne and showed surprise that we live in other parts of the area.
The presentation itself was much as I expected. Facts and figures were given that didn't differ much from what the media has been reporting since the plan was first unveiled. Land use maps were shown outlining the composition of the different areas along with details of studies that were done on how the project will affect commercial activity on Ste-Catherine. Historic buildings that will be preserved or moved were shown and mock-ups of what the project might look like when it is finished were presented at the end. I found it interesting and a bit disconcerting that transit was not touched upon as part of the official presentation and the tramway was not mentioned until a member of the audience brought it up in a question. A PDF of the entire PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded here (I was given a booklet but I don’t know where one would be able to acquire one).
Some points of interest from the presentation after the jump.
EXPO – 16 Curious Beauties: The Architecture of Montreal in 2108
By Spacing // 1 Comment
By Jelena Porovic
Conscious of the difficult undertaking they are about to commit to, determined not to plunge into a nostalgic futurism, and willing to anticipate the most difficult of questions, 16 future architects, fresh out of OUPROPO (OUvoir de PROjets POtentiels, www.oupropo.umontreal.ca) masters programme at Université de Montréal, are taking you on a unique visit of Montreal in the year 2108. Models, objects, texts and images will offer “tourist stills” that will seem surprising yet critical of our future metropolis.
The students ask: What form will Montreal take in 100 years? ...
Patrimoine menacé
By Guillaume St-Jean // 7 Comments
Photographie prise en 2006
En 1986, cette maison fut présentée comme suit dans un livre sur l'architecture rurale, publié par le répertoire d'architecture traditionnelle sur le territoire de la communauté urbaine de Montréal :
''Cette grande maison de pierre occupe le centre d'un vaste domaine connu à Sainte-Anne de Bellevue comme la ferme Peter Wiliamson. Ce dernier, un écossais d'origine, avait baptisé sa propriété ''Braerob farm''. D'après M. Williamson, ce nom de Braerob vient évoquer de manière poétique la beauté et la richesse historique des lieux. Le mot ...
Remembering the Mount Royal Funicular
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Just 90 years ago (it seems like yesterday!), you would have been able to transport yourself from the corner of Park and Duluth to the top of the mountain in a matter of minutes, thanks entirely to the Mount Royal Funicular Railway.
Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed Mount Royal Park, didn't want Montrealers to have a quick way to reach the top of the mountain; he intended for them to leisurely stroll along the winding path that begins near the Sir George Étienne Cartier Monument. But even in the nineteenth century, people had things to do ...
January 16th, 2008
Photo du jour: View from atop the Aldred Building
By Chris Erb // 3 Comments
Looking east from one of the top floors of the Aldred Building in Old Montreal.
Photo taken May 2007 .
A lesson we need to learn from Albania
By Christopher DeWolf // 10 Comments
The downtown west end is one of my favourite parts of Montreal. Densely-populated, teeming with life and resolutely multicultural, it feels unique because it departs so radically from the low-rise scale common in most neighbourhoods. In the blocks around de Maisonneuve, Lincoln and Tupper, between Guy and Atwater, there's almost something Manhattanesque about the mix of old rowhouses and walkup apartment buildings with big postwar towers.
But, for all its vibrancy, pretty much anyone would be forced to admit that this part of Montreal is ugly. Hideous, even. The true extent of its laideur becomes evident ...
January 17th, 2008
Photo du jour: Do you miss summer yet?
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
If it were a hot, sunny day in July, instead of yet another miserly day in January, I'd probably be craving water right now. Sometimes I'll quench my proverbial thirst by heading to the pond at Lafontaine Park. But other times the only way to satisfy myself is to corrall a bunch of friends to go to one of the city's outdoor pools. We usually go to the John F. Kennedy pool in Outremont, about a 10 minute walk from my apartment.
July 22, 2007
Association cantonaise de divertissement pour l’âge d’or
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
LO Ha, de l'Association cantonaise de divertissement pour l'âge d'or
Samedi dernier, je me suis promené au Quartier Chinois avec mes grands-parents, c'est-à-dire les parents à ma mère. Ça fait plus d'une vingtaine d'années qu'ils se sont installés à Montréal, et le Quartier Chinois est pour eux l'endroit où ils retournent et peuvent évoluer dans leur langue, le Cantonais. Pourtant l'un des deux dialectes les plus parlés par les chinois ...
Terrasse trouble in Ville Émard
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Who would have thought that patios could be so controversial? For nearly a year, since the Sud-Ouest borough approved a pilot project that installed restaurant and bar terrasses on Monk Blvd. in Ville-Émard, people in the southwest have been divided over whether or not they should exist. Terrasse supporters have banded together with business owners and the borough's opposition Vision Montreal councillors; terrasse opponents, meanwhile, have rallied around the borough's Union Montreal mayor, Jacqueline Montpetit, who is dead set against them.
Most of the terrasse opponents cite noise and disorderly behaviour as their main concerns. Others ...
Michel Dallaire will design the new bike sharing system
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Later this year, Montreal will enjoy the beginnings of a new bike sharing program modeled on Paris' hugely popular Velib. As we mentioned last fall, the system will eventually include 2,400 bicycles parked at 300 stations across town.
Now it seems that we will not only be able to borrow bikes for a small cost, we'll be doing so in style. This week, Montreal's parking authority, which will run the program, announced that industrial designer Michel Dallaire will design the bikes and docking stations. Créativité Montréal has more:
À la suite d'un appel aux ...
January 18th, 2008
Photo du jour: Bagel man
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
I don't know why I find the St. Viateur bagel mascot so disturbing.
June 1, 2007
Bike show at the auto show
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
WHAT? "The Bike Show" just outside the car show
WHERE? Corner of St. Urbain and Viger (in front of Place d'Armes metro)
WHEN? The afternoon of Sunday, January 20th
I've always found it a bit odd to see car ads in the metro (although I can't begrudge the STM for going after such a large and lucrative source of advertising revenue) but it was especially perplexing to arrive at Place d'Armes station the other night only to find all of its ad space taken over for a Dodge-sponsored promotion of the Montreal International Auto Show, which will take place ...
January 19th, 2008
Photo du jour: Street-savvy monks
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Is it normal for monks to go mingle with the public? I spotted these two guys on Ste. Catherine St. last summer. They seemed amiable enough, but they were accosted by two separate people who were either eager to discuss theology or had problems with their flagrant display of piousness.
June 8, 2007
Cinéma Sun Ko Wah
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
It was through a quick search to see whether the Sun Ko Wah (新國華) boutique and bookstore on this picture still existed (it probably does), that I realized that Chinatown's now-defunct cinema on St-Laurent Boulevard (near René-Lévesque) was also called the Sun Ko Wah! Yes, according to infos on the web, this cinema existed between 1989 and 1995. My memories seem to point to a much earlier period, but the end of it may indeed ...
Another photo flashback: Montreal in the 1980s
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
I had completely forgotten about John Allison's great photos of Montreal in the early 1980s (in both colour and black-and-white) until Kate McDonnell reminded me of them with a post on her Montreal City blog yesterday.
You know how much I love photos from recent decades. These are now exception. Not only are they exceptionally thoughful and well-composed, Allison focused on many of the urban details that define the essence of a place at any given time. While the landscape we seen in his photo is fundamentally unchanged, it's the details---the ...
STM service improvements: the real deal
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Earlier this month, we asked if the STM's recent service improvements were actually cutbacks in disguise, pointing to an investigation by blogger Steve Faguy that revealed that, even though weekday bus service on three important routes has been increased, weekend service has been cut.
In today's Gazette, Faguy asks STM spokesperson Marianne Rouette about these cutbacks. Here's what she had to say:
Gazette: Three of the city's bus lines (18 Beaubien, 24 Sherbrooke and 121 Sauvé/Côte Vertu) have improved service on weekdays, but fewer departures at some other times compared with the fall schedule. ...
January 20th, 2008
Photo du jour: Chow mein
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Forget smoked meat, bagels, poutine, steamés and souvlaki: what really unites Montrealers is cheap chow mein slathered in dubious peanut sauce sold by street vendors and takeaway restaurants on the Main.
Where are Montreal’s public recycling bins?
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
This summer, a new type of residential recycling container will be tested in some Montreal boroughs, with the goal of ultimately replacing the green plastic bins that are now used in most parts of the city. The new container will be made with "recycled and waterproof polyethylene fabric and extruded plastic," reports the Gazette. "The bottom is perforated for easy drainage. It can hold 70 litres of paper, plastic, glass and metal. It has a hinged cover that retracts for easy emptying. You can carry it with one hand."
Anyone who has wandered through the ...
Explore the underground city
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Want to explore Montreal's underground city? Here's your chance. On February 24th, the annual "Montreal Downtown & Underground Event," part of the High Lights Festival, will offer its participants a chance to snake their way through five kilometres of underground malls and tunnels, up and down more than 1,000 steps, from Place Montreal Trust to the Desjardins complex.
The day will start at 8am with a race; if you're a runner and you want to participate, you'd better hurry, because it usually fills up pretty quickly. Registration costs $17.72.
For those of us who break out ...
The Apple Store is blocking your sidewalk
By Christopher DeWolf // 11 Comments
Mac lovers have been closely following the construction of the new flagship Apple Store on Ste. Catherine St. just west of Mountain. When it opens this fall, it will be the first Apple flagship in Canada and one of just ten around the world. Originally, Apple wanted to pay the city $30,000 in order to remove the two parking spaces in front of the store, so as not to mar its trademark façade, but the city refused.
Apparently, parking spaces are worth a lot more than pedestrian spaces, because the Apple Store's contractors have been ...
January 21st, 2008
Photo du jour: Winter transport
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
You know it's winter when you see kids, groceries, furniture, garbage and dogs being dragged along the sidewalk in plastic sleds.
Bernard and Jeanne Mance, Mile End, December 17, 2005
L’Université de Montréal vers 1975
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Photo par Jean-Pierre Sam, prise vers 1975 d'une tour d'habitation du Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges.
Le Pavillon Maximilien-Caron se trouve à gauche de l'image, tandis qu'à droite, on retrouve la fameuse tour phallique du Pavillon Roger-Gaudry.
Plusieurs autres pavillons se sont ajoutés depuis 1975. En 1987, c'était la bibliothèque Samuel-Bronfman qui ouvrait ses portes, suivi du Pavillon Paul-G.-Desmarais en 1996. Le dernier ajout à cette vue fut les Pavillons Jean-Coutu et ...
Élections fédérales in March? Federal election en mars ?
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
The potential federal election last November never materialized, but it is back on the table for political analysts to argue about. We then asked readers of Spacing Montreal to send in pictures of their best electoral posters.
La probable élection fédérale en novembre dernier n'a jamais eu lieu, mais le sujet est réapparu sur la table des analystes politiques au pays. Nous avions alors demandé aux lecteurs de Spacing Montréal de nous envoyer leurs meilleures photos de pancartes électorales.
Photo prise sur l'esplanade de la Place des Arts, ...
Time to bring back trolleybuses?
By Christopher DeWolf // 16 Comments
Before there were bio-buses, there were electric trolleybuses. In 1953, when the above photo was taken at the corner of St. Laurent and Van Horne, many of Montreal's buses were powered by the same overhead catenary as its streetcars, emitting no pollution and very little noise as they travelled through the city.
While trolleybuses can still be found in some North American cities, Montreal switched to diesel buses a long time ago. Now, with the rising cost of fuel and a better grasp of how air pollution damages the city, the STM is in the ...
January 22nd, 2008
Photo du jour: Recycling day
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
If you live in the Plateau borough, don't forget you put out your recycling tonight.
Prince Arthur near St. Urbain, April 11, 2006
Griffintown News Roundup #1: Jan. 9-Jan. 21
By Chris Erb // 1 Comment
Rue Ann looking north, January 2008
Griffintown has graced the pages of the local media a great deal over the last couple weeks. Here is a rundown of many of the stories concerning the neighbourhood and Devimco's proposed redevelopment:
Jan. 9: La Presse reports that the Conseil du patrimoine is deeply critical of the “Village Griffintown” project. They’re worried that a development that is to be carried out by demolishing all but a few historically significant buildings may completely erase the area’s Irish and industrial heritage that goes back well over 200 years.
Jan. 10: The Gazette ...
Soap Opera STM: here’s the latest scoop
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
Things are a-happenin' at the STM, Montreal's most dramatic transit agency. Here's a round-up of stories from the past few days.
You are being watched: Yesterday, the federal government dished out $6.5 million to transit agencies in Quebec, more than half of which will go to the STM. This money will be used to install 500 more security cameras in the metro system. The transit agency assures us that, for the most part, the cameras are not used to spy on transit users but to reconstruct events after they have already occurred.
Drive for ...
January 23rd, 2008
Photo du jour: Park Avenue diptych
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
October 25, 2007
Feeling one’s way through the Metro system
By Paul Erlichman // 2 Comments
In light of all the 'drama drama' that is surrounding the STM these days, here's something interesting that they are doing. An announcement was quietly made last October that they would be teaming up with L'Institut Nazareth & Louis-Braille to create an item that would aid the blind while using the metro.
The INLB, using the process of thermoinflation (?), has created tactile cards that have representations of a station's layout. Using braille and relief designs, these cards include landmarks such as ticket booths, halls, stairs and boarding points. ...
No debate on the Notre Dame highway
By Christopher DeWolf // 10 Comments
This story slipped through Spacing Montreal's normally impenetrable news-fishing net, but I've managed to retrieve it. On Sunday, Bruno Bisson reported in La Presse that last week's consultations on the Notre Dame highway project failed to offer any chance for debate about the plan's fundamentals. No specific details were offered and residents did not have a chance to engage with officials about their concerns. I'll quote his article at length because it's pretty revealing:
Mercredi dernier, le ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ) et la Ville de Montréal recevaient la population locale à la Maison de ...
Election sign vandalism
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
In response to our request for election sign photos (we've especially interested in photos taken during campaigns in the 1990s or earlier), Kate McDonnell sent us a few she took during the 2003 provincial election.
All of the signs she photographed had been vandalized, which can sometimes reveal some interesting things about what people really think of political candidates. The ADQ's posters seem to attract more Hitler moustaches and dollar signs than those for other parties; posters for the Liberals are often the target of messages about corruption.
Two of Kate's photos ...
January 24th, 2008
Photo du jour : Sainte Catherine la belle
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
La rue Sainte-Catherine vue depuis le pavillon EV de Concordia. Le 15 septembre 2005
Big changes ahead for Mile End’s garment district
By Christopher DeWolf // 18 Comments
The old industrial area in the east part of Mile End, between St. Laurent and Henri Julien is set for a makeover. Yesterday, the city announced that $8.8 million will be invested in a two-year project meant to polish the district's streets and improve its connections with surrounding neighbourhoods.
Later this year, overhead electrical wires will be buried, new lampposts installed and sidewalks widened along St. Viateur from St. Laurent to de Gaspé. Then, next year, the city will extend St. Viateur from de Gaspé to Henri Julien. Finally, in 2010, a new pedestrian bridge will ...
Urbanism and independent art: Last minute announcement
By Jacob Larsen // 1 Comment
If you're looking for something to do this cold January evening, check out Citymess, put on by the fine folks at Indyish. It promises to be an eclectic mix of music (Lake of Stew, among others), film (highlighting Griffintown history) and visual arts. Also, AJ Kandy will be showing his alternative New Urbanist plan for Griffintown.
This event takes place at Studio 300 in Old Montreal. From Métro Place d'Armes, walk south to Notre Dame and then west 2 blocks to St-François-Xavier. Doors at 8:30. The show will start at 9pm.
Keepin’ it Green
By Misha Warbanski // 5 Comments
Montreal has launched a new protection plan for Mount Royal. It's effective immediately once it goes through council this week. Helen Fotopolous, who's the City's executive committee member responsible for environment, says this isn't just another exercise in planting bushes. Rather it is a $30-million plan to be rolled out over five years. It deals with everything from improving public transit access to the Mountain, to protecting views of the mountain from about 100 points in the city. Ruining the view, ...
Deconstructing the Turcot Interchange
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Last year, the provincial government announced that the Turcot Interchange, at the junction of highways 20 and 15, will be completely rebuilt at a cost of $1.5 billion. Between 2009 and 2015, the current elevated structure will be replaced with a new surface interchange surrounded by berms and embankments.
Nearby residents are worried about the impact of the new interchange, not to mention the six years of continuous construction that will lead up to it. As you might remember from last fall, NDGers are particularly concerned about access to the Falaise St. Jacques, while ...
Heritage Montreal: a manifesto for new development
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
It has been decades since Montreal has seen this much development activity. In addition to the many condominium, retail and office buildings proposed or under construction, and giant public projects like the two superhospitals, there are at least four massive, multi-billion dollar development plans in the works for Griffintown, Viger Station, the Radio-Canada site and the area around Rosemont metro.
How will these new real estate ventures integrate into Montreal's existing urban fabric? It's an important question, one that was ignored at great cost in the 1960s, the last time Montreal underwent such a large development ...
January 26th, 2008
Photo du jour: PVM
By Christopher DeWolf // 10 Comments
Montreal's business district is unfortunately quite bland, lacking the canyons and imposing prewar architecture of the financial districts in Boston or New York or the important, money-making bustle of King and Bay in Toronto.
It does, however, have a few inspiring corners. One of them is Belmont St., whose imposing greyness frames a gorgeous vista of the cathedral's dome at the end of the street. Another is the corner of University and René Lévesque, from which Place Ville Marie rises triumphantly and the view down René Lévesque reveals the Sun Life Building, CIBC Tower and now ...
The Habitat 67 experience
By Christopher DeWolf // 14 Comments
Yesterday, I visited someone who lives in Habitat 67. It was the first time I had been inside the landmark apartment complex, built as part of Expo 67 and based on Moshe Safdie's McGill master's project, and I was surprised at what an awe-inspiring experience it was to wander through it.
Although Habitat is known around the world for its unique modular design (The Walrus' current issue has an interesting look at the ideas behind its design), what makes it a truly spectacular building is the way it relates to its surrounding environment. It's ...
January 27th, 2008
Photo du jour : En attendant ses billets
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
En ligne pour acheter des billets de hockey, devant le Centre Bell, le 16 septembre 2006.
Ode to the nighttime metropolis
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Kate at Montreal City points the way to a nice essay in today's Guardian on the pleasures of nighttime wandering. Writer and "confirmed nightwalker" Kate Pullinger even has some nice passages about Montreal:
I've always loved the city at night, even before I knew what it was like. I come from a rural suburb of a small town on the west coast of Canada and I spent my adolescence dreaming of cities in the dark. To go anywhere when I was a kid you had to drive; there was no public transport. And when you ...
Cultural space to be built on Saint-Laurent metro
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
One of the more inexplicable vacant lots in town has been always been the one surrounding Saint-Laurent metro, at the corner of the Main and de Maisonneuve. You'd think that, being right on top of the metro and in such a central location, it would have been developed a long time ago. Well, that's finally about to happen: forty years after it first came into being, this patch of empty space will finally make way for a new building.
Earlier this week, the city announced that it has mandated the Société d'habitation et de développement de ...
January 28th, 2008
Photo du jour : Coin Stanley / Ste-Catherine
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Photo prise le 16 septembre 2006.
Nos patinoires
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Spacing n'est pas un magazine sportif, mais nous faisons quand même valoir l'importance des arénas dans la vie des montréalais. Que ce soit au Centre Bell, en tant que spectateur à un match des Canadiens, ou au complexe sportif, pour un match plus ou moins amical après le travail avec des amis, ou encore à son aréna de quartier à montrer les rudiments du sport au petit dernier, les arénas font partie intégrante de l'environnement de la vie urbaine.
Si vous avez une photo d'une patinoire, d'un ...
When Chinatown was a Jewish neighbourhood
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Did you know that today's Chinatown was once Jewish? From 1890 to 1920, thousands of Yiddish-speaking Jews came to Montreal from Eastern Europe and settled in the streets around St. Lawrence and Dorchester (now René Lévesque). In today's Gazette, I take a close look at the evolution of this neighbourhood:
If Chinatown’s Jewish heritage isn’t obvious, it’s probably because it has been erased by time and redevelopment, swept away like Chenneville St. and its quietly imposing synagogue.
(...)
Located on a small street (now shortened and written as Cheneville) between St. Urbain and Jeanne Mance Sts., ...
Les grandes étapes de l’urbanisme français
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
QUOI? Conférence sur l'urbanisme français
QUAND? Le mardi 29 janvier à 17 h 00
OÙ? Amphithéâtre Hydro-Québec, local 1120, 2940, chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine
Les passionés de l'urbanisme s'intéresseraient à la conférence « Les grandes étapes de l’urbanisme français » qui aura lieu demain soir à la Faculté de l'aménagement de l'Université de Montréal. Jean-Jacques Terrin, architecte, urbaniste et professeur à l'École d’architecture de Versailles, discutera des grands enjeux urbains en France. Voici quelques détails :
L’actualité récente a mis un projecteur pas toujours flatteur sur un certain nombre d’évènements touchant à l’urbanisme français, sans toutefois donner beaucoup de ...
January 29th, 2008
Photo du jour : Green’s Superette
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
According to the Wikipedia entry, its name "Superette" is derived from Supermarket, compounded with the suffix "ette" meaning "smaller version of". In Quebec, we call these Dépanneurs.
Photo taken on September 16th, 2006.
Toronto Tuesday: Urban fabric, street trees and streetcars vs. cars
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we'll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Urban fabric around the world: Robin Chubb looks at the efforts to create an urban friendly city centre in Mississauga by comparing its typically suburban street pattern with those in other cities around the world, including London, New York, Paris, Barcelona an downtown Toronto. "The comparisons expose the inherent problems ...
Big changes in store for the lower Main
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
La Presse has discovered that negotiations are underway to transform the west block of St. Laurent, from the Monument National to Ste. Catherine St., into a "pôle vert," a mixed-use, green-themed project with office space for architecture, video production and design firms, shops selling fair-trade, organic and locally-sourced products as well as cafés and bars.
Most of the development would consist of a new multi-storey building that would incorporate St. Laurent's existing façades and retail space. The plan also calls for the complete pedestrianization of Clark Street, which would be lined by new retail space. ...
Snow day!
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
[youtube]NwqgZ4vzi9o[/youtube]
Tomorrow's forecast might call for rain but we certainly haven't had any shortage of snow this winter. This fun video does a good job of capturing the cold, wet but strangely exhilerating atmosphere of Montreal during a snowstorm. It starts with timelapse footage of a man digging out his car before heading off to explore the city's streets in all their snowy glory.
I can't tell whether this was shot in the eastern Plateau or in Rosemont --- anyone?
January 30th, 2008
Photo du jour : Graffiti sur Aylmer et Milton
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise le 16 septembre 2006.
New look for the Ritz-Carlton
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, one of Sherbrooke Street's most recognizable landmarks, will soon be transformed with a $100 million renovation and expansion. Over the next two years, the number of hotel rooms will be reduced and new condominium units added in an effort to modernize the hotel's offering. What might interest Montrealers, however, are the changes planned for the hotel's exterior, which will include the construction of a new glass wing on the building's west side as well as the addition of two floors to its roof.
Last week, the Globe and Mail looked at the history ...
January 31st, 2008
Photo du jour : Station C
By Cédric Sam // 4 Comments
Ancienne station postale "C", transformée en espace artistique, au milieu du village gai de Montréal.
Photo prise le 4 décembre 2007.
La maison Redpath
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Située sur l'avenue du Musée, cette demeure de style Queen Anne fut construite en 1886 pour John Redpath, un riche industriel et fondateur de la raffinerie de sucre du même nom.
Voici la résidence vers 1896 et en 2007 :
En 1986, la maison fut partièllement démolie illégalement sans permis. Héritage Montréal parvint à faire arrêter la démolition mais l'irréparable était déjà commis. La partie arrière de la maison fut entièrement démolie et celle-ci est désormais exposée aux intempéries depuis plus de 2 décennies....
Les nouvelles passes photo de la STM
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Comme un changement n'arrive jamais seul, la STM a également décidé de modifier le concept graphique de ses cartes Autobus-Métro. Au lieu des dessins faits au logiciel de dessin vectoriel, la passe mensuelle de la Société de Transport de Montréal arbore maintenant des photographies sobres et mystérieuses de ses stations de métro (et ensuite des abribus les plus fréquentés de la ville?), un peu comme celles sur notre site gastronomique, Métro Boulot Resto.
Quand la STM a débuté avec Angrignon, je me demandais ...
News from around the town
By Misha Warbanski // No Comments
Here are some stories from other media that Spacing Montreal finds interesting.
Good news for car owners
CBC reports the city will let people park for free in some private parking lots after snowstorms. They hope this will speed up the snow-clearing process.
Does this mean those annoying alarm trucks will stop waking me up in the wee hours reminding people to move their cars?
Waiting in the cold
The Gazette asks why Montreal's buses are so full. One dedicated public transit rider is questioning his decision to leave his ...
Guerilla advertising?
By Misha Warbanski // 8 Comments
Hello readers,
I need your help!
On my bike ride home from campus this evening, I passed a PT cruiser on the corner of Metcalfe and de Maisonneuve. There was a projector on top throwing a huge Nike ad onto the side of a building across the street. There was no company name on the car and I unfortunately didn't have my camera to grab the scene. I've gotten used to seeing ad trucks rolling through the downtown (see above) but this "temporary" ad is a first.
Has anyone else seen this or know anything about it?
February 1st, 2008
Photo du jour: Downtown death defiance
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Kristian Gravenor of Coolopolis found this old newspaper photo of a stunt performed high above Stanley Street. Here's the full scoop:
August 5, 1953, Benny Fox and wife Betty Fox danced around on an 18 inch platform atop a building on Stanley Street. They were veterans of the sport, having started out doing such stunts on a much larger 24 inch platform during the depression. The stunt was a promo for their act at Belmont Park.
Listen to the city’s dreams: one day only!
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
What? Audio and visual performance of Karen Spencer's Dream Listener project
When? 4pm, Monday, February 4
Where? Galerie Espace, 4844 St. Laurent (near St. Joseph)
How much? Free!
Some of you might remember last year's Dream Listener, a project by Karen Spencer that saw the Montreal artist write her dreams on scraps of discarded cardboard which she then placed at various locations around town. During the run of her project, which ended in November, Spencer maintained a Dream Listener blog; she was also featured in the Gazette not once but twice, in Steve Faguy's blog column and ...
February 2nd, 2008
Photo du jour: Fairmount Avenue
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Crossing Fairmount at Park during another snowstorm --- this one on December 15, 2003
An east end expedition in Mercier
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
In November, as the season's last leaves fell from the trees, I took the metro out to the east end for an afternoon stroll around Mercier. I don't know much about the neighbourhood's history and I still can't find much online, except that it started to develop early in the twentieth century and was named after former Quebec premier Honoré Mercier, who died in 1894. But I was intrigued by an article in Voir that described it as an unfashionable but quietly pleasant neighbourhood, distinguished by its eclectic housing stock, which includes old workers' cottages, classic duplexes and triplexes, postwar veterans' houses and new condos.
My walk started at Cadillac metro and my instinct told me to head south, towards the St. Lawrence. Along the way I passed by lots of small cottages built by the federal government for returning soldiers in the late 1940s. The laneways between many of them were unpaved, which I found odd consider that this certainly wasn't the case elsewhere in the neighbourhood.
I noticed new condo construction throughout the neighbourhood, including this one project that seemed to be built on a former institutional site next to a school. These duplex-style condos were arranged along a courtyard; a row of mature trees had been preserved at the back of the lot. Mercier might not seem like the most obvious place for new condominium construction but, if you think about it, the location is convenient and the metro is just a few minutes away by foot.
Like I said, the housing in Mercier is nothing if not heterogeneous.
Montreal West wins right to rebuild its barricade
By Chris Erb // 1 Comment
The concrete barricades shortly after they were moved off the road last year.
After a year of court battles, the concrete barriers the town of Montreal West erected on the border between the town and the neighbourhood of Ville St-Pierre in the borough of Lachine is in the news again [note, the links are to three different stories in the Gazette which all say pretty much the same thing]. The dispute started last year when Montreal West originally put up the barricades allegedly to calm traffic until Lachine took the town to court. Steve Faguy summed ...
February 4th, 2008
Photo du jour: Queen’s no more
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
J.D. Gravenor at Coolopolis reminded us of the Queen's Hotel, which stood at the corner of St. Jacques and Peel until it was torn down in the 1980s, replaced by a parking lot.
Griffintown News Roundup #2: Jan. 23-Jan. 31
By Chris Erb // 1 Comment
Griffintown continues to make waves in the local media. On the footsteps of our last news roundup, here, in chronological order are many of the news stories and blog posts written about the proposed redevelopment over the last couple weeks. Also included are dates of presentations concerning the redevelopment that are planned for the near future:
Jan. 23: Le Devoir runs three stories concerning the redevelopment: One about the various cultural institutions that are planned, another concerning developer Devimico's commitment (or lack thereof) to historic preservation, and finally an excellent opinion piece from ...
How to not screw up Montreal’s schools
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Just as it prepares to invest $140 million in upgrading its schools, the Commission scolaire de Montréal, the city's largest French school board, is moving to protect its 250 schools from misguided renovations. A new guide outlines the variety of architecture found in the commission's schools and the steps that need to be taken to maintain their integrity. Le Devoir has more:
Au début des années 2000, la commission scolaire montréalaise avait confié à des experts de l'École d'architecture de l'Université de Montréal, notamment du programme de maîtrise en conservation du patrimoine bâti, le soin ...
Using street furniture as a canvas for art
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
I'm in Calgary right now, visiting my family, and despite the frigid weather (it's 17 degrees below zero as I write this) I've tried my best to wander around town. It's been a year since my last brief visit and even in that short time the city has changed considerably, which is exactly what you would expect of the fastest-growing and most economically robust metropolitan area in Canada. Despite all of the new condo towers, office developments and high-concept retail stores, though, one thing that has really caught my attention has been the way Calgary has ...
February 5th, 2008
Photo du jour: Van Horne Viaduct
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
The Van Horne Viaduct (also known as the Rosemont Viaduct) is surprisingly unobtrusive as it passes down Marmier Street in the industrial area next to the CPR tracks north of Mile End. If the city has its way, this entire area will be redeveloped as a new mixed-use neighbourhood; the viaduct could become an interesting element in that redevelopment project. Would it be feasible for the space underneath to be used for retail and office space, as is the case for the Westway in London? At the very least, some benches, fountains and greenery ...
Parking in the snow
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Steve Faguy has an interesting post on Fagstein about the creative measures Montrealer drivers take when they need to park their cars after a big snowstorm. "When faced with a free spot knee-deep in snow, there are three options," he writes:
1. Find some temporary place to stash the car and dig the spot out with a shovel, hoping nobody swoops in and steals the spot after you’ve cleared it (this also presents the recursive problem of where to put the car when you’re clearing the spot)
2. Declare the spot unparkable, and keep going looking for another ...
Yesterday’s ideas, today’s problems
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Savvy Montrealers know that the best place to be on Thursday evenings, post-cinq-à-sept, is the Canadian Centre for Architecture, when admission to the museum is free. Seeing its exhibitions without paying anything is great enough as it is, but the next two months will give you even more reason to make your way down to the CCA: this week sees the launch of "Yesterday Today," a series of three lectures and a film screening that looks at the architectural ideas of the 1970s in the context of today's problems.
The first lecture, "Designing the Post-Oil World," will take ...
Griffintown: Meetings and more meetings
By Misha Warbanski // No Comments
I was at the Sud-Ouest Borough council meeting tonight where they announced a series of public consultations on the Griffintown project. The first will be on Feb. 21 at the ETS (on Notre Dame and Peel). At the meeting I met Chris and Judith Gobeil who live in the area and are starting up a committee to take a stand against Devimco's proposal. They're having a meeting tomorrow, open to all.
Here are the details:
Open meeting: Wednesday February 6, 7:00 P.M.
741 des Seigneurs (just north of St. Jacques)
The Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown is having a public meeting for ...
February 6th, 2008
Photo du jour: Park Ex blue
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Durocher Street just below Jean Talon, Park Extension. September 28, 2006
Grumbling about Griffintown
By Misha Warbanski // 3 Comments
A couple big things happened at the Sud-Ouest borough council meeting tonight. The most important: borough Mayor Jacqueline Monpetit annouced a series of public consultations on redeveloping Griffintown (Mark your calendars: Feb 21, 7pm at the ETS, 1100 Notre-Dame Ouest.) Also important: council adopted it's urban development framework for the area.
Lots of people seem worried about the development as proposed by Devimco. But so far I haven't met anyone who is completely against some kind of development plan. In fact, some property owners in the area would like ...
Le théâtre de Quat’sous n’est plus !
By Guillaume St-Jean // 7 Comments
C'est ce matin vers 7h30 que commenca la démolition de l'édifice situé au 100 avenue des Pins occupé par le théâtre de Quat'sous.
La démolition avait été autorisé par l'arrondissement du Plateau-Mont-Royal lors d'une réunion de son conseil le 3 décembre 2007.
L'édifice construit vers 1896 qui abritait à l'origine 3 résidences domestiques avait été convertit en synagogue en 1912.
Fondé en 1955, le théâtre de Quat'sous avait inauguré ses locaux sur l'avenue des Pins le 3 décembre 1965 ...
February 7th, 2008
Photo du jour: Workers of the world unite!
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
I spotted this protest poster in Park Extension last June. I'm pretty sure it's written in Bengali, but can anyone confirm?
Remember the Mountain Street viaduct
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
If you were around before the 1970s, you might still remember the Mountain Street viaduct, which spanned the Canadian National tracks between St. Jacques and Notre Dame. These photos, taken around 1930 and scanned from the city archives by Coolopolis' Kristian Gravenor, show a particularly lively and substantial part of the city. It's now unrecognizable, the victim of highway construction, road widening and urban renewal. Nothing you see here remains today.
I still don't know the exact year of the viaduct's demolition. Can anyone help me out?...
Concerns about the east end’s “Decarie expressway”
By Christopher DeWolf // 27 Comments
East end residents will finally get their say on the Notre Dame highway project today, when about fifty groups and individuals submit statements as part of the scheme's public hearings process.
One of the concerned groups is Radio-Canada, which fears that the new highway would scuttle its plans to redevelop the vast parking lots of the CBC headquarters with new housing. "We expected an urban boulevard. This is the Decarie expressway," fumed Vianney Bélanger, the project's would-be developer. He questions the wisdom of converting Notre Dame into an eight-lane downtown highway. "There's no ...
February 8th, 2008
Photo du Jour: Clark Street, 6pm
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Clark and Guilbault, June 15, 2007
What if public art came to life?
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
[youtube]nyiktNfn4AA[/youtube]
I don't think I've ever been more awed---or creeped out---by public art as I was when I first passed through Monk metro, beneath the giant metal sculptures meant to represent the construction workers who built the metro. In the vast concrete belly of the station, there is something eerie, otherworldly and epic about them; their frozen state seems impermanent, as if they will resume their work as soon as I turn away.
That's the idea behind Terminus, a short film posted earlier this week by Andrew Chau on urban-ism. Set in 1970s Montreal, and mostly in the metro, it ...
Talkin’ ’bout green roofs
By Paul Erlichman // 1 Comment
If you're interested in green roofs, you might find this interesting.
What: Dr. Thomas Lawrence from the University of Georgia will be speaking on the topic of Green Roofs and Cool Roof Technologies. Dr. Lawrence has over 25 years of experience in sustainable design. The talk is being co-sponsored by ASHRAE and Sustainable Concordia.
Where: EV Building at Concordia (Corner of Guy and Sainte-Catherine)
Room 2.260/238/204 (2nd floor, the room has 3 entrances).
When: This Monday, February 11 at 3pm. The talk will last about an hour.
Toronto Friday
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
A belated Toronto Tuesday...
Walk21 Toronto Community Conference : "To enable any Torontonian with an interest in walking to experience some of the insights of the conference, the City of Toronto, in partnership with TCAT and Spacing, has organized a “Walk21 Toronto Community Conference.” Local experts who presented at the Walk21 conference are going to present their material again to the public, for free, at an open conference at Metro Hall on March 1."
Plowed Bike Lanes Vital to Winter Biking : Tammy Thorne writes on the city's invitation for winter biking and the ...
February 9th, 2008
Photo du jour : Métro Beaudry
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise le 20 décembre 2007.
Underground scavenger hunt this afternoon!
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Snow again? If you think the weather sucks, take refuge underground. This afternoon, a scavenger hunt organized by flashmobbers Improv Everywhere will take place in the underground city, starting on top floor of the Eaton Centre (where the cinema used to be) at 3pm. Here are some details from the event's Facebook page:
The scavenger hunt will take place in the underground city of Montreal. Teams or individuals (no more than 3 people per team) will have approximately one hour to collect as many items as possible from the list provided at the start of the ...
Comme les Chinois
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
In today's Gazette, Steve Faguy profiles Comme les Chinois, a blog about Chinese people, culture and society in Montreal that was launched earlier this winter by Spacing Montreal's own Cedric Sam. Although it touches obliquely on issues of urbanism and public space---Cedric has written about cinemas in Chinatown, Cantonese associations and Chinatown in 1984---it has more to do with something else that is just as important: Montreal's social and cultural space.
Our everyday lives take us through streets, parks, malls and other physical space, but they also pass through the more abstract space of culture ...
February 10th, 2008
Photo du jour : Stationnement interdit – on déneige!
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Photo prise le 21 décembre 2007, au Quartier Chinois.
Toronto Tetris
By Misha Warbanski // 3 Comments
I know this is about Toronto, but I thought it was cute.
February 11th, 2008
Photo du jour: Nun’s Island from afar
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Nun's Island seen from lower Westmount, just above Highway 20. November 9, 2007
Stefan Ohrhallinger builds another igloo
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Stefan Ohrhallinger, the Concordia PhD student who made headlines in the Journal de Montréal last month for building an igloo on Mount Royal, has done it again. Yesterday, he trekked up to the top of the mountain to build a second igloo, which he says is 1.5 metres in diameter and height "and is very comfortable for two people." He posted some advice for igloo-builders on his blog:
Last sunday I went again the the Beaver Lake on the Mont-Royal to attempt the construction of a new igloo. The old ones have melted away without any traces ...
Montreal housing under the microscope
By Misha Warbanski // 9 Comments
Image by Sasha Plotnikova for The McGill Daily
The McGill Daily's special issue on Housing is on newsstands and they've invented a new word for the invasion of student in the city -- studentification.
There's more talk about Griffintown with a nice overview of the proposed Devimco project with comments from residents, urban planners and fellow blogger A.J. Kandy.
And a reminder about why the Milton-Parc neighbourhood is often called the McGill Ghetto and why longtime residents are fed up. Graffiti anyone? "We’re not just talking about noise. We’re talking about pissing ...
Going to the dep
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Corner stores have always fascinated me. I'm amazed by their adaptability and the way they change from one city to the next, from the Arabes du coin in Paris to the bodegas of New York and the tiny and astoundingly ubiquitous si doh of Hong Kong. Despite the fundamentally similar services they provide, corner stores exist in markedly different social, economic and cultural contexts around the world.
Montreal's depanneurs are a very nice example. With 1,127 on the island, most of them independent and owner-operated, we have a pretty unique local convenience store culture that has evolved over the past few decades. Being able to sell alcohol gives deps a huge advantage over corner stores in other Canadian cities; Montreal's high population density and provincial laws regulating beer prices and store opening hours also pay depanneurs a big favour. In Saturday's Gazette, I examined the economic and social side of the depanneur trade, with one article discussing overall trends in the industry and another that takes a close look at the owners of two Park Avenue depanneurs.
Depanneurs are the most local of businesses---they serve a market that often consists of less than a thousand people and ranges for just a few blocks---but they're also profoundly global, since they are mostly owned and staffed by immigrants, many of whom have arrived in Canada only recently. There are nine depanneurs within a five-minute walk of my apartment. One is owned by a North African man and is often crowded with men who use it as a social club; two more are owned by Greek families and the rest are run by recent immigrants from mainland China.
What makes the depanneur trade so appealing to immigrants is that it is easy to enter and easy to exit: you don't need much money to buy a depanneur and, if you ever decide to move on, it's easy to sell. When I spoke to Jimmy Wang, the mild-mannered owner of the dep closest to my apartment, he told me that he was a computer engineer in a city near Beijing before he moved to Canada. He had no illusions about being able to work in his field once he came --- he just wanted his future children to be raised in a stable country with a social safety net. (He now has one daughter, who was born shortly after he arrived in 2004.) Eventually, he plans to sell his store and perhaps invest in another business.
February 12th, 2008
Photo du jour: Street sale
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Shopping for clothes at the Ste. Catherine street festival. July 15, 2007
Test your geographical knowledge of Montreal
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Spacing Montreal seems to be riding a wave of renewed blogosphere interest in Montreal. In the past two years, a bunch of good blogs with unique perspectives on the city have been launched, including Walking Turcot Yards, Coolopolis and Expo Lounge.
Fagstein is another one with frequent posts on media, culture, politics and urban issues in Montreal. When transit fares went up at the beginning of the year, it was Fagstein, and not the STM's website or any of the major newspapers, that had the clearest and most concise list of what ...
Montreal’s murals on show
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
WHAT? An exhibition of photos of Montreal's murals
WHEN? Vernissage on Thursday, February 14 from 6 to 9pm; exhibition open on February 16, 17, 23 and 24 from 11am to 4pm
WHERE? Espace Les Neuf Soeurs, 1900 Wellington St., Point St. Charles
McGill architecture professor Pieter Sijpkes is known amongst his students and colleagues for living in a landmark bank building at the corner of Wellington and St. Madeleine in Point St. Charles. More than just his home, though, Sijpkes has turned that building into Espace Les Neuf Soeurs, a multipurpose space where he has hosted plays, music, ...
Toronto Tuesday: Streetcars, winter cyclists and historic preservation through demolition
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Streetcars and LRT: Sean Marshall looks at Toronto's streetcar system in the context of the light rail resurgence of the past thirty years (he provides some background on modern LRT in an earlier post). As much as Toronto might benefit from its streetcar system---the largest remaining prewar network in ...
February 13th, 2008
Photo du jour: Daddy’s hat
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Hasidic Jewish street festival, Jeanne Mance and Bernard, June 8, 2005
Seasonal pedestrianization of the Gay Village
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Early next month, the Ville-Marie borough council will decide whether or not to go ahead with a proposal to pedestrianize Ste. Catherine Street in the Gay Village for most of the summer. The plan is being pushed by the Village's merchant association which has successfully organized several temporary pedestrianization schemes over the past two years, including one that saw Ste. Catherine closed to traffic during the 2006 Outgames. If the merchants get their way, Ste. Catherine would be pedestrianized from Berri to Papineau in the months between St. Jean Baptiste Day and Labour Day.
This is ...
Un “parc linéaire” au dessus de l’autoroute Notre-Dame
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
plan tiré de www.projetnotredame.qc.ca
Tel qu'annoncé en décembre dernier, la société Radio Canada considère un projet immobilier de 1500 à 2000 logements sur son site de la rue Notre-Dame. Il a aussi été rapporté lors des audiences publiques de la semaine dernière que le projet se voit compromis face aux plans de "modernisation" de la rue Notre-Dame. Les plans d'élargissement de cette artère, déjà bien connus, soulèvent une énorme controverse au sein de la communauté montréalaise. En réaction au projet routier, la SRC propose de couvrir l'autoroute d'un "parc linéaire" s'étendant du centre-ville ...
February 14th, 2008
Photo du jour: ¡Bienvenido a bordo!
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
When Montreal bought a bunch of Novabuses in the 1990s, it sold its classic 1970s New Look buses to whoever would take them. Toronto has a bunch and at least one made it to Cuba, where the guys at Coolopolis spotted it roaming the streets in 1998.
Poor neighbourhoods more dangerous for pedestrians
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
"Pauvres piétons" exclaimed the front page of La Presse today. Inside the paper, a series of articles look at pedestrian safety in the city, noting that the number of pedestrians injured each year continues to increase.One article makes the startling---though not surprising---revelation that low-income pedestrians are far more vulnerable to being injured by cars, the reason being that wealthier neighbourhoods are much likelier to restrict automobile traffic than poor ones. You can see this for yourself: wander around Outremont or Westmount and you'll notice stop signs on every corner, well-marked crosswalks, speed bumps and (especially in ...
Winter-bound wandering
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
[youtube]jbDznfxIT-8[/youtube]
I don't think I can take it anymore. This endless procession of snowstorms has made the winter combo of cold temperatures and grey skies even more unbearable. Even walking around the city, my favourite pastime, has lost its appeal when it feels like a struggle just to walk a few blocks along snowy sidewalks. (Luckily, I'll get an early break from winter this year when I jet off for a month and a half in Hong Kong at the end of next week.)
Despite my winter doldrums, though, I thought this music video, for the song "Samedi" by 3 Gars ...
February 15th, 2008
Photo du jour : Rendez-vous à « Park Ex »
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Rue de Liège, Parc-Extension, le 23 juillet 2007
February 16th, 2008
Photo du jour: Trombone
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Italian marching band member after the parade, St. Viateur street festival, June 1, 2007
Police response to pedestrian safety: stop jaywalking
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
Yesterday's pedestrian safety dossier in La Presse seems to have launched the issue into the public spotlight. Today, the Gazette reported that the SPVM's response to the 24 pedestrian deaths we saw in 2007 will be to crack down even more on jaywalking, which is blamed for 50 percent of pedestrian fatalities. The police already issues 8,000 tickets for jaywalking last year and they promise to hand out even more in 2008.
While the police are only doing their jobs in enforcing the law, their approach to jaywalking often seems haphazard and opportunistic. I can't even begin ...
POLL: Are Montreal’s boroughs too big?
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
One of my professors at McGill used to refer jokingly to "NDG angst," which is what people who lived in NDG felt when they compared their middle-class but somewhat ratty neighbourhood with the fine polish of next-door Westmount. It's more than just a joke, though: in terms of the quality of its municipal services, NDG fares poorly not only in comparison to the wealthy municipalities that surround it on three sides but even to Côte des Neiges, with which it shares the city's largest borough, Côte-des-Neiges---Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
Maybe being part of such a large borough is the reason why ...
February 17th, 2008
Photo du jour: Soccer break
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Jeanne Mance Park, July 29, 2007
Routes intelligentes?
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Verra-t-on le jour où les piétons, cyclistes et automobilistes de Montréal se déplaceront sur des surfaces plus responsables et respectueuses de l'environnement? Selon un article paru dans Le Devoir de samedi, une nouvelle génération de routes pourrait bientôt voir le jour au Québec. Recyclage d'asphalte, bitume à l'huile végétale, revêtement thermosensible et auto-nettoyant, marquage lumineux modifiable intégré... Comme le stipule très bien l'article, nous sommes ici dans la même veine contradictoire que la prétendue "voiture écologique".
Les constructeurs de route en rajoutent évidemment en nous annonçant la «route verte» pour demain. Encore une fois, l'incrédulité ...
Interesting Mont-Royal roofs
By Paul Erlichman // 1 Comment
One area of town that is lesser-known to many anglophones is the commercial strip along Av. du Mont-Royal E. While most tend to frequent the area around Saint-Laurent and Saint-Denis, the area is bustling until well past Papineau and De Lorimier. While much of the area is architecturally pleasant if non-descript, there are exceptions, including the monastery at the corner of Saint-Hubert and these domed roofs on street-corner buildings. Pointing to the first era of major development in the area, time stamps of "1906" and "1912" on the first two prove that many buildings in the neighbourhood are reaching the century mark. ...
The baby cops’ debut
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Every summer, Montreal’s police department sends its most fresh-faced cadets to patrol Ste. Catherine Street. For police headquarters, it’s a way to train their newest recruits and ensure a police presence on the street without shelling out for real, fully-salaried traffic cops. For the cadets, who are sometimes known as “baby cops,” it’s more like a hazing ritual. Baby cops, you see, are entirely powerless: they can’t issue tickets and they can’t arrest anyone — they can only call for backup. Their job is to attempt, as best as they can, to control a river of ...
February 18th, 2008
Photo du jour: Calories
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Summer evening at Ste. Catherine at Gladstone, Westmount. July 13, 2007
February 19th, 2008
Photo du jour: Hangul
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
La Maison Bulgogi, Ste. Catherine at Chomedey, February 4, 2006
Toronto Tuesday : Mapping income, Paris subway intervention and sustainable transportation plans
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Mapping our urbanism. Part VI of a series of maps looking at watersheds, water mains, snow ploughing, language and city limits in Toronto. This new post looks at income distribution.
I can feel it coming in the subway tonight … In a series of reports on public ...
Norman Bethune Square’s makeover confirmed
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
Pretty much anyone who spends time in the west end of downtown will agree that Norman Bethune Square, at the corner of Guy and de Maisonneuve, desperately needs a makeover. Although plans for renovating the square have been floating around for almost three years, there hasn't been any funding or concrete timeline announced for the project --- until now.
Earlier today, the city unveiled new plans for the square and it announced that $22.4 million has been committed to its redevelopment. If the renderings released today are any indication, the new square will be ...
Griffintown News Roundup #3: Feb. 6-Feb. 21
By Chris Erb // 1 Comment
Still from the 1982 NFB film Albedo, a film about the late David Marvin who documented the history of Griffintown. The film can be viewed at the NFB's CineRobotheque at the corner of de Maisonneuve and St-Denis.
News about the proposed Griffintown redevelopment is once again piling up so, here, in chronological order are all the news stories of interest concerning the project as well as meeting times, and other announcements since my last roundup:
Feb. 6: Le Devoir critiques Devimco’s redevelopment plan and gives examples of times in the past when public pressure and ...
February 20th, 2008
Photo du jour : Mosaïcultures 2000
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise en 2000, lors des Mosaïcultures au Vieux-Port de Montréal.
8e manifestation internationale de Champ Libre
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Forêt / Forest : 8e manifestation internationale de Champ Libre
Appel aux créateurs : la biennale de Champ Libre est de retour.
La MANIFESTATION INTERNATIONALE de CHAMP LIBRE est un événement biennal. ...
Sammy Forcillo dead set against pedestrianization
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
When Ville-Marie mayor Benoît Labonté came up with a plan for the seasonal pedestrianization of Ste. Catherine Street in the Gay Village, between Berri and Papineau, it seems he forgot to consult opposition councillor Sammy Forcillo, who represents the Village at City Hall. Today, the Journal de Montréal reports that Forcillo is dead set against the project:
«Je suis contre cette idée surtout pour des raisons de sécurité, a-t-il dit au Journal, mais aussi à cause des nombreux problèmes de circulation, de stationnement et de fréquentation des commerces que cette fermeture pourrait causer.»
Le conseiller ...
February 21st, 2008
Photo du jour : Autoroute Transcanadienne à Kirkland
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise le 6 octobre 2007, du viaduc du Boulevard St-Charles à Kirkland au-dessus de l'Autoroute 40.
The songs of Montreal’s banished street vendors
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Montreal did away with a big chunk of its cultural heritage when it started cracking down on street vendors in the 1960s. Food vendors were the first to go and, although City Hall has been easing its restrictions on street vending for a number of years, allowing people to sell art and crafts on Ste. Catherine Street and at the tam tams, it still refuses to allow anyone except mobile ice cream vendors to sell food on the street. This makes us one of the only major cities in the world with a near-total ban on ...
If Calgary can do it, why can’t we?
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
I've written before about posters and, in particular, the need for more legal postering space in Montreal. My recent trip to Calgary revealed that, even there, the city provides plenty of spots for people to glue their posters. The fact that most of Calgary's posters are bland and uninspired, while many in Montreal are works of art, only exacerbates an already unfair situation.
February 22nd, 2008
Montreal in Dublin
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
IRELAND: A day trip to Dublin reveals many fine things but none finer than this bus with a Montreal advertisement seen yesterday moving up the city's main drag, O'Connell Street. It's interesting to see home (or near home) represented abroad. I have never seen an ad for Toronto (in my unscientific and casual survey of various cities), but perhaps because Air Transat is headquartered in Montreal it was a natural fit. Of interest are the "Quebec" and "Quebec: City and Area" logos on the signs, indicating some kind of partnership with Air Transat.
Cross ...
An elegy for Griffintown
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
[youtube]XqxurfvV5bM[/youtube]
There's something remarkably honest about the United Steel Workers of Montreal. Far from being a contrivance, their country and bluegrass music feels earnest and appropriate, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the new video for their song "Émile Bertrand."
This elegy for the lost working-class life of Montreal's southwest is named in honour of the Émile Bertrand restaurant, a snack bar at Notre-Dame and Mountain that was famous for its home-brewed spruce beer. It closed in 2006 when its owner, Barbara Strudensky, died of cancer, so the USWM filmed their video in Point St. Charles' Paul Patates, ...
February 23rd, 2008
Photo du jour: In front of Moishe’s
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Hanging out at St. Laurent and Bagg, September 4, 2004
American suburbs the new slums?
By Matthew Blackett // 3 Comments
In a bizarre reversal of urban decay, many homes and streets in American suburbs are being abandoned due to a number of reasons, including the fallout of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The Atlantic magazine's Christopher B. Leinberger wonders if the 'burbs will become 21st century slums.
Strange days are upon the residents of many a suburban cul-de-sac. Once-tidy yards have become overgrown, as the houses they front have gone vacant. Signs of physical and social disorder are spreading.
At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, ...
A peek inside Yiddish Montreal
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Yiddish was Montreal's third language for the entire first half of the twentieth century. Up and down the Main, people gossiped in Yiddish, shopped in Yiddish, read the Kanader Odler, Montreal's daily Yiddish newspaper, and flocked to Yiddish theatre at the Monument National. For the tens of thousands of Jews who fled to Montreal from the pogroms and poverty of Russia and Eastern Europe, Yiddish was the lingua franca that united a community with diverse geographical origins.
Gradually, all of that began to change as new generations of Jewish Montrealers, educated at Protestant schools, turned ...
February 24th, 2008
Photo du jour : Boucherie Sabra
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Ontario coin Saint-Dominique, le 7 juin 2005
February 25th, 2008
Photo du jour: Movie in the ruelle
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Alleyway projection during the St. Viateur street fair, June 1, 2007
Eugene Yao, 1946-2008: A Chinese Activist
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Eugene Yao was born in Shanghai in 1946, and came to Canada in 1969 as a student of McGill University in electrical engineering, where he met his wife-to-be, Winnie Ng, a sociology student. He was later president of the Chinese Canadian National Council. In recent years, he became known for starting a commuter bicycle shop in Toronto called The Urbane Cyclist. (Toronto Star | Activist Magazine)
My friend Bethany knew him personally and this is what she had to say ...
Articulated bus seen on Avenue du Parc tonight
By Cédric Sam // 4 Comments
While waiting for the bus tonight at the corner of Du Parc and Des Pins, I saw this articulated bus speeding down Du Parc, following a regular #80 STM bus. I took my camera out, and managed to snap this picture... Has anyone seen more of this variety of bus circulating on regular routes? It looked like this vehicle was not taking passengers, since the display panel at the front had the manufacturer's name, rather than the route number.
My colleague Chris ...
Photo du jour: Little Portugal
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Rachel Street in the Plateau's Portuguese neighbourhood. July 16, 2007
Des publicités plein immeuble
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
Cette affiche publicitaire prenant la forme d'une toile couvrant les quelques premiers étages de l'immeuble Air Transat, rue Léo-Parizeau, est immanquable pour les nombreux automobilistes et utilisateurs du transport en commun dévalant chaque jour l'Avenue du Parc. Bien que ce genre de pubs plein immeuble soit omniprésent dans des villes comme New York ou Hong Kong, là où un espace publicitaire vaut son pesant d'or, celles-ci sont encore rares à Montréal. J'en ai noté une autre en décembre dernier, ...
Toronto Tuesday : Fire on Queen West, Suburban Slums and Drastic Economic Measures for the City
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Queen West Fire. Wednesday morning a fire destroyed a stretch of buildings on Queen Street West near Bathurst. One article posted the same day of the blaze links to news coverage of the disaster. In two separate posts, Matthew Blackett reflects on the growing number of unofficial media sources ...
La rue Belmont
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
Cette rue d'a peine 400 mètres, est aujourd'hui utilisée presque uniquement par les camions de livraisons et les automobilistes en quête d'un stationnement. Située derrière la gare centrale et l'hôtel reine Elisabeth, elle n'a désormais plus rien pour plaire.
Ouverte en 1843, elle fut nommée ainsi en l'honneur d'un ancien Sulpicien, M. François Vachon de Belmont. Vers la fin du 19e siècle, c'était une rue riche et verdoyante bordée de nombreuses résidences bourgeoises. S'étendant à l'époque de la côte ...
February 27th, 2008
Photo du jour: Fiesta independencia
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Poster in Spanish in front of the Santa Cruz church, Rachel and St. Urbain
Le métro de Montréal by metro
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 2 Comments
photo de la station UdM par Guillaume Goyette
Le site www.metrodemontreal.com est peut-être déjà connu de plusieurs d'entre vous, mais je viens, personnellement, de le découvrir et je ne pouvais passer outre. Le site semble contenir à peu près tout ce qu'on voudrait savoir sur le métro. Les photos des stations sont superbes et l'auteur du site, Matt McLaughlin, y va même d'un système de pointage maison pour noter les différentes stations (de la "médiocre" Guy-Concordia au "chef-d'oeuvre Lionel-Groulx).
L'introduction au site :
Tandis que bien d'autres systèmes de métro comptent des kilomètres ...
Les audiences publiques sur le projet de Griffintown se poursuivent ce soir
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 1 Comment
Lors du dernier "news roundup" sur Griffintown du 19 février, je ne crois pas que les audiences publiques d'hier soir et de ce soir (26-27) aient été mentionnées. Désolé de mettre la nouvelle en ligne si tard, mais je viens de l'apprendre. Je n'ai par contre vu aucun article mentionnant ces réunions sur les différents blogs dédiés au quartier -j'espère que l'information obtenue n'est pas erronée! Voici le communiqué de presse :
MONTREAL, le 27 fév. /CNW Telbec/ - L'assemblée de consultation publique relative au programme particulier d'urbanisme (PPU) du secteur Peel-Wellington (Griffintown) se poursuit ce ...
February 28th, 2008
Photo du jour: Dépanneur Win Long
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Now you know where to buy your lottery tickets.
(Sorry.)
St. Hubert in Villeray, July 25, 2007
L’architecture de Montréal à pied ou en métro
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Deux livres parus récemment nous suggèrent de découvrir l'architecture de Montréal le long de promenades à pied, en vélo, ou en métro. Comme le mentionne Martin Houle sur Kollectif, les deux guides sont complémentaires, le premier s'arrêtant aux début des années 80, et l'autre couvrant les 25 dernières années.
Sur les traces du Montréal moderne et du domaine de l'Estérel au Québec
Ce guide vise à faire connaître le patrimoine architectural moderne particulièrement riche à Montréal et dont l'importance a été reconnue par la Ville de Montréal dans sa politique du ...
February 29th, 2008
Photo du jour : la pile de détritus à côté du Métro Beaudry
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
On a procédé cette semaine à la destruction de l'immeuble abritant l'ancienne succursale de Subway au Village Gai, juste à côté de la bouche du Métro Beaudry, rue Ste-Catherine. Ça faisait depuis de nombreux mois que le commerce a été fermé.
Photo prise le 21 février 2008.
Nuit Blanche
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
QUOI : Nuit Blanche (Festival Montréal en lumières)
QUAND: de samedi à dimanche (1er au 2 mars 2008)
OÙ: Vieux-Montréal / Vieux-Port, Centre-Ville / Quartier des spectacles, Plateau Mont-Royal
Le Festival Montréal en Lumières revient cette année avec la 5e édition de la Nuit Blanche. En plus du Vieux-Montréal / Vieux-Port et du Centre-Ville / Quartier des Spectacles, les festivités auront aussi lieu cette année sur le Plateau Mont-Royal. Plus de 75 activités sont prévues entre 20h samedi et 6h du matin dimanche.
Les nuits blanches, dont Paris a été la première ville à organiser un tel ...
Frozen commuters at Berri-UQAM
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53jXg7kUqRU[/youtube]
Overlooking a sunny Victoria Harbour and enjoying the perfect spring breeze blowing in from an open window, it's hard to bring my mind back to Montreal's late-February drudgescape, but I'll do it for this week-old video. Last Saturday, blogger and journalist Steve Faguy checked out a flash mob at Berri-UQAM. "About 50-60 people showed up, then entered the metro station and gathered in the area around the puck on the mezzanine. For five minutes, they all stood frozen, quiet, as regular travellers passed them by," he wrote.
The Journal de Montréal sent a reporter to cover the big freeze:
Au ...
March 1st, 2008
Photo du jour : Maison Wing’s
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Photo prise le 24 février 2008, au coin de De La Gauchetière et Côté, au Quartier Chinois de Montréal.
Get your own personal bike rack!
By Chris Erb // No Comments
A friend of mine has informed me that a phone call is all that is needed to get a bike rack installed wherever you see a need for one. Although the city mainly only installs bike racks near commercial property, they will put them in residential areas if there seems to be a need. I have yet to try this out as I have no justifible need for one anywhere but if you of somewhere in the city that is lacking in bike parking (such as near your work or on a street where ...
March 2nd, 2008
Photo du jour : Complexe Guy-Favreau et Palais des congrès
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Photo prise le 24 février 2008.
Évolution d’une rue #4
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Le coin des rues Sainte-Catherine et St-Laurent en 1900, 2007 et 2008.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.813.1§ion=196
MP-0000.813.1
March 3rd, 2008
Photo du jour : Enfant qui court
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
En faisant le tour de la ville lors de la tempête du 16 décembre dernier, deux enfants étaient passés en courant juste à côté de moi, se demandant l'un l'autre qu'est-ce que ce type faisait à prendre des photos en un temps pareil. Ils se sont enfuis bien vite, prenant leurs jambes à leur cou, en plein milieu d'une Avenue du Mont-Royal transformée en piste skiable...
Toronto Tuesday: Green Fleet, Mayoral Power and Moorish Revival
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Green Fleet is a go This week city council passed its Green Fleet Plan which calls for a greater use of alternative fuels, idling limits for city staff, a pilot testing for green truck technology and a bike share program for city employees. Apparently the plan would mean a reduction ...
New blog: The Transitive
By Chris Erb // No Comments
Local blogger Steve Faguy recently wrote a post about some new Montreal-based blogs that were all created as part of a citizen journalism class at Concordia University. My favourite (and probably the most relevant to Spacing Montreal readers) is The Transitive: Montreal in Transit. It's a new blog with only eight or nine posts so far so it is difficult to know in what direction exactly the writers plan to take it but they seem to be focusing more on being a rider of transit in Montreal than the actual workings of ...
La construction de la Place des Arts.
By Guillaume St-Jean // 18 Comments
Bien avant le métro de Laval et le stade olympique un projet d'envergure ayant connu des coût de construction faramineux vit le jour à Montréal il y a prêt de 50 ans.
Durant la construction en 1962
Le projet de la Place des Arts aura coûté en 1963 près de 25 millions, alors qu'au départ il avait été estimé à 12 millions. Ce montant est minime aujourd'hui mais à l'époque, il était énorme. Une des principales raison de la hausse des coût fut le 4,5 millions déboursé en frais d'expropriation. Entre ...
March 5th, 2008
Photo du jour : Bac Moi!
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
L'une des corbeilles à recyclage, déployées peu après le lancement des journaux gratuits Métro et 24 Heures à Montréal...
Photo prise le 26 février 2008.
March 6th, 2008
Photo du jour : Ultramar au coin de Villeneuve et Du Parc
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Photo prise le 26 février 2008.
The pedestrianization of Sainte-Catherine
By Paul Erlichman // 4 Comments
Sainte-Catherine will be a little busier than this in a few months.
After years of contemplation, the Gay Village will finally be pedestrianized, at least for the summer. On Tuesday the borough of Ville-Marie decided that Sainte-Catherine will be closed to traffic from Berri to Papineau, with traffic still flowing south onto Berri and Labelle to allow for traffic and access to a hospital, respectively. This stretch of about 15 blocks will be this way from June 17 and September 3, a period during which Just For Laughs, the Jazz Festival and Les Francofolies will take ...
Skyline Planning
By Alanah Heffez // 17 Comments
This image caught my eye as I was browsing the Plan D'Urbanisme...No, it isn't plans for the some-day domed city of Montreal.
A Ville-Marie Borough regulation requires all buildings to fit within the silhouette of the downtown area, even if they surpass the height of their neighbours. The goal is to maintain the importance of Mount Royal within the urban landscape. The urban plan doesn't make it clear whether neighbourhing boroughs are expected to squeeze ...
March 7th, 2008
Photo du jour : Tim Hortons à saveur de Village Gai
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Comme beaucoup de commerces rue Ste-Catherine, aux alentours du Métro Beaudry, le Tim Hortons du coin a été décoré de la bannière arc-en-ciel de la communauté LGBT.
Photo prise le 26 février 2008.
Karine Giboulo: Of Pig and Men
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Like every year for the past three years, I did the Montreal All-nighter, and like a lot of people, I stopped by Karine Giboulo's All you can eat installation at the Hall des Pas perdus in Place des Arts. Giboulo was making a comeback to the Nuit Blanche, with her unmistakable comic strip-style scenes created through figurines and miniature-size objects locked in a box-building with windows inviting visitors to peek inside.
This time, the Montreal-based artist ...
La Place des Arts en 1970 et en 2008
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Pour faire suite à l'article : La construction de la Place des Arts, voici un montage photo de 1970 et de 2008 représentant le site avant son réaménagement et la construction du Complexe Desjardins.
March 8th, 2008
Photo du jour : Le Métro arrive !
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise le 26 février 2008.
March 9th, 2008
Photo du jour : L’édifice Godin
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
L'édifice Godin en 2003 avant sa restauration.
Under the bridge: creative use of space
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
It's a bit of a paradox --- bridges are meant to connect two sides of a gap, to bring them together, but they often act quite intentionally as barriers because the space beneath them is so problematic. There is a tendency to leave it unused and overgrown with weeds, or to give it up for some perfunctory use, like parking.
But there are many creative solutions to dealing with the space underneath a bridge. I came across one of them when I walked under the Manhattan Bridge in New York's Chinatown. Shops, retail arcades and produce ...
March 10th, 2008
Photo du Jour: St. Henri Sunset
By Jacob Larsen // 1 Comment
Taken from the CN tracks near Place St. Henri, looking west. In the distance the Turcot Interchange is visible.
Taken January 14, 2008.
Conférence SITQ sur les grands projets urbains
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Les grands projets urbains comme réponse au déclin des villes industrielles
QUOI: Conférence de Thomas Werquin
QUAND: Mardi 11 mars, 17h
OÙ: Facuté de l'aménagement, 2940 chemin de la Côte Sainte-Catherine, local 1120
Avec la disparition de l’industrie sur laquelle elles s’étaient développées, Lille et Bilbao ont perdu dans les années 1980 toute attractivité et semblaient condamnées à voir fuir leurs travailleurs vers d’autres villes plus attractives.
Pour enrayer ce déclin, les acteurs publics ont investi massivement dans des projets urbains très ambitieux qui avaient deux grands objectifs: créer les conditions favorables à l’installation de nouvelles activités économiques et casser l’image ...
City cut corners in “Red Light” demolition
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
I've only been glancing at the Montreal headlines since I've been in Hong Kong, but this one caught my eye: it seems that the city was in such a rush to tear down the building at the corner of Ste. Catherine and St. Laurent that it forgot to apply for the necessary demolition permits from the provincial Ministère de la culture, which maintains a 500-foot protected area around the Monument National.
La Presse has more details:
«C'est malheureux, mais dans le contexte d'expropriation, et parce qu'il y avait des risques d'effondrement, on a reçu l'ordre de démolir ...
March 11th, 2008
Photo du jour : Nuit blanche à Montréal 2008 (1 de 8)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Devant la Place des Arts, ce grand panneau lumineux style rétro nous invitait à l'intérieur pour des renseignements.
Photo prise le 1er mars 2008.
Bâtiment disparu #4 : La résidence de George Caverhill
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1915-2008
Construite vers 1909, cette somptueuse résidence en pierres est identifiée dans les archives du musée Mccord comme étant la maison de Mme Galt en 1912 et de George Caverhill en 1915. Située du côté ouest de la rue Simpson, près de l'avenue du docteur Penfield, elle semble avoir subsistée jusqu'à la fin des années 1960.
...
Toronto Tuesday: Streetcar-oriented development, McDonald’s architecture, Toronto travelling trends
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Streetcar oriented development Sean Marshall looks at the possible streetcar-oriented development emerging with Toronto's push to revitalize urban and suburban arterials. This type of development is apparently nothing new to the city; present examples include North Toronto, the Beach and Mimico. As Montreal is presently looking into streetcar revival, this ...
March 12th, 2008
Photo du jour : Nuit blanche à Montréal 2008 (2 de 8)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Hall des pas perdus, Place des Arts.
Photo prise le 1er mars 2008.
City Hall wants to pedestrianize St. Paul Street
By Christopher DeWolf // 11 Comments
Despite the political storm brewing over the seasonal pedestrianization of Ste. Catherine Street in the Village, city officials has their eyes set on pedestrianizing even more streets. La Presse reports that City Hall is set to announce the partial pedestrianization of St. Paul Street between the Bonsecours Market and St. Laurent Boulevard:
Selon les informations obtenues, on compte s'inspirer de la piétonnisation estivale du marché Jean-Talon, dans Rosemont-Petite-Patrie, qui s'effectue du vendredi au dimanche, avec une plage horaire en matinée pour les camions de livraison. La possibilité d'accorder des vignettes de passage à certains résidants est ...
Snow is driving Montrealers crazy
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
I don't think it's possible for me to express exactly how glad I am not to be suffering through yet another winter storm. When I left Montreal at the end of February, I was so sick of what had been the snowiest winter of my life that it was a huge relief even to encounter New York's chilly but snow-free streets, not to mention the warm spring sunshine of Hong Kong.
I can't say my angst was normal: for the most part, I don't mind too much snow, and like many others I find a good snowstorm ...
Cyclist awareness test
By Matthew Blackett // 1 Comment
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47LCLoidJh4[/youtube]
Transport for London has a great public service video that highlights the need for drivers to be aware of cyclists. It may also have one of the best punchlines ever.
Thanks for Leah Rajesky for the tip
March 13th, 2008
Photo du jour : Nuit blanche à Montréal 2008 (3 de 8)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Devant le panneau sensible au mouvement (il paraitrait), également juste devant la Place des Arts.
Photo prise le 1er mars 2008.
March 14th, 2008
Photo du jour : Nuit blanche à Montréal 2008 (4 de 8)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
La Nuit Électronik au Métropolis de Montréal.
Photo prise le 2 mars 2008.
CBC Digital Archives: Moshe Safdie
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
In my day job, I work as a computer programmer, and one of the recent projects that I participated in was the revamping of the CBC Digital Archives (and its sibling, the Archives de Radio-Canada), unveiled this week. I was already a end-user of the website before working on it, but while coding and testing it, I discovered how much more contents the site in fact had beyond what the original design allowed the average user to ...
March 15th, 2008
Photo du jour : Nuit blanche à Montréal 2008 (5 de 8)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Installation interactive à la Société des arts technologiques.
Photo prise le 2 mars 2008.
March 16th, 2008
Photo du jour : Nuit blanche à Montréal 2008 (6 de 8)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Une des navettes gratuites fournies par la Société des transports de Montréal.
Photo prise le 2 mars 2008.
You will listen to our low prices on bok choy!
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Find where it's coming from.
Old sales tactics, new technological means. Two weeks ago, I was strolling in Montreal Chinatown, to do my groceries as usual. As I was walking on De La Gauchetière, when I reached Clark, a loud and lively (and amplified) voice coming from thirty meters down the latter woke me up from my peaceful walk. Woaw! Where did that came from?
It came from the loudspeaker outside grocery store Wing Cheong Hong, ...
Montage du jour : La rue Aylmer
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1870 et en 2008
Ces 2 photos montrant la rue Aylmer entre Milton et Sherbrooke furent prises à près de 138 années d'intervalle. Au premier regard, le paysage semble avoir totalement changé mais la réalité est tout autre. Les maisons situées le plus au Nord de cette section de rue furent remplacées par de nombreuses conciergeries mais au sud de ces dernières, le paysage d'autrefois subsiste encore. Bien que les portiques de bois ainsi que les crêtes de fer forgé sur les toits furent retirés avec le temps, ...
March 17th, 2008
Photo du jour : Nuit blanche à Montréal 2008 (7 de 8)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Glissades aménagées Place Jacques-Cartier.
Photo prise le 2 mars 2008.
March 18th, 2008
Photo du jour : Nuit blanche à Montréal 2008 (8 de 8)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Sphères chauffantes à la fête dans le Vieux-Port.
Photo prise le 2 mars 2008.
Toronto Tuesday: Icy sidewalk frustration, Jarvis Street transformation project, Walk 21 Community Conference
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Passive aggression in Cabbagetown : Shawn Micallef fantasizes about ways of correcting negligent Torontonians who leave the sidewalk in front of their house icy and snowed-in. Two notes are found in front of such a house in Cabbagetown.
Jarvis Street transformation project : The City of Toronto is ...
March 19th, 2008
Photo du jour : If only the metro got you all the way there…
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
Metro maps tampered with to serve a commercial purpose? Done and redone. This is the latest, for a gum advertisement that apparently lasts longer than any other. There was the vodka ad, and then the religious establishment one. Can you think of something else?
This photo was taken on February 26, 2008.
A smorgasbord of Montreal transportation stats
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
A recent Stats Can report on Canadians’ transportation habits entitles Montrealers to some bragging rights: car usage in Montreal’s metro area was the lowest in the nation in 2006, with only 65% of the residents making all trips by car, either as a driver or passenger.
Still, this hardly makes us a "ville verte par excellence" as reported by Le Devoir. After all, 65% of the people in this city are still getting behind the wheel for everything from the daily commute to work to the emergency ...
March 20th, 2008
Photo du jour : Désolé
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Désolé, but coming soon, to a metro station near you (see Spacing's previous coverage).
This photo was taken on March 10, 2008 at Métro Beaudry.
Crossing the harbour
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
NEW YORK and HONG KONG --- The driver of the S62 bus let me on even though there was no value left on my borrowed Metrocard.
"Just don't let it happen again," he said, waving me back.
Twenty minutes later, after a bumpy ride down Victory Boulevard, a narrow commercial street that winds its way across the northern half of Staten Island, New York's fifth and forgotten borough, we arrive at the best way to get to Manhattan: the Staten Island Ferry. I say it's the best because, unlike the US$5 express bus, which takes you across ...
Beep beep beep!
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
When it comes to audio announcements, Montreal's metro system is so conservative, it's almost Puritanical. For the most part, the only regular information conveyed over the PA system is the name of the next stop --- and even then, there are many occasions when no announcements are made at all. By contrast, many other cities announce connection information, warn passengers to stand clear of the doors when they are closing and let people know when trains are approaching the platform. (In Hong Kong, these announcements are even made in three languages.)
All of this must make the ...
March 21st, 2008
Photo du Jour : We Put Out
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
McGill Daily wins a student vote that threatened its existence by a large margin last week.
This photo was taken on March 12th, 2008.
Les manchettes
By Catherine Vandermeulen // 2 Comments
L'hôtel de ville...
En bref - Le son à Montréal [Le Devoir]
Projet Griffintown - L'OCPM doit être utilisé [Le Devoir]
The siege of Griffintown [The Montreal Mirror]
Les Montréalais favorables au projet Griffintown [Cyberpresse.ca]
Tree tracking [Hour.ca]
Immobilier...
Nouveau projet immobilier près du métro Rosemont [Mon toit.ca]
Les projets immobiliers les plus en vue de 2008 [Mon toit.ca]
Béton et blancheur dans la Cité du multimédia [Mon toit.ca]
Concordia cash crunch? [Hour.ca]
Divers...
Snow fatigue part of Montreal landscape [Suburban.com]
L'intendant de Montréal [Cyberpresse.ca]
March 22nd, 2008
Photo du Jour : L’ancien palais de justice de Montréal au crépuscule
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise sur la rue de Bullion, le 2 mars, 2008.
March 23rd, 2008
Photo du Jour : hommes jouant aux dames chinoises
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Photo prise le 16 août 2003, sur Clark au Quartier Chinois de Montréal.
Toronto putting out Montreal’s fires
By Chris Erb // 2 Comments
This city has a tendency to be one of those places where, so often, you will see something that just doesn't seem to make any sense whatsoever. Montreal fire trucks speeding down the street emblazoned with "City of Toronto" insignia is just one of such examples.
Montreal's fire fighters have been feeling slighted by the city recently; they have been without a contract for over a year and have received no pay increases unlike their counterparts in Toronto who are seeing increases of almost 10% and already receive larger paycheques than fire fighters in Montreal. Our ...
March 24th, 2008
Photo du Jour : Cocoa Locale, boutique gâteau
By Cédric Sam // 6 Comments
Cocoa Locale, sur Du Parc, au nord de Villeneuve.
Photo prise le 13 janvier 2008.
Griffintown News Roundup #4: Feb. 21-March 24
By Chris Erb // 2 Comments
It has been over a month since I've done my last new roundup so, because there have been such a large number of news items over such a long period of time I will simply give an overview of events concerning Griffintown and the proposed redevelopment from the last month.
-Over 500 people filled up a room at ÉTS for the first in a series of public consultations on February 21st. The city and developer Devimco each gave presentations, then fielded questions from the audience. So many people signed up to ask questions that extra days ...
March 25th, 2008
Photo du jour : La fièvre des séries!
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Le Canadien de Montréal s'assure une place dans les séries de fin de saison avec sa victoire au Centre Bell hier soir contre les Sénateurs d'Ottawa.
Photo prise le 24 mars 2008.
Toronto Tuesday : TTC sation “diversification”, TTC new director of communications, and Controversy-raising stricker
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
TTC station heritage threatened : The TTC is considering the renovation of most of its subway stations (63 out of 69) in what it calls a "diversification" plan. In a subsequent post warning about these possible changes, Matthew Blackett presents a Spacing graphic that shows the colour sequence of ...
March 26th, 2008
Photo du jour: Winter bike parking, Montreal style
By Asa Bergman // No Comments
No snow clearance, but clever design?
This photo was taken on March 18, 2008, at McGill University
Closing time at the street market
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
[youtube]CSHup9MNXPQ[/youtube]
HONG KONG --- Montreal has a handful of fine public markets, but what it lacks are some good street markets. We have approximate, ephemeral versions of these every summer when many streets---Ste. Catherine and the Main, the Plaza St. Hubert and Wellington, Ontario in Hochelaga---close for lively street fairs. But we don't have any permanent markets of the type that are so common in most European and Asian cities.
In Hong Kong, nearly every neighbourhood has at least one market street where people shop for cheap clothes and accessories and, more importantly, fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. Each street ...
Crossing the street in Bangkok
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Unlike people in most Canadian cities, Montrealers don't take being able to cross the street for granted. For our own sake, we always assume that an oncoming car will not stop, so we calculate our trajectory accordingly when we attempt the seemingly simple task of getting from one side of the road to the other. This applies to jaywalking, of course, but also to crosswalks: the only cars that ever stop at zebra crossings have Ontario licence plates.
That gives us something in common with Bangkok, where pedestrians hold no illusions about being very high in the ...
Where did Jesus go?
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Rue de Courcelle, corner Saint-Jacques, Summer 2007
Rue de Courcelle, corner Saint-Jacques, Spring 2008
A statue of Jesus has been removed from the front yard of the abandoned Ste Elizabeth Church in Saint-Henri.
Demolition of the abandoned church as been in the works ever since the Catholic church sold the buildings 3 years ago. Although the 1950s era church is not much to look at, a 2006 report (pdf) by the Conseil du Patrimoine de Montreal ...
March 27th, 2008
“Mobile” advertisement
By Cédric Sam // 6 Comments
During a routine Chinatown stroll on a Friday evening two or three weeks ago, I came across an unusual form of advertisement on the wall adjacent to the empty space left by the burnt-down building at the corner of St-Laurent and De La Gauchetière. I saw the familiar logo of a well-known telecommunication company, which then quickly shifted back to the sales pitch, lit on an otherwise blank building side.
Where could this come from, we wondered? After looking behind ...
Photo du Jour: Lave auto 5 minutes
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Car wash tucked away on Rue Drolet, just above Rachel.
March 28th, 2008
Photo du jour : Maison sur le chemin de la côte-des-neiges
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Photographiée pendant la grève de l'été 2007, elle semble être perdue au fond d'un champs...
Les manchettes – du 22 au 28 mars
By Catherine Vandermeulen // 1 Comment
La ville de montréal
Platform pilfered, Projet Montréal complains - then shuts up [The Gazette]
City to name Park a Greek village [The Gazette]
Des arrondissements pour une culture de proximité [Le Devoir]
Montréal se dit satisfaite de son taux de récupération [Canoë.ca]
Nids-de-poule: Montréal modifie sa recette [La Presse]
Urbanisme et architecture
Les Amis sound alarm on Mount Royal plan [The Gazette]
Riverfront plans just keep rolling along [The Globe & Mail]
Griffintown hearings 'a dangerous precedent' [The Gazette]
In Full View: Public Space in Montreal [Canadian Architect]
Divers
À Montréal d'agir [Le Journal de Montréal]
Confessions ...
March 29th, 2008
Photo du jour : Avenue du Parc à 17h30
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Photo prise le 21 mars 2008.
The lights go out tonight
By Chris Erb // 4 Comments
Before and after shot of Sydney Australia participating in Earth Hour from this morning (to us).
Tonight is Earth Hour across the planet and Montreal is taking part. Various cities around the world will turn off the lights for one hour between 8pm and 9pm local time in an effort to raise awareness about emission output caused by overuse of electricity. The story in the Gazette explains further:
The purpose is to save electricity, cut greenhouse gases and spark dialogue about other ways we can act to save the planet.
"During that hour, we hope that Montrealers ...
March 30th, 2008
Photo du jour : La traversée
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Un couple de personnes âgées traversant Casgrain sur Jean-Talon, près du Marché Jean-Talon.
Photo prise le 21 mars 2008.
Bâtiment disparu #5 : Le refuge Ste-Bridget
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Photographies prisent vers 1896 et en 2008
En 1847, de nombreux immigrants irlandais quittèrent leur pays alors ravagé par la famine, la maladie et la pauvreté pour venir s'établir à Montréal. De nombreuses personnes malades furent alors hébergés dans divers centres temporaires jusqu'en 1869, année où fut inauguré le refuge Ste-Bridget. Cette demeure de pierre de 4 étages fut alors construite à la demande du Père Patrick Dowd au coût total de 28 978, 48 $. À l'origine, le bâtiment servait de foyer pour les personnes âgées et infirmes, pour les ...
March 31st, 2008
Photo du jour: Anticipating the pedestrianization of Saint-Paul
By Asa Bergman // 5 Comments
As announced by André Lavallée of Ville de Montréal earlier this month, Saint-Paul will be a car free street between 11am and 6am this summer. Some people act as if it were already. This photo was taken on August 22, 2007, on Place Jacques-Cartier
More community gardens to be closed
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Soil contamination has forced the Southwest borough to close two community gardens and part of a third. The Gazette has more:
The borough said it took the decision after tests analyzed by the Public Health Department showed levels of toxins higher than acceptable norms. However, levels of toxins consumed through produce cultivated in the gardens are minimal, health officials said.
"We can tell you right now, there is no worry for your health as a result of eating vegetables from this soil," Monique Beausoleil, a toxicologist with the department told about 100 gardeners at a meeting at the ...
Toronto Tuesday : Spacing Hut, Ballenford closes, TTC strike report and Bathurst Bridge redesign
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 2 Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Spacing Magazine Hut: Sapcing Magazine has acquired the naming rights to the the Leslie Spit Quonset Hut. Spacing intends to convert the metal structure into a "Public Space Interpretation Centre" that will house both permanent and rotating exhibitions.
Ballenford Books closes: Toronto's great -and only- architecture bookstore Ballenford ...
Bâtiment disparu #6 : L’orphelinat St-Patrick
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1896 et en 2008
L'orphelinat St-Patrick construit en 1851 sur le terrain situé à l'ouest de la basilique St-Patrick fut démolit en 1904. Un arbre qui bordait autrefois l'allée conduisant à l'entrée subsiste encore tout comme le presbytère situé à l'extrême droite de la photo.
April 3rd, 2008
Less is more: Montreal’s new public spaces
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Montreal is in the midst of a great public space building boom. Plenty of new squares, plazas and open spaces have been created over the past six or seven years, most notably in the Quartier international, but also throughout the city. With the redevelopment of Griffintown, Viger Square and the area around Rosemont metro, along with the construction of the CHUM superhospital and the reconstruction of Place d'Armes and the Pine/Park interchange, ensuring that our new public spaces are well-designed is particularly important.
So how have we been doing until now? In the latest issue of ...
Photos from the big Pine Avenue fire
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Although it doesn't have quite the same devastating impact as February's inferno on Queen Street West in Toronto, yesterday's fire on Pine Avenue still destroyed an entire apartment building, leaving as many as 100 people homeless. Hour has a photoessay of the blaze and so does La Presse.
Kate at Montreal City Weblog, meanwhile, shares a completely unrelated but amusing anecdote about the name of the street on which the fire occurred: "Incidentally, I overheard a bus conversation recently in which two Anglos referred to this street, ...
April 4th, 2008
Photo du jour : Bâtiment abandonné sur la rue Murray
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
“Pieces of resistance”
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Montreal's marginal spaces seem to hold particular appeal for its artists. Last year, Karen Spencer decorated fences, laneways and parking lots with her oblique trilingual dreams; Julie Favreau and Caroline Dubois occupied a vacant storefront on Beaubien Street, turning an empty space into one of constant reinvention; and the artists of Dare-Dare took a forlorn corner of Mile End and made it into the centre of gravity for the city's most interesting and innovative art. Now, the wayward Heather Utah has found herself in the area around the Falaise St. Jacques, ...
Les manchettes du 29 mars au 4 avril
By Catherine Vandermeulen // No Comments
Environnement
Westmount, Côte St. Luc to expand composting [The Gazette]
Borough closes 167 garden plots [The Gazette]
City recycling takes a turn for the better [The Gazette]
Gala de reconnaissance en environnement et développement durable de Montréal [Groupe CNW]
Transport
Le rapport Montmarquette relancera le débat sur le péage à Montréal [Cyberpresse.ca]
Le 450 attire et le transport en commun est au neutre [Les affaires.com]
Affaires
Homburg veut ériger deux tours à Montréal [Cyberpresse.ca]
CIGM/Statistiques résidentielles MLS(R) de la région métropolitaine de Montréal : Bilan positif pour le marché de revente résidentielle au premier trimestre de 2008 [Corus Nouvelles]
Arts
Une exposition ...
April 5th, 2008
Photo du jour : La démolition du théâtre Quat’sous
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Strongman Park
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
Parc des Hommes-Forts in Saint Henri. Photo taken March 25th 2008
"Evocation de l'admiration que provoquait la force physique dans la tradition populaire québecoise."
Parc des Hommes-Forts - a sliver of land between the intersection of Saint-Jacques and Saint-Antoine streets. One one side of the turnoff, the sign announces that the park serves as "a testimony to the admiration of physical strength in Quebec pop culture." Across the road stands the bulging bronze statue of Louis Cyr with a barbell at his feet....
Photo du Jour – Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Photo by Alanah Heffez, looking west along Belmont Street from University.
March 2008
April 6th, 2008
Photo du jour – Poppies
By Alanah Heffez // 7 Comments
Unique brickwork adorns a St Henri duplex.
Photo by Alanah Heffez, March 25th 2008.
April 7th, 2008
Photo du Jour – Edge of the Plateau
By Alanah Heffez // 14 Comments
Photo by Alanah Heffez, 2006
Old triplexes alongside new condo developments on Rue Garnier (I think) Rue Fabre, north of Laurier.
Ville-Marie’s war on the homeless
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Mario Paquet, target of a law preventing people from walking more than two dogs at once in Ville-Marie; photo by Ben Soo
Under the leadership of mayor Benoît Labonté, Montreal's downtown borough has done everything it can to push its social problems into the closet. New laws preventing people from being in public squares at night and walking more than two dogs at once are recent attempts to expell the homeless from downtown's public spaces; panhandling, noise and jaywalking laws are others that are often arbitrarily applied by police to target marginal people.
This might ...
Why smart cards will be good for Montreal
By Christopher DeWolf // 18 Comments
Montreal's public transit agencies will be introducing the new smart card this month after nearly six years of preparing for its arrival. (The decision to switch to a smart card came with the STM first decided to replace its antiquated fare boxes and metro turnstiles, most of which were decades old and prone to malfunction.) Over the past several months, the impending introduction of the new payment system has raised questions from public transit users, some of whom feel that the $169 million used to implement it could have been better used for other things. In ...
Peel Street’s umbrella man
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
HONG KONG --- Sitting in front of his makeshift green stall on a particularly steep block of Peel Street, Ho Hung Hee could be mistaken for one of the many fruit vendors and junk dealers that work in the narrow back streets of Central, uphill from the offices and department stores of Hong Kong's financial district and in the midst of a rapidly-gentrifying enclave of restaurants, bars and art galleries. Like the other vendors, Ho is old and withered, but his bright, expressive face, more youthful than you would expect for an 82-year-old, hints at ...
April 8th, 2008
Photo du jour: Pussy Corps
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Probably one of the more lurid of the downtown strip clubs.
December 8, 2007
Toronto Tuesday : Sidewalk psychiatry, Pedal-car, Toronto Wildlife Centre and Mayoral gun control hits the net
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Pedal-car Not Guilty : A judge ruled the "shared propulsion car" safe for Toronto streets. The case against the pedal powered car (simply the shell of an old gas powered car with the engine replaced by pedals) was thrown out by the judge who deemed the contraption, which tops ...
Sud-Ouest Grey Spaces
By Alanah Heffez // 5 Comments
Got my hands on a scanner recently and thought I'd post some pics snapped around 2001, during my first excursions through Pointe St-Charles and Griffintown (I didn't learn the names for these neighbourhoods until years later). These photos are from the period in my life when the city was transformed from an unremarkable backdrop into a personal Muse.
There was something so inspiring about discovering parts of the city that were messy and unstructured. I don't know which was more shocking: encountering horses in an urban stable, or ...
April 9th, 2008
Photo du jour: It won’t be long
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Students soaking up the sun at McGill's Lower Field, April 20, 2007
Gaz Métro to the Main: we’re sorry for ripping you apart
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
If you've been following the news over the past few days, you'll know that, just as the nearly two-long makeover of St. Laurent Boulevard comes to an end, Gaz Métropolitain has announced that it wants to rip up the newly-rebuilt street in 40 different places to make emergency repairs to its underground gas lines. Plateau borough mayor Helen Fotopoulos has declared herself furious at the company for failing to make its repairs last year, when the street was already under excavation and other utility companies, including Bell and Videotron, did work on their own ...
April 10th, 2008
Photo du jour: McGill College
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Looking north up McGill College from Cathcart, May 22, 2007
Deer hunting in Sudbury
By Shawn Micallef // 5 Comments
Two weeks ago I spent Good Friday afternoon walking around the fine and solid City of Sudbury. Because it was a holiday the city felt silent and empty. Only a few places were open, like the Tim Hortons, where the employees swear like hockey players but are very kind and funny and run the most popular place in town. With most things closed, I felt like I had the downtown to myself -- and it's quite a downtown, with interesting looking buildings and a crazy topography.
Like many Ontario cities and towns, gentrification isn't a word that applies to much of anything, and though it might have been a cinematic imagination at work, Sudbury reminded me of the Pennsylvania mining and steel town that The Deer Hunter was supposed to have taken place in. It had a similar 1970s feel with unadorned clapboard homes, clinging to rocky ground -- not run down, but slightly weathered. Times, we were told, are not so bad in Sudbury, as nickel is in demand and the mines are hiring (though some native sons and daughters may indeed be about to ship off to a far off war), so the comparison stops there. Below is a quick photo tour of Subury.
Imperial pedigree: colonial street names
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
I had travelled more than 15,000 kilometres only to stand, once again, at the corner of Peel and Wellington. Of course, it wasn't the same Peel and Wellington as back home --- with a shared colonial past, it shouldn't be surprising to find some similar street names in both Montreal and Hong Kong.
In Montreal, Peel and Wellington finds itself in the heart of Griffintown, a neighbourhood that was once a centre of industry and working-class Irish life. In Hong Kong, it sits in the middle of a busy market district in Central, an ...
April 11th, 2008
Photo du jour : La maison Bagg
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Cette maison située au coin des rues Sherbrooke et Côtes des Neige fut endommagée lors d'un incendie au début des années 1980. Quelques minutes de travail sur photoshop ont été suffisante pour lui redonner sa beauté d'autrefois. Dommage qu'il n'en soit malheureusement pas ainsi dans la réalité !
Parking ticket in Taipei
By Cédric Sam // 4 Comments
TAIPEI, TAIWAN — A few days ago, I wondered how parking tickets were handed to offending motorists in a large Asian metropolis. I had my answer the day after, while walking around in the vicinity of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in central Taipei.
It was ...
April 12th, 2008
Photo du jour: End-of-winter thaw
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Sherbrooke Street West in NDG, March 11, 2007
Notre Dame opponents will protest tomorrow
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
The snow has mostly melted and the temperature has climbed above the freezing mark --- what to do? Protest, of course.
Tomorrow, east end residents opposed to the Notre Dame highway project will take to the streets in a "grand tintamarre" that aims to catch the attention of the muncipal and provincial officials who want to transform the eastern portion of Notre Dame Street into an expressway. They've already earned the support of 24 well-known academics, politicians and activists, including architect Phillys Lambert and Hochelaga MNA Louise Harel, who signed a declaration in ...
April 13th, 2008
Photo du jour: Flower season
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Jean Talon Market, May 30, 2007
Spacing Montreal, Best of Montreal!
By Spacing // No Comments
It's an annual spring ritual: the Mirror's Best of Montreal poll is open once again. Since we launched Spacing Montreal last fall, we've tried hard to encourage critical and constructive discussion on Montreal's public spaces, appreciation for the city's history and heritage, and curiosity about its people, places and neighbourhoods. If you like what we've been doing, give us a hand by voting for us in the Best Blog category.
Last year's finalists included two other blogs with a strong focus on the city: Midnight Poutine and Montreal City. Why not add a third ...
Honking for the Habs
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPnj2r1Eu0s[/youtube]
Thanks to Fagstein (another worthy candidate for Best Blog in the 2008 BOMs, by the way) for the above video. Last night, as the Habs won their second game of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the streets filled with the familiar sound of celebratory horn-blowing. Although it had nothing on the honking and flag-waving that follows even the most minor World Cup win by Italy, France, Portugal or Greece, it was still quite the ruckus --- and, unlike the World Cup, which divides Montrealers along ethnic lines, cheering for the Canadiens is something that unites almost everyone.
So far, honking ...
April 14th, 2008
Photo du jour: Notre-Dame-de-la-Salette
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Notre-Dame-de-la-Salette Church on Park Avenue, May 30, 2007
Building the “anti-Griffintown” in Point St. Charles
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
On Saturday, La Presse looked at a group of Point St. Charles community activists, urban planners and architects who have come up with a plan to redevelop the Alstom-owned railyards that separate the neighbourhood from the St. Lawrence River. Described by its backers as a sort of "anti-Griffintown," referring to Devimco's controversial redevelopment scheme, the plan would include an intermodal transit hub, neighbourhood businesses, a waterfront promenade, an art museum, a high school and, most importantly, 4,000 new residential units, of which forty percent would be social housing.
"We aren't saying that 'it's this and ...
April 15th, 2008
Photo du jour: Bonsecours in sight
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Bonsecours Market from the museum at Pointe-à-Callières, May 26, 2007
“Le Toronto artistique”: hors de prix?
By Spacing // 4 Comments
In yesterday's Toronto Star's op-ed section, Martin Knelman argues that Toronto is finally getting the funds it needs to compete with Montreal as Canada's seat of cultural avant-garde. He even ups the urban-rivalry ante by writing that "Toronto's cultural all-stars [by which Knelman means the AGO, Luminato and the ROM, all of which have received millions from politicians of late] are upstaging Montreal's, which is the equivalent of the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup by beating the Canadiens in overtime."
Millions or no, I have to say that from where I sit, Toronto ...
Ride your bike to the Belgo: two new blogs
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
I have to admit that you'll rarely find me at the Belgo. Although I'm familiar with the collection of contemporary art galleries and studios, housed in an imposing old industrial building at the corner of Ste. Catherine and Bleury, I only seem to venture in once or twice a year. (Nuit Blanche, when many of the galleries are open all night, is a great opportunity to explore the building.) That's why I appreciate the arrival of Bettina Forget's Belgo Report, which provides news and reviews of art exhibitions at the Belgo. Since its launch in ...
The great fare evasion scandal!
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
The Journal de Montréal wouldn't be a tabloid if it didn't like to plunge head-first into the murky waters of sensationalism. Its attempts to generate scandal are frequent and, sad to say, frequently successful. Earlier this year, the paper's "investigation" into the use of English by store clerks in Montreal, which involved few hard figures but a sensational account of how a young reporter, Noée Murchison, was able to serve customers entirely in English while working undercover at a handful of retail stores. The investigation was manipulative, ethically dubious and cynical, but it managed to win the ...
Toronto Tuesday: Vikings, subways and streetcars
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
The Vikings have landed, reports Shawn Micallef, and they're boorish and boring. That's because they're hawking mobile phone plans in a roving ad truck, a medium all too familiar to Montrealers who have had to endure such trucks on all of our major streets. While some Torontonians are working to ban ad trucks, similar efforts in Montreal have failed.
Does Toronto's subway need a downtown relief line? Sean Marshall thinks so. With 68 stations along 64 kilometres of rail, the TTC's subway system is nearly identical in size to that of Montreal, but its ridership ...
April 16th, 2008
Photo du jour: Justine
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
St. Denis just above Mount Royal, May 30, 2007
Smart card shenanigans: Date of launch still unclear
By Pamela Shapiro // 4 Comments
Photo by Cedric Sam
April 17th, 2008
Photo du jour: Park bench
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Jeanne Mance Park, May 21, 2007
April 18th, 2008
Photo du jour: Place Royale
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Place Royale seen from above, May 30, 2007
April 19th, 2008
Photo du jour: Spring grass
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Jeanne Mance Park, May 30, 2007
Cité Bourgogne
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
I wasn't entirely sure where I was. I had just left the rambling lanes of the Taikang Road arts district and was wandering aimlessly through the streets of Shanghai's former French Concession, each one buzzing with scooters, each lined by perfectly gnarled plane trees and odd, eclectic buildings. The blocks were long but broken by lanes, most of them crowded with hanging laundry, parked bicycles and potted plants. Security guards marked the entrance to each lane, but they seemed nonetheless open to the public, and passersby ambled past me and into the lanes without so much as ...
Google’s Street View raises privacy concerns
By Spacing // 3 Comments
In May of 2007, the search-engine behemoth Google launched a new Google Maps service called Street View. As the name suggests, Street View offers users the option of looking at photographs of streetscapes taken at ground level when searching for directions on Google Maps. Although still in its initial stages, Street View has already accumulated images from 27 cities across the USA, and is slated to debut images from Canadian cities some time this year.
Needless to say, Street View has caused some concerns over privacy. Images of people caught in less-than-honourable activities (such as a break-in, ...
Montréal industriel
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
QUOI: Montréal industriel (concours de photographie)
OÙ: Centre d'histoire de Montréal
QUAND: du 14 mars au 7 septembre 2008
Depuis le 14 mars et jusqu'au 7 septembre, le Centre d'histoire de Montréal présente le résultat du concours de photographie "Montréal à l'oeil". La 29e édition du concours, organisé par le CHM, traitait sur le patrimoine industriel de la ville depuis 1850. Sur les 450 soumissions, 50 sont exposées dont les 4 clichés primés (ci-haut "Crossing" de Peter A. Berra et "Réseaux" de Marie-Laure Blaise).
Voir aussi cet article parut ...
Two new metro stations by 2013
By Christopher DeWolf // 14 Comments
After 20 years of stagnation, the metro is back in an expansionist mode: two new stations will be added to the system by 2013, joining the three new stations that were added last year in Laval. According to Radio-Canada, the AMT has announced that the blue line will likely be extended one stop east from Saint-Michel to Pie-IX and the orange line one stop north from Côte-Vertu to Bois-Franc.
On the orange line, this will allow the AMT to create an intermodal hub between the metro and the existing Bois-Franc train station; it will also ...
April 20th, 2008
Photo du jour: Ahuntsic streetscape
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
New infill and single-storey houses near St. Alphonse Park
April 21st, 2008
Photo du jour: Promenade
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Waterfront promenade near the Harbour Clock Tower, June 20, 2005
Re-thinking waste: municipal composting
By Pamela Shapiro // 3 Comments
Montreal is taking steps towards becoming a greener city, but we still have a long way to go. According to Montréal’s First Strategic Plan for Sustainable Development/Premier plan stratégique de développement durable de la collectivité montréalaise, compostable matter comprises 40% of residential waste in our region. Recently, Westmount and Côte St. Luc announced plans to expand their existing kitchen waste pick-up, however for now even these extend to only part of the respective municipalities. Montreal is planning to launch ...
Thinking about Earth Day
By Asa Bergman // 2 Comments
Montreal seen from the top of the Olympic Stadium
A few weeks ago, on March 29, Earth Hour challenged people to shut off their lights in thousands of cities all over the world, including Montreal. On April 22 it is time to celebrate a larger event: Earth Day. It all began back in 1969 when the U.S Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed a nationwide protest day to make politicians aware about the critical state of the environment. Earth ...
Meet Opus, your new smart card
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Maybe it's just me, but when I think of Opus, it's the neurotic, herring-addicted penguin from the Bloom County comic strip that comes to mind. Now I'll have to think of something else: Montreal's new smart card, which was officially unveiled today.
While we've written a lot about the card's conception, implementation and potential benefits, what I was really concerned about was what the card will be named. Around the world, many cities have given their smart cards catchy names invested with symbolism: Hong Kong named its card Octopus, which suggested that its tentacles ...
Meet Opus: smart card “launch” part II
By Pamela Shapiro // 8 Comments
The new smart card is being launched today...but may not be available until September. Although the Gazette published an article about the launch with a photo of a smart-card being used, according to various STM info sources the card will be available either in July or the fall. Magnetic-strip ticket cards, different from the re-useable Opus card, are now available for purchase at some locations.
As already discussed on this site, ...
Bâtiment disparu #7 : Le club st-James
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1870
Il est difficile de s'imaginer aujourd'hui que se trouvait autrefois en plein quartier des affaires, un club privé de style victorien.
Construit en 1864 au coin des rues René-Lévesque et University, cet édifice fut pendant près d'un siècle un endroit prestigieux où se réunissaient alors l'élite Montréalaise.
L'immeuble était dôté d'un imposant escalier central, de plafonds de 17 pieds, de grandes baies vitrées et de somptueuses boiseries....
Toronto Tuesday : Fruit in the City, Freedom of information, and Free ROM
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Fruit in the City : Not Far From The Tree is a new organization that offers to pick up fruit from the city's fruit-tree owners who don't have the time to harvest them. One third of the reaping goes to the owners, another third to the volunteer fruit pickers while ...
April 23rd, 2008
Photo du jour: Carré St-Louis
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
St. Louis Square, July 24, 2007
April 24th, 2008
Photo du jour: Pedestrian tunnel
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Sometime in the 1930s, a pedestrian tunnel was built between Lafontaine Park and the Notre-Dame Hospital on Sherbrooke Street. It has since closed and I've never noticed the entrance --- does anyone know if it's still there?
Photo from the Montreal city archives
Proje(c)t(ions)s urbain(e)s
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
WHAT? Ideas for the Van Horne/Rosemont viaduct and its surroundings
WHERE? Dare-Dare's art space at St. Laurent and Van Horne
WHEN? Tuesday, April 29 at 8:30pm
Earlier this month, on the year's first truly warm evening, I needed to get from my apartment to Rosemont metro, the closest orange line station. I decided to walk, which involves a pleasant saunter down Bernard Street and a stroll over the Van Horne Viaduct, also known as the Rosemont Viaduct, which bridges the CPR tracks and brings you straight from Bernard to the metro. It had been awhile since I had made ...
Metro party tomorrow night
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Three McGill students will be celebrating their birthdays and the end of the school term with a metro party tomorrow night. Guests are asked to bring "friends and costumes and instruments" --- but no alcohol, markers or cigarettes, because anyone who breaks the STM's rules could result in the whole party being shut down by the metro cops.
Three metro parties were held last year, each to varying degrees of success. The first, organized in late March by Toronto's newmindspace, was attended by 107 people, including Steve Faguy, who covered it for the Gazette. Metro ...
April 25th, 2008
Photo du jour: Spring vs. Habs
By Asa Bergman // 3 Comments
As the Montreal Canadiens advance in the playoffs, the visibility of this particular flag is steadily decreasing.
This photo was taken on April 25, 2008, on Rue Wolfe.
Student fined $628 for sitting in a park
By Christopher DeWolf // 36 Comments
Lawbreakers? Photo by Karu-san
Watch out, Montrealers: if you sit anywhere in a park other than on a park bench, you could be risking a $628 fine. At least, that's what it seems after Brendan Colin Jones, a 25-year-old Concordia student, was fined for sitting on a marble ledge in Émilie Gamelin Park (also known as Berri Square). Jones' official citation is for "using urban equipment for uses other than those intended," which seems particularly absurd considering that the park's ledges are designed to be sat on, and there are almost always dozens of people making use ...
A Beijing Subway interchange station at rush hour
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
BEIJING, CHINA — One of the bizarre things with the Beijing Subway's interchange stations, like Xizhimen (西直门) in the northwest of central Beijing, is that you need to walk an incredible distance between the stations on both connected lines. Xizhimen is the station that connects Beijing's original circular line, Line 2, or the Blue Line, with its new Line 13, or the Yellow Line, which is a city rail line that takes more than ...
April 26th, 2008
Photo du jour: People-watching on Prince Arthur
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Prince Arthur and Laval, August 2004
Saint Paul: so much for pedestrianization
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Ville-Marie mayor Benoît Labonté has shelved plans to pedestrianize the portion of St. Paul Street between Place Jacques-Cartier and St. Laurent Blvd. this summer. Although he claims that politics has nothing to do with his decision---more discussion with merchants is needed, he says---the folks in City Hall say that Labonté is just posturing in anticipation of his mayoral campaign in 2009. You might recall that, although Labonté supports the seasonal pedestrianization of Ste. Catherine St. in the Village, it was City Hall's transport plan that recommended turning St. Paul into a pedestrian street.
Here's what the ...
April 27th, 2008
The Linked Hybrid in Beijing
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
BEIJING, CHINA — Last weekend, I was given a tour of the Linked Hybrid's construction site out in Dongzhimen, to the northeast of Central Beijing. Designed by Steven Holl Architects, the Hybrid is a 8-tower habitation complex, complete which outstanding feature is a "link" of bridges connecting the towers at the 20th floor. These structures will be public spaces: shops, cafés, and even a swimming pool.
The Dongzhimen (东直门) hub sees the 2nd ring road traverse ...
Photo du jour: Laundry
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Rose de Lima Street, St. Henri. May 12, 2004
Bâtiment disparu #8 : L’édifice de la compagnie générale des bazars
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1891-2008
La compagnie générale des bazars, une société d'importation d'articles de maisons et de cadeaux, fut fondées à Montréal en 1889 par 2 marchands français : le baron Louis de la Polinière et le comte Jean de Plan de Sieyès.
L'année à laquelle cet édifice fut démoli est inconnue.
En conséquent, l'immeuble de 3 étages qui se dresse maintenant au coin Sud est des rues St-Laurent et Sainte-Catherine fut quant à lui, construit en 1950.
April 28th, 2008
Photo du Jour – Hockey Season
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Street hockey in NDG. April 20th 2008.
Montage du jour : Intersection des rues St-Mathieu et Sainte-Catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1930-2008
April 29th, 2008
Photo du Jour: Park Extension
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Jean Talon near L'Acadie, Park Ex. April 21, 2006
Montage du jour : L’édifice Labelle
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
Vers 1920 et en 2008
Construit en 1910 pour H. P Labelle, au coin des rues Sainte-Catherine et Hôtel de ville, cet édifice qui abritait autrefois un commerce de meubles fut considérablement agrandit en 1921.
Montage du jour : Le cinéma Palace
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1927-2008
Le cinéma palace, d'abord connu sous le nom du théâtre Allen ouvrit ses portes en 1921. L'édifice est maintenant occupé par une bijouterie.
Toronto Tuesday : TTC strike; Graffiti; and Public petitions
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
TTC strike : In the early hours of Saturday, the TTC went on strike as workers rejected the contract recommended by their own union executive. Mayor David Miller, obviously vexed the TTC did not uphold its promise of giving Torontonians a 48 hours notice before closing down the transit ...
Council gives green light to Griffintown project
By Chris Erb // 16 Comments
Monday's municipal council meeting was the night when Griffintown's future was finally decided. Despite recent pleas from experts to stop the project, a city councillor asking for a delay on the vote, and a demo/mock funeral which led around 200 people through Griffintown to city hall, the PPU which will allow Devimco to build their massive 1.3 billion dollar mixed-use development was approved.
The motion to approve the PPU was passed by all but three councillors (Marvin Rotrand and Warren Allmand from Tremblay's Union Montréal party as well as Richard Bergeron from Projet ...
April 30th, 2008
Photo du jour: Villeray duplexes
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Duplexes in Villeray, near Jarry and St. Hubert. July 25, 2007
Montage du jour : La maison de George Drummond
By Guillaume St-Jean // 8 Comments
1891-2007
La maison de Sir George Alexander Drummond, construite vers 1888 s'élevait autrefois à l'angle sud-est des rues Sherbrooke et Metcalfe. Entièrement recouverte de grès rouge, cette demeure victorienne d'inspiration romane fut démolie en 1926.
Source : Musée McCord
VIEW-2458
Spacing nominated for two National Magazine Awards
By Spacing // No Comments
Spacing is happy to announce that our Summer 2007 issue, focused on water issues in Toronto, has been nominated in the Best Editorial Package category. This is the third year in a row that Spacing has been nominated in this category.
Spacing is also excited to announce that Edward Keenan's piece on Markham and Lawrence East, published in our Spring 2007 issue focused on Toronto's intersections, has received a nominated in the Essay category. Keenan's nomination is Spacing's first ever outside of the Best Editorial Package category.
Spacing contributing editor John Lorinc received three ...
YMCA vs. YMHA
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
In 1936, when these photos were taken, Montreal was just beginning to climb out of the Great Depression, which had hit this industrial city with particularly brute force. Unemployment remained high and thousands of the city's inhabitants lived in squalour --- but not in Mile End. Though far from wealthy, the north end neighbourhood was reasonably prosperous, home to upwardly-mobile Jews, French-Canadians, Irish and immigrants from across Europe.
That diversity was reflected in Mile End's built fabric. The neighbourhood boasts a particularly impressive collection of churches, synagogues and other institutional structures: there's the Byzantine mystery of ...
May 1st, 2008
Photo du jour: Terrace season
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Clark Street near Bernard, June 15, 2007
Montage du jour : La gare Windsor
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Vers 1950-2008
Les maison situées en arrière plan furent démolies vers 1964 et remplacées par l'hôtel Champlain.
May 2nd, 2008
Montage du jour : Le cinéma Palace
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
1927-2008
Le cinéma Palace qui ouvrit ses portes en 1921 fut d'abord connu sous le nom de théâtre Allen. L'édifice est maintenant occupé par une bijouterie.
Photo du jour: Alley cat
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Laneway behind Park Avenue, near Van Horne. July 23, 2007
May 3rd, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1910-2007
Photo du jour: McTavish Field
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Soccer on the McTavish Field (which was once a reservoir), May 23, 2006
May 4th, 2008
Photo du jour : Une Algérie Glorieuse
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Election posters for Montreal's candidate in the 2007 Algerian elections. Like Italy and several other countries, overseas Algerians are represented by their own candidates in that country's parliament.
Jean-Talon near Henri-Julien, May 21, 2007.
It’s not easy being green
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Sing it, Kermit: it's not easy being green, as Le Devoir demonstrated this weekend in a feature on Montreal's trees. Despite the vital role they plan in improving the city's air quality, cooling its streets and improving the city's ambiance, our 265,000 street trees suffer from abuse by snowplows, road salt and mean-spirited passersby. (Last winter, I saw a snowplow destroy a fairly sizable tree, and last summer, I witnessed three drunk men snap a baby tree in half on Ste. Catherine Street.) Here's more from Le Devoir:
Exposés au vent, à la pollution, aux ...
Antlerheads in Toronto
By Spacing // 1 Comment
The following was originally posted by Patricia Simoes on Spacing Toronto on Wednesday, April 30th.
We are constantly bombarded by ads. On buses, garbage bins, TTC shelters and in the sky line they are hard to escape. But after a while of living in the city, one becomes immune to their carefully constructed lure. For better or worse, ads are a part of the urban fabric that you can learn to ignore. However, once in a while an ad comes along that captures our attention. It’s intriguing and beguiling. It’s edgy and cool…but, it’s an ad.
This ...
Antlerheads in Montreal
By Christopher DeWolf // 20 Comments
Earlier this week, while walking to a friend's place on Coloniale Street on the Plateau, I came across an unusual piece of street art. Pasted on an abandoned mattress that was leaning against the side of a building, it depicted the body of a skinny-jeaned, cardiganed hipster topped by the head of a motorized scooter. Its position on the mattress created an interesting optical illusion that gave the scooter-man an extra sense of depth; looking at it head-on, it seemed to be standing up straight in front of me. Later that day, heading home on the ...
New initiative to increase downtown gardening space
By Pamela Shapiro // 1 Comment
A group of undergraduates at McGill University are working to give downtown students, and others, access to gardening space and a better connection to their food. Access to green space is difficult for downtown dwellers and even more difficult with the recent (temporary) closing of 167 community garden plots. It is especially difficult for the city’s many university students, who are much more likely to be apartment dwellers, and much less likely to be in town long enough to get access to the increasingly rare garden ...
May 5th, 2008
Photo du jour: Save Park Avenue
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Poster opposing the proposed renaming of Park Avenue after former Quebec premier Robert Bourassa. November 21, 2006
Montage du jour : Le théâtre Parisiana
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1900-2007
Le théâtre Parisiana se trouvait autrefois à l'emplacement du bar «Les Foufounes Électriques».
Walking Westmount’s little streets
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Westmount is probably the most heavily stereotyped municipality in Quebec. It is the epitome of anglophone privilege and WASP snobbery, a posh district best represented by the "elderly women in pink suits" on Greene Avenue. While there is a grain of truth to that, as with any stereotype, Westmount is far more interesting than its reputation would suggest.
In fact, Westmount is one of my favourite places to wander on a sunny day, and my favourite place in Westmount is below Ste. Catherine, near the CPR tracks, where a procession of little streets contain a ...
May 6th, 2008
Photo du jour : Demi-dépanneur
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Dépanneur sur l'avenue des Pins près de Saint-Urbain, le 3 mai 2008.
Ça me fait penser au fameux 7½ étage dans le film Being John Malkovich (v.f. : Dans la peau de John Malkovich).
Toronto Tuesday : LRT, Cycling benchmark, and TTC as an essential service
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
High rise apartments and Transit City : A look at the continued discussion on the Transit City proposal that would bring the LRT (light rail transit) to the Toronto inner suburbs. Graeme Stewart of the Toronto Tower Renewal project has produced maps linking the existing and proposed LRT lines ...
May 7th, 2008
Photo du jour: Advertising versus traffic safety?
By Asa Bergman // 12 Comments
This photo was taken on May 6, 2008, on Saint-Laurent and Sherbrooke
Montage du jour : L’orphelinat Notre-Dame de Liesse.
By Guillaume St-Jean // 13 Comments
1913-1979-2008
Cet édifice à bureau situé sur le chemin de la Côte de Liesse était autrefois un orphelinat. Construit entre 1912 et 1914, cet immeuble de style mission, dôté d'une structure d'acier et de béton armé fut le premier immeuble d'un immense projet de 5 million de dollars à être construit sur le terrain de la ferme des soeurs grises. Ce projet ne fut malheureusement jamais complété.
À l'extrême est de l'orphelinat, se dressait alors la crèche d'Youville. Aujourd'hui démolie, elle aura accueilli ...
The Walking Bike reinvents the wheel
By Spacing // 2 Comments
Originally posted by Patricia Simoes on Spacing Toronto.
No, it’s not a shoe rack, although it can probably serve as one. This is the Walking Bike, an art project by UK designer Max Knight. The artist literally reinvented the wheel when he took a standard bike wheel, typically comprised of a rim, tire and spokes, and replaced it with eight shoes on metal rods. These new “wheels” were then incorporated into the existing chain and gear mechanism thereby allowing the bicycle to be fully functioning.
There is no denying that the Walking Bike is a quirky and ...
St-Michel Smart Center goes to Public Consultation
By Alanah Heffez // 9 Comments
The pattern is increasingly familiar: undeveloped urban land is a beacon for commercial developers, developers who inevitably demand changes in the urban plan to accommodate suburban-style, plunk-'em-down-anywhere malls.
Fortunately, the development of a SmartCenter shopping mall in St-Michel's abandoned quarry has gone to the Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal, a democratic step that has been skirted by the city in other recent developments. The proposed SmartCenter would require changes to the urban plan's density, zoning, building height and parking regulations.
Of course even the best democratic planning hardly guarantees enlightened urbanism, especially in a area that ...
Strolling through history
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
It isn't a blog that is updated very often, but when it is, Histoire du Plateau Mont-Royal is definitely worth reading. Its latest post, an historical walking tour of Mount Royal Avenue, from Park Avenue in the west to d'Iberville in the east, is a particularly good example. Here's a sample:
# 1 / À la place du Pétro-Canada, on a longtemps retrouvé le terminus d'au moins sept lignes de tramways, lesquels relevaient de presque autant de compagnies de tramways. à sa fermeture, il devint le «club» Minuit qui fut très populaire et qui dit-on ...
May 8th, 2008
Photo du jour: Laundry day
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Alley in eastern Villeray, near Jean-Talon. May 21, 2007
“My Winnipeg” at the CCA tonight
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
WHAT? Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg
WHEN? Tonight at 7pm
WHERE? Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920 Baile (Guy metro, St. Mathieu exit)
HOW MUCH? Free!
For some reason I'm not surprised that a city as cold, isolated and haunted by ghosts as Winnipeg has produced a filmmaker like Guy Maddin. Like a feverish dream, Maddin's films are bizarre in a way that is alternately off-putting and enticing. Now, Maddin has made his first "documentary," My Winnipeg, turning his attention to the city that has given him so much inspiration. Here's a bit from a CBC article on the movie from last ...
Montage du jour : Le terrain de la Place des Arts
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1948-2008
Le terrain situé au coin des rues Sainte-Catherine et Jeanne-mance était autrefois occupé par l'école les Buissonnets. Construit dans la seconde moitié du 19e siècle, l'édifice utilisé par les soeurs grises jusqu'en 1913 était au départ un institut pour aveugles.
May 9th, 2008
Photo du jour: Westmount Park Willow
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Photo taken May 5th 2008
Movies on the Champ de Mars
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
The Champ de Mars is one of Montreal's most storied places. It derives its name from the French colonial era, when it was a military parade ground, but in the eighteenth century it was the site of the city's northern wall. After the wall was torn down in the early nineteenth century, the Champ was used as a farmer's market. Eventually, in the twentieth century, it was converted into a municipal parking lot.
While the field was restored and converted into a public park in the 1980s, it still maintains the essence of the parking lot it ...
May 10th, 2008
Photo du jour: Sidewalk hammock
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Clark Street near Pine Avenue, in front of the Place de la Roumanie. May 6, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Victoria
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1973-2008
La rue Victoria, aujourd'hui totalement oubliée, était autrefois bordée de part et d'autre, de maisons en rangées construites vers 1875.
May 11th, 2008
Photo du jour : L’externat Sophie-Barat
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
Construit à partir de 1855 et agrandi à 2 reprises soit en 1864 et 1914, cet édifice fut détruit par le feu en 1997 alors qu'il était vacant depuis quelques années déjà.
Montage du jour : La caserne d’incendie #10
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1938-2008
Dû à l'évolution des voitures à incendie au fil du temps, les portes de la caserne furent agrandies !
Inside the world of the transit fan
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
I'm a fan of transit but I could never honestly call myself a transit fan. Even though I am interested in the design, sociology, history and culture of public transit, my interest pales in comparison to those people, many of whom lurk on discussion boards like the one at metrodemontreal.com, who obsess over the smallest and most arcane details of buses and trains. I've always wondered what drives them, so it was nice to see an article by Steve Faguy in yesterday's Gazette about the day he spent with a group of transit fans who ...
May 12th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Laurent depuis St-Jacques
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1960-2008
Mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
Walking around this weekend I noticed a procession of odd posters around the Main: "Québécois et Québécoises ! Montréalais-Montréalaises ! Prenez part à un mouvement HISTORIQUE !" they declared rather excitedly. "Le mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard propose de rébaptiser le boulevard Saint-Laurent à Montréal : boulevard Lucien-Rivard." Above was what appeared to be a mugshot, a streetsign reading "boulevard Lucien-Rivard," a photo of Schwartz's and a boulevard Saint-Laurent street sign that had been angrily crossed out.
"This has got to be a joke," I thought to myself. The mere fact that the name "Mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard" rhymes seems to suggest that this is a jibe at the whole Park Avenue affair and the city's eagerness to rename its streets. I made a mental note to check out mblr.org, the website advertised on the posters.
Thing is, after looking at the website, I'm not entirely sure it's a prank after all. It actually seems pretty earnest. Here, in the same excitable prose as on the posters, is an outline of the MBLR's motivation:
On parle beaucoup de Lucien Rivard ces temps-ci et c’est comme si tout le monde l’avait oublié!! Lucien Rivard fait partie de ces personnages historique qui dérangent on dirait...
Trop de rues dans notre belle province portent les noms de saints inconnus ou de politiciens corrompus, ou encore des symboles serviles du système. Mais qu’en est-il des Québécois plus marginaux ?? Des personnalité hors-normes comme les Monica Proietti, le Grand Antonio, Denis Vanier ou Lucien Rivard ?
As for why the Main ought to be renamed, there's an answer for that too: "La «Main» de Montréal est un boulevard au caractère symbolique pour tous les canadiens-français. À l’Ouest les anglais et les riches, à l’Est les pauvres canadiens français opprimé et manipulé par les institutions et les politiciens à la solde du pouvoir. Qui peut dire qui était Saint-Laurent ou ce qu’il a accompli ? Pensons-y... Quel rapport entre un homme d’église espagnol mort sur le gril en l’an 258 à Rome et la «Main» (à part les hot-dogs toastés?)???"
Building green neighbourhoods
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Green laneway in the lower Plateau
WHAT? Presentation on "green" urban planning
WHEN? Wednesday, May 14 at 7pm
WHERE? Salle de la Fraternité des policiers et policières de Montréal, 480 Gilford (across from Laurier metro)
Despite having a strong indigenous urbanism, Montreal seems to stumble with new development, as many of the underwhelming residential projects of recent years --- including the Angus Yards, Faubourg Québec and others --- can attest. It's always useful, then, to see what's going on elsewhere for inspiration. This Wednesday, as part of the lead-up to the unveiling of the Plateau's official transportation plan, urbanist Jayne ...
May 13th, 2008
Photo du jour: St. Paul afternoon
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
St. Paul St. just east of St. Laurent, May 7, 2008
Toronto Tuesday : thinkToronto competition, Books set in Toronto, and Laundromats
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
thinkToronto urban design ideas competition : Spacing launches thinkToronto, a competition on urban design for the city. Participation is open to anybody under 35 willing to submit and present their plan for making Toronto's shared public spaces more sustainable, attractive and functional. Deadline is Friday August 29th, 2008.
Literally ...
Montage du jour : le cimetière de la rue Papineau
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1895-2008
Sous le parc des vétérans à l'intersection de l'avenue Papineau et de la rue Lafontaine reposent 2 anciens cimetières protestants soit, le cimetière civil St-Mary burial ground et le cimetière militaire, illustré sur la photo ci-contre . Ceux-ci furent exploités de 1815 à 1944.
Charles Hindelang, un célèbre patriote protestant français ayant été pendu devant la prison du Pied-du-courant en 1839 fut inhumé en ces lieux. Il semblerait par ailleurs que ses restes y demeurent ...
A publicity stunt “with a life of its own”
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
When I wrote on Sunday about the Mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard, I mused that the campaign to rename the Main after the 1960s gangster was one of the "quixotic quests" that are as much a part of Montreal's history as any underworld hero. Many readers were a bit more cynical: they suggested that it was little more than a viral marketing campaign for Charles Binamé's new movie, "Le piège américain," starring Rémy Girard as Lucien Rivard, which will be released this summer.
Turns out those readers were right: Alan Hustak confirms in today's Gazette that the MBLR ...
Spring revelations
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
One of my favourite passages from Leonard Cohen comes from his 1966 novel Beautiful Losers. "In Montreal spring is like an autopsy," he wrote. "Everyone wants to see the inside of the frozen mammoth. Girls rip off their sleeves and the flesh is sweet and white, like wood under green bark. From the streets a sexual manifesto rises like an inflating tire, ‘The winter has not killed us again!'"
Montreal's short spring is always a revelation. It begins with the first mild days in March and April, when the streets suddenly fill with people who, once ...
Salon du livre anarchiste
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
QUOI: Salon du livre anarchiste de Montréal
QUAND: samedi 17 mai et dimanche 18 mai
OÙ: CEDA, 2515 rue Delisle (métro Lionel-Groulx)
Le salon annuel du livre anarchiste de Montréal est de retour avec sa neuvième édition. C'est encore au CEDA que les activités prendront place: kiosques, projections, ateliers, conférences et activités pour enfants. Plus d'information est disponible sur le site officiel du salon www.salonanarchiste.ca.
C'est une belle occasion de rencontrer certains groupes d'activistes de Montréal (et d'ailleurs), ou simplement de découvrir livres et auteurs traitant de la réappropriation de notre espace commun. Les sujets sont tellement variés et ...
May 15th, 2008
Photo du jour: May flowers
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Place Ville-Marie looking up McGill College. May 14, 2008
Montage du jour : Les condos Beauxarts
By Guillaume St-Jean // 10 Comments
2004-2008
Les condominiums Beauxarts, se situent au coin des rues Sherbrooke et St-Mathieu. Amorcé en 2004, cet ambitieux projet consistait à préserver la façade de 7 maisons de villes construites en 1877 et d'ériger à l'arrière une tour d'habitation de 20 étages.
Les façades restaurées des anciennes demeures bourgeoises redonnent un air de prestige à cette portion de la rue Sherbrooke, mais que dire de cette nouvelle tour de béton? Celle-ci est située tellement près de sa voisine immédiate, ...
Montrealers’ fourth-favourite blog
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
The results of the Mirror's annual popularity contest are in and Montrealers have voted Spacing Montreal as the fourth-best blog in Montreal. We were bested by Midnight Poutine, the Montreal City Weblog and Pregnant Goldfish (a street style blog). All I can say is that they deserve their spots on the list. Thanks, Montreal.
On a related note, I always enjoy reading the Best of Montreal, even though many of its results are the same from one year to the next and even if the whole thing is essentially an advertising grab. It's entertaining, at the very least, and it's also a good way to gauge what is currently in fashion among young anglophone Montrealers. (And I do mean anglophone --- there is often a striking difference between the BOM's results and those of its French counterpart, the Top d'ICI.)
Below, I've cobbled together some results that might interest Spacing Montreal's readers.
May 16th, 2008
Photo du jour: Garment district
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Casgrain Street looking north towards the Mile End garment district. May 12, 2008
May 17th, 2008
Photo du jour: Ice cream corner
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Laurier east of Laurier Park. May 12, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Laurent depuis la rue Sainte-Catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1920-2008
May 18th, 2008
Photo du jour: Balcony life
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
'Tis the season.
Villeneuve near Esplanade. May 17, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison de Samuel Carsley, rue Guy
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1905-2008
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/VIEW-8713§ion=196
VIEW-8713
Rebranding Park Avenue
By Christopher DeWolf // 10 Comments
The first banner was incongruous enough: "Avenue du Parc," it read in a vaguely Hellenic font, set to a pale blue background. Underneath was the logo of the City of Montreal. Then, a couple of days later, I noticed other banners, these ones much more inscrutable: each featured a portrait of someone that was pulled up in the lower left corner, like a page being turned, to reveal part of a Greek flag. The city still seemed to be in the process of installing of them, and as far as I could see, there were only two kinds of portraits, one of a thirtyish man of Southern European appearance and another of a little Asian girl --- not usually the kind of person you imagine when you think of someone Greek.
Earlier this year, the city announced that it would spend $50,000 to polish Park Avenue and emphasize its Greek heritage. Flowers would be planted, more benches installed and banners erected. I guess this is the fruit of those efforts (and dollars). Unfortunately, they reek of compromise --- the worst kind of compromise that is unsatisfying and underwhelming to everyone involved. For years, Park Avenue's Greek merchants have pushed to have the street declared a Greektown or "Quartier hellenique" that would have the same symbolic value for Montreal's many Greeks as Little Italy does for its Italians and Chinatown for its Chinese. More importantly, the merchants reason, it would be an opportunity to consolidate their resources, promote the street and draw more outside shoppers.
After a brief spate of investment in what might be called "ethnic infrastructure" --- former mayor Pierre Bourque's administration invested heavily in sprucing up Chinatown and Little Italy, and it built new community-themed parks like Portugal Park on the Plateau and Athena Square in Park Ex --- the city has shied away from recognizing the city's ethnic and cultural communities in any significant manner. The idea for a Quartier hellenique on Park Avenue is just one of several ethnic theme districts that have been proposed by shopowners in recent years. In the area around Jean Talon and St. Denis, where dozens of Vietnamese-owned businesses are located, one merchant has advocated the creation of a "Vietnamville." North African businesspeople on Jean Talon east of St. Michel are now pressing for the creation of a "Petit Maghreb." Each of these movements has been met with the same indifference from city officials.
In 2006 and 2007, though, mayor Gérald Tremblay's attempt to rename Park Avenue angered so many people that his administration is still cleaning the muck off its face. City Hall must have felt that it had political capital to regain among those who had protested loudly against the name change, so it committed itself to investing more heavily in Park Avenue. Many took that to mean than it would finally support the creation of the Quartier hellenique but, as the $50,000 it has decided to invest in flowers and benches indicates, it is simply not willing to go that far.
Ste-Elizabeth’s Last Stand
By Alanah Heffez // 5 Comments
Photo taken May 17th, 2008
A statue of Jesus disappeared from the church yard earlier this spring - now a mosaic depicting Ste Elizabeth has emerged from the rubble. Strangely, I don't remember seeing the mural the last time I was inside the church.
Inside Ste Elizabeth Church, August 2007
May 20th, 2008
Photo du jour: Cyclist corner
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Boyer at St. Zotique in the Petite Patrie. May 17, 2008
Montage du jour : Inondation rue St-Antoine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1914-2008
L'inondation fut produite suite à la rupture d'une canalisation sur la rue St-Urbain.
Plateau makes life easier for cyclists, McGill makes it harder
By Christopher DeWolf // 24 Comments
Over the course of the summer, the Plateau Mont-Royal administration will more than double the number of bicycle parking spaces in the borough, thanks to new parking meter loops, sidewalk stands and on-street bike parking areas.
On-street parking, which removes parking spaces for cars and replaces them with space for bikes, is particularly interesting. It doesn't obstruct the sidewalk and it also sends a strong message that, in an area like the Plateau, cycling is far more efficient than driving. Currently, on-street bike parking area are found on St. Viateur, Mount Royal, Laurier and a ...
Learn about Laval Avenue’s trees
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
WHAT? Tree tour of Laval Street Avenue
WHEN? Tuesday, May 21 from 5pm to 7pm
WHERE? Northeast corner of Laval and Sherbrooke
HOW MUCH? $10 regular, $5 stuents, elderly; children free
Spacing Toronto readers will be familiar with Tree Tuesday, the feature that takes readers to a new stop on one of Toronto's Tree Tours each week. Now Montrealers can partake in tree tours of their own. This summer, La Forêt de Montréal will be offering tours of trees throughout the city. The season's first tour already took place on Mount Royal this past Saturday, but there will ...
Toronto Tuesday : Telephone booths, Subway screen doors, and Metrolinx
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
The nostalgia of phone booths : Ceding to the advance of cellular technology, public phone booths are quickly disappearing from our streets. In an effort to capture some of the last remaining "retro" booths in Toronto, Matthew Blackett walked the CNE grounds armed with his camera.
Screen doors on subway ...
Photo du jour: Talk to the hand
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Stencil art on Park Avenue between Fairmount and St. Viateur. May 18, 2008
May 22nd, 2008
Photo du jour: Lucky Cat
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
I came across this lucky cat (known as maneki neko in Japanese and jiu choi mao in Cantonese) on Park Avenue. It is commonly found in Chinese and Japanese businesses, where it is meant to beckon customers and attract wealth, but many people keep one in their homes, too. Maybe one of Park's merchants stuck it on a lamppost to improve the street's fortunes?
May 18, 2008
Montage du jour : La cathédrale Marie-reine-du-monde
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Museum Day highlights
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
The Darling Foundry before its conversion into a multidisciplinary arts space
This Sunday is Museum Day, which means that Montrealers will enjoy free access to 29 museums between 9am and 6pm. Here are some highlights that might interest Spacing Montreal readers. Free shuttle buses will run between the museums until 4:30pm; check out the official website for more info.
McCord Museum
690 Sherbrooke Street West, McGill metro
"Simply Montreal," the McCord's permanent exhibition, "offers myriad glimpses of this unique city and immerse visitors into the very heart of the rich and varied experience it offers." If you've ever ...
May 23rd, 2008
Photo du jour: Congee and beer
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Strip mall at the corner of Rome and Stravinski, Brossard.
November 3, 2007
Where to find the city’s best bike co-ops
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Even though I'm not much of a cyclist, I've been reading Kate Molleson's new Gazette-sponsored cycling blog, On Two Wheels. In her most recent post, Kate hands over la parole to Kelly Ebbels, a bike-loving former news editor at the McGill Daily, who did a survey of Montreal's bike co-ops:
I used to think that cycling was a solitary pastime. But lately I've come to realize, through taking long bike trips with roommates, watching gaggles of bike racers on TV, or working on my bike at a local bike co-op – that the best cycling experiences ...
Montage du jour : Le cimetière de la rue Papineau
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1915-2008
L'histoire complète ici.
“All love is powerful” tonight
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
WHAT? Opening and reception of "All love is powerful," a new public art intervention
WHEN? Tonight (May 23), from 4:30pm to 11pm
WHERE? Mile End Mission (99 Bernard West, at St. Urbain) and the Park With No Name (Van Horne and St. Laurent)
Dare-Dare, the Mile End arts centre, continues its tradition of innovative community-based art with "All love is powerful," a new creation by Buenos Aires-based artist Andrea Cavagnaro. Over the past two weeks, Cavagnaro has covered part of the façade of the Mile End Mission, a social service organization at the corner of St. Urbain ...
May 24th, 2008
Photo du jour: Lost volcano!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Bernard and Waverly. May 21, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine au coin de St-Laurent
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
vers 1900-2008
Mile End’s doors are open
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
The doors to Mile End's many art studios, galleries and other spaces are open all weekend as part of Ateliers Portes Ouvertes, which includes 20 different sites, most of them concentrated in the garment district around de Gaspé Street. Dozens of artists will be participating; the event's brochure should give you an idea of the breadth of the talent involved.
Since I'll be heading out shortly to check out some of the art myself, I'll leave you with a bit from La Presse about APO:
«Vivre pour conspirer». C'est la devise inscrite sur la porte ...
May 25th, 2008
Photo du jour: Plateau alley
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Laneway between Laval and Hôtel de Ville, north of Rachel.
May 21, 2008
Montage du jour : Les condos Beauxarts depuis la rue St-Mathieu
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
2004-2008
May 26th, 2008
Photo du jour: City seal
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
While many of the streetlights on major streets appear to be fairly recent (even if they are meant to look history), it's easy to find much older lampposts in the city's back lanes, like this one I came across near Laval Street just above Sherbrooke. Each of them bears the imprint of the City of Montreal's seal.
May 21, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine au coin de la rue Bleury
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
Vers 1910-2008
In NDG, a ghost sign is revealed
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Last week, someone named BK McCabe sent me an email about an old tobacco ad that had been revealed when a fire-damaged building was torn down on Sherbrooke Street West in NDG. Not too long after, another NDGer, Grant Martin, emailed me about the same thing.
"Interestingly, one of the first results you get by googling 'Turret Cigarettes' is Mordecai Richler talking about smoking them when he was in high school. Mid-1940s I guess. Makes you wonder how many more of these there are, preserved from the elements but completely hidden by brick," he wrote. "I don't ...
May 27th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’institut des sourdes-muettes
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1910-2008
Photo du jour: Hidden house
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Laneway houses, old or new, are one of the city's great secrets. Montreal has a lot that were built around the turn of the last century when thousands of migrant workers poured into the city. This particular house is found in a small unnamed laneway just off Durocher Street in the McGill Ghetto (its address is technically on Durocher --- I'd love to see a delivery guy find that place!).
Toronto Tuesday : Toronto Urban Centre, Bungalow Cool, and New park
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Does Toronto need an Urban Centre? : Following the closure of Ballenford Books, Toronto is left with no physical venue where the city's urban issues are exhibited and debated. Shawn Micallef imagines the creation of a Toronto Urban Centre. As much a museum as a research centre, it would THE ...
May 28th, 2008
Photo du jour: Stacked street signs
By Asa Bergman // 3 Comments
This photo was taken on May 25, 2008, on Alexis-Carrel and Gouin, Rivière-des-Prairies
Montage du jour : La rue René-Lévesque depuis le square Dorchester
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Storefront theatre in Emery Street
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
WHAT? Unique street theatre in the Latin Quarter
WHEN? Wednesday, May 28, between 9pm and 11pm
WHERE? Emery Street between St. Denis and Sanguinet
HOW MUCH? Free!
In a city with as many festivals as Montreal it's easy to overlook things. Sometimes, though, they surprise you. I hadn't given much though to the Festival Transamériques, an annual dance and theatre event, until yesterday evening, when I was wandering through the Latin Quarter with a few friends. As we walked up St. Denis we noticed that Emery Street was closed off and full of people --- unusual on an otherwise ...
Planting seeds, looking for treasure
By Paul Erlichman // No Comments
WHAT? So You Think You Can Plant? hosted by Greening Duluth
WHEN? Wednesday, May 28, starting at 7:30 (Tonight!)
WHERE? Meet on the front terrace of House of Friendship / Maison de L'amitié (120 Duluth E. - between Coloniale and de Bullion)
HOW MUCH? Free!
Greening Duluth will be hosting a seed-planting treasure hunt tonight, assuming that is a real term. Groups will use clues to find spots in the Plateau where they can spread some seeds. Attendees will get the chance to see their contributions grow throughout the season, all around the ...
May 29th, 2008
Photo du jour: i love you…
By Christopher DeWolf // 33 Comments
Graffiti on St. Viateur near de Gaspé, May 24, 2008
Montage du jour : La résidence de M. McNaughton
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1866-2008
Cette résidence était autrefois située sur le boulevard René-Lévesque à l'endroit exact où se prolonge désormais vers le sud la rue Mackay .
May 30th, 2008
Photo du jour: St. Henri dep
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Dépanneur at the corner of Sainte-Émilie and Bourget. May 11, 2008
Montage du jour : La résidence de George Hague
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1895-2008
Cette demeure fut construite en 1887 pour George Hague, le directeur général de la «Merchants bank». En 1920, soit 5 ans après son décès, ses enfants mirent la propriété en vente. Ne trouvant aucun acheteur, ils firent donc démolir la propriété.
Getting around town: recent transport news
By Christopher DeWolf // 10 Comments
The air's getting worse and it's because the number of Montrealers who are driving is growing faster than those who use public transit. Between 2003 and 2006, an additional 50,000 cars were registered on the island of Montreal and 41,000 more cars were travelling into the city from off-island suburbs each day. Not coincidentally, the number of smog days continues to increase, averaging 64 per year between 2003 and 2006.
Although the city is expressing hope that, faced with gas at nearly $1.50 per litre, more and more people will opt for public transit, ...
Bike safety, circa 1958
By Matthew Blackett // 3 Comments
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOfo2d4N16U[/youtube]
Nothing like some good ol’ fashioned bike fear mongering, 1950-styles. I’m surprised the narrators didn’t equate risky bike riding with the Soviets.
May 31st, 2008
Photo du jour: Gaspé reflections
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
View from the top floor of Fashion Plaza on de Gaspé Street. May 24, 2008
Montage du jour : La résidence de Alfred Savage
By Guillaume St-Jean // 7 Comments
1905-2008
Cette résidence de style gothique construite pour Alfred Savage dans les années 1860 se dressait autrefois sur la rue Peel, au sud de l'actuelle avenue du docteur Penfield.
June 1st, 2008
Photo du jour: Mission Old Brewery, Chinatown
By Kimberley Mok // 5 Comments
Photo taken May 30, 2008 at Blvd. St. Laurent and Ave. Viger
Montage du jour : La maison Lyman
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1870-2008
Cette maison construite en 1862 pour Alderman Henry Lyman se dressait autrefois sur la rue Mctavish. En 1941, la propriété fut démolie et le lot subdivisé. Un immeuble à logements multiples se dresse aujourd'hui au même emplacement.
Walking Mile End’s laneways
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
In many ways, Montreal is a remarkably heterogeneous city, and its built form is no exception. Each individual neighbourhood is distinct enough to provide the aimless walker with enough visual cues to figure out where he or she is.
Alleys, too, vary from one part of the city to the next. In nineteenth-century neighbourhoods, they're often aimless, terminating in dead ends and unexpected courtyards. Twentieth-century lanes are more standard in their arrangement, but even then, there is a great deal of difference between them. Many of the alleys in the old town of Delorimier, on the Plateau, ...
Montréal en quartiers
By Christopher DeWolf // 14 Comments
I've been spending part of the afternoon poking around Montréal en quartiers, known less memorably in English as Montreal InSite, a new website created by Heritage Montreal and Heritage Canada. It's an interactive, Flash-based guide to the history of Montreal's neighbourhoods, with enough chronologies, maps and videos to keep you distracted for at least an hour or two.
Currently, thirteen districts are covered: Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Old Lachine, Point St. Charles, St. Henri, downtown, the Golden Square Mile, the Latin Quarter, Lafontaine Park, Côte des Neiges, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the Petite Patrie, Little Italy and Sault-au-Récollet.
As much ...
June 2nd, 2008
Photo du jour: Condoscape
By Christopher DeWolf // 14 Comments
Apartment buildings on lower Mountain Street, near Notre-Dame, on the edge of Griffintown.
May 23, 2008
Montage du jour : L’institut Trafalgar
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1903-2008
L'institut Trafalgar, qui fut la première école anglaise pour filles à Montréal ouvrit ses portes en 1887 derrière la maison de Alexander Mitchell. Cette demeure qui fut alors utilisée comme école fut possiblement démolie au cours des années 1970.
June 3rd, 2008
Photo du jour: Alley rain
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Lane behind Park Avenue after a brief rainstorm. May 23, 2008
Toronto Tuesday : Gardiner Expressway, Street food, and Scarborough Bluffs
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
The future of the Gardiner Expressway : The Gardiner Expressway, Toronto's elevated highway (much like the Metropolitain here), will be dismantled between Jarvis Street and the Don Valley Parkway. In its place is planned an 8 lane boulevard that should see traffic within 4 years. In an other Gardiner related story, the ...
All about Opus
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
You read about my thoughts on Montreal's new smart card, Opus, when it was officially launched in April. Now you can read my article in the Gazette that adds a few quotes and some facts to my musings. I speak to an STM spokesperson about how Opus got its name and to a Boston journalist about how people there have taken to the CharlieCard. Here's an excerpt:
When Montreal’s new public transit smart card was officially launched in late April, most of its details had already been known for months. There was, however, one surprise: its ...
Tous Azi-what?
By Julie Fournier // 9 Comments
If you're a bus rider in Montreal you've probably used Tous Azimuts, the STM's interactive trip planner. Though it's a little rough around the edges visually, it's a pretty thorough and effective service. It was also ahead of its time, launched in 1998, before most cities had an online trip planner. (In comparison, poor, vast Toronto still doesn't have one, at least not an official one.)
I've used Tous Azimuts for years and found it quite helpful in my journeys to places I've never been before, but being a robot, it occasionally comes ...
Ruelles with potential
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Montreal is one of the most dynamic and engaging cities in North America, but sometimes I wish that creativity would be reflected in our urban planning. So many corners of this city brim with potential --- but much of that potential is being wasted. Consider the case of two downtown laneways: Mount Royal Place and the ruelle Nick Auf der Mar. Each could be transformed into engaging public spaces but, for the time being, they are little more than urban afterthoughts.
Mount Royal Place is named for the old Mount Royal Hotel, ...
June 4th, 2008
Photo du jour: Night tracks
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
On the CPR tracks near Park Avenue at 3am. June 1, 2008
Montage du jour : Le couvent de la providence
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Le couvent des soeurs de la providences se dressait autrefois au coin des rues Sainte-Catherine et St-Hubert Cliquez ici pour voir une vue aérienne du secteur dans les années 1960.
Ground broken for Swatow Plaza in Chinatown
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
I returned from a six-week trip to China some three weeks ago, and the first time since then that I ventured in our Montreal Chinatown was last week. The first thing that I noticed while walking around with my camera was that ground has been broken for the Swatow Plaza (see a previous Spacing Photo du Jour post), a brand new commercial centre with a main entrance on St-Laurent (Google Maps), and stretching behind on ...
June 5th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le boulevard René-Lévesque et l’avenue Edgehill
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1964-2008
Depuis le boulevard René-Lévesque, nous pouvions autrefois accéder à l'avenue Edgehill où se dressaient jusqu'à la fin des années 1960 de somptueuses demeures bourgeoises. Pour de plus amples détails, voir l'article posté précédement : L'avenue Edgehill.
Photo du jour: Ladder transportation, whatever works
By Asa Bergman // 6 Comments
This photo was taken on June 3, 2008, on Sainte-Catherine Ouest.
In Laval, cheap transit on smog days
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Laval might be a postwar car-oriented suburb like any other, but the arrival of the metro last year seems to to have sparked a shift in thinking. Public transit use is up, city officials are talking about densifying metro station environs, and now Laval's public transit agency, the STL, will be sending a message to those who drive even when the air is thick with smog. From now on, when Environment Canada issues a smog warning for the Montreal area, Laval will slash its bus fares from $2.50 to $1. In the public's mind, it will ...
Fruit & Flowers
By Julie Fournier // 11 Comments
Inspired by this great post by Leah Sandals over on the Toronto Spacing blog, I've been thinking about those wonderful gems of depanneurs that keep a bounty of potted plants and cut flowers through the summer season.
My favourite in Montreal is Fruiterie YM at Bernard and de l'Esplanande in Mile End. I first noticed this little shop one morning in May, as I sat with a friend eating brunch in the window of Senzala Restaurant across the street. ...
It’s street fair season again
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Street fair season is upon us. Starting today, and running through Sunday, six streets across the city will be closed for various festivities. Grab your flâneur hat (that would be a fedora, right?) and hit the pavement.
Nuit blanche sur tableau noir, a combination street fair and arts festival, will take place on Mount Royal Avenue, from St. Hubert to de Lorimier, all weekend. Tonight, from 10pm to 2am, 46 artists will participate the "Grande Fresque de Nuit" by painting various frescoes right on the pavement. During the day, commerce and art ...
Photo du jour: Ghost building
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Last August, Thomas-Bernard Kenniff wrote about the "bâtiments fantômes" you see around town. Here's a particularly nice example in a downtown parking lot next to the Hôtel de la Montagne.
May 31, 2008
June 7th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le boulevard René-Lévesque depuis la Côte du Beaver Hall
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1960-2008
Photo du jour: Spring flower
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Jeanne Mance near Laurier. May 31, 2008
Camping in the Park With No Name
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? Outdoor camping-themed arts event
WHERE? Park With No Name, St. Laurent and Van Horne
WHEN? Today and tomorrow, 9am to 11pm
When it moved to Mile End in 2006, the artist-run centre Dare-Dare quickly transformed a vacant lot at the corner of Van Horne and St. Laurent into the "Parc sans nom," a dynamic arts space open to the public at all hours. Now, though, Dare-Dare is set to move out of the neighbourhoods, and when it leaves the park will be sealed off and paved over by the borough. This weekend, "Camping aux bons plaisirs fugaces" will be ...
Introducing the city’s trees
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? Tree tour of McGill's upper campus
WHEN? Tomorrow, Sunday June 8 at 10am
WHERE? Meet in front of the Redpath Museum
HOW MUCH? $10 adults, $5 students
Bronwyn Chester will be hosting another tree tour tomorrow. Over the course of the summer, she hopes to make this a regular event, travelling across Montreal to explore the trees of the city's different streets, parks and neighbourhoods. In today's Gazette, I have a brief article describing the tour she gave of Laval Street two weeks ago.
Chester began by handing out a list of trees found on and near Laval Ave. ...
June 8th, 2008
Montage du jour : La résidence de Olivier Faucher
By Guillaume St-Jean // 9 Comments
1899-2008
Cette demeure était située au coin nord-ouest du boulevard René-Lévesque et de la rue St-Mathieu.
Photo du jour: Groucho Marxist
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Stencil in an alley near St. Viateur. May 16, 2008
Antlerheads transformed
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Not too long ago I wrote about the "Antlerheads" that had appeared around Montreal as part of a guerilla marketing campaign for Vespa. I defended the ads, arguing that their corporate sponsorship did not diminish their artistic integrity, but many Spacing readers disagreed.
While we were sitting at our computers arguing, though, some other Montrealers were out in the streets, subverting the Antlerheads and their message. Over the past couple of weeks, nearly every Antlerhead that I have seen has been literally defaced by the street artist Zato1, who has covered ...
June 9th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le collège Sainte-Marie
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1961-2008
Le collège Sainte-Marie, 2e collège classique à s'établir à Montréal fut en opération de 1848 à 1969 sur la rue de Bleury. Il fut démolit au début des années 1970.
Photo du jour: Forza Italia
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Jeanne Mance near Bernard, Mile End. June 8, 2008
June 10th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le boulevard René-Lévesque vers l’est depuis la rue de Bleury
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1961-2008
Photo du jour: rue de la Gauchetière
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Nobody quite seems to know how to properly write the name of the street that forms the central axis of Chinatown. I've seen De la Gauchetière, de La Gauchetière, La Gauchetière and just Gauchetière. Since the street was named after Joseph-Daniel Migeon, sieur de la Gauchetière, the proper rendition would seem to be "rue de la Gauchetière."
But really, who cares? This is the city whose heart and soul is "la Main," after all.
Fringe for free
By Julie Fournier // 4 Comments
It's officially festival season in Montreal, and next up is the annual Fringe Fest (properly named le Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montréal), starting this Thursday and running until Sunday the 22nd.
As usual, there will be a number of events taking place in public spaces, mostly at Parc des Amériques, corner St-Laurent & Rachel. I'll be posting each evening with the next day's free events for you to take in. This year's selection includes a number of indie-music shows put on by Pop Montreal, a couple of craft ...
Toronto Tuesday : PUG Awards, Unsung Beautifiers, and Bathurst Bridge Virtual Charrette
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
PUG Awards: And the winner is? : Since 2004, the PUG Awards celebrate new construction in the (former unamalgamated) City of Toronto by asking the public to pick favourites and well, lemons. Although the requirements for entry are rather restricted (over 50,000 square feet in the residential ...
Detroit 1965
By Shawn Micallef // No Comments
The above video was made as part of Detroit’s bid to host the Olympics, and if you have 18 minutes to spare, it’s worth a look. ...
June 11th, 2008
Photo du jour: Baby blue
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
At the corner of Groll and Waverly in Mile End, somebody has painted all of the street furniture --- mailbox, planters, hydro poles, fire hydrant --- baby blue. I have no idea why.
June 7, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison de Duncan McIntyre
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1890-2008
En 1889, Duncan McIntyre, l'administrateur général des chemins de fer du Grand Tronc fit construire au sommet de la rue Drummond, une immense demeure dont le style et l'ornementation s'inspiraient alors des riches châteaux d'Écosse.
Cette dernière fut malheureusement démolie vers 1930 ...
Trouve mon nom
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 6 Comments
La ville de Montréal organise un concours pour trouver le nom de son futur service de vélo libre-service. Le concours est ouvert à tous et durera jusqu'au 8 août, date à laquelle nous pourrons voter afin de déterminer un gagnant. Le tout se déroulera en ligne à l'adresse suivante www.trouvemonnom.ca. L'idée semble intéressante et aidera surement à dénicher quelques succès, sinon quelques jeux de mots débridés (sans mentionner une certain économie: je me demande quels seraient les honoraires d'une boîte de marketing...).
Tel que déjà mentionné sur Spacing, notre futur service de vélo libre-service, basé ...
Yesterday’s big storm
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
I always marvel at how a winter storm can so alter the experience of the city. Under a blanket of snow, streets that are normally wide and imposing become more personal.
Summer storms have their impact, too, albeit one that is far more fleeting. Yesterday's afternoon thunderstorm was sudden and impressive. I was probably sheltered from its worst effects here on Park Avenue, but as pretty much anyone in the city can attest, it struck the city with surprising speed and force. Power was cut to many parts of the city, trees fell and all things ...
Fringe for free: Thursday the 12th
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Tomorrow is opening day at the Fringe Fest, and the opening party will be taking place at Parc des Amériques, corner St-Laurent and Rachel. Admission is free. Here are the details:
June 12 Juin @ 18h00
Fringe opening night party with Paul Cargnello and the Unsettlers (free)
Soirée d'ouverture avec Paul Cargnello et les Unsettlers (gratuit)
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: English / français
June 12th, 2008
Photo du jour: Post-interchange
By Christopher DeWolf // 18 Comments
For all of the potential I think is being wasted --- the empty grass lot at its southeast corner is a shamefully suburban way to treat such a prominent junction --- it's a small miracle that the new Pine and Park intersection even exists. The old interchange was such a decrepit and forlorn place it's hard to believe that in less than two years the whole thing was demolished and replaced with a pretty decent surface intersection. Even in its current state there is a lot of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. People leisurely amble across the ...
Montage du jour : Le boulevard René-Lévesque vers l’est depuis la rue Drummond
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Vers 1950-2008
En 1937, l'église presbythérienne américaine qui se dressait depuis 1865 au coin sud est du boulevard René-Lévesque et de la rue Drummond fut démoli afin de permettre la construction d'un terminus d'autobus qui fut lui-même rasé quelques décennies plus tard.
Fringe for free: Friday the 13th
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Tomorrow sees two Fringe-fest events with free admission.
June 13 juin @ 14h15
Hanging by a Branch: a circus-theater fairytale acrobatics, dance, trapeze and spoken word (free, in English)
Hanging by a Branch: un cirque-théâtre de fées acrobatie, danse, trapèze et de l’oral (gratuit, en anglais)
Starts at Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]; proceeds to Parc Jeanne-Mance
Link: English / français
June 13 juin @ 14h00-21h00
Indyish Marathon Mess: Jam with Sun Ra Arkestra, circus performers, choir, the Winks, and more (pay-what-you-can, bilingual)
Indyish Marathon Mess: Jam avec Sun ...
June 13th, 2008
Photo du jour: Bicycle cop
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Ste. Catherine and Drummond. June 7, 2008
Antlerheads erased
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
Vandalized Antlerheads that could still be seen earlier this week, on the windows of the old Du Parc / Mont-Royal McDonald's have now disappeared. The article that my colleague Chris wrote generated quite some discussion over at the first entry on what was an advertisement campaign by Vespa, a scooter manufacturer.
Because of all the talk, I couldn't help but notice that someone has taken matters into their own hands and erased the Antlerheads standing in front of the abandoned fast-food restaurant. Whoever ...
Cards, tokens and chips
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
The STM is slowly rolling out new transit cards that will replace the CAM and bus/metro transfer tickets in the course of the year to follow. I have not been taking the bus very often because bike season is open. Today, I boarded the 80, and was surprised to find that my old bus ticket was exchanged for one of the brand new transfer / single-journey and six-journey cards.
During a brief stop in the city of ...
Fringe for free: Saturday the 14th
By Julie Fournier // 1 Comment
Here's tomorrow's free offering from the Fringe Fest:
June 14 juin @ 18h00
Hanging by a Branch: a circus-theater fairytale acrobatics, dance, trapeze and spoken word (free, in English)
Hanging by a Branch: un cirque-théâtre de fées acrobatie, danse, trapèze et de l'oral (gratuit, en anglais)
Starts at Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]; proceeds to Parc Jeanne-Mance
Link: English / français
Bad bike racks
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
Montreal has been investing a lot in its cycling infrastructure, especially in terms of bike parking: thousands of new spots will be added across the city this summer. That's a relief, because we've long been stuck with these frustrating and ineffective racks, which date back to the 1990s. Each one holds up to six bikes, but they're hard to deal with, easily damaged and take up a lot of space. They're also hideous.
Instead of having one of these on each block, I wish Montreal would install post-and-ring racks like the ones in Toronto. They're simple, easy ...
June 14th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Laurent depuis la rue Sherbrooke
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Around 1910-2008
Photo du jour: “Ass or Gas”
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Grand Prix weekend always brings out the best side of Montreal, like this jeep inscribed with a warning: "Ass or gas... no free rides!" Charming!
Metcalfe near Dorchester Square. June 7, 2008
Fringe for free: Sunday the 15th
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Here are tomorrow's free Fringe events:
June 15 juin @ 12h45
The Big Moves 2nd Annual Community Pancake Breakfast (free, bilingual)
Le Big Moves deuxième communauté déjeuner aux crêpes (gratuit, bilingue)
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: English / français
June 15 juin @ 14h15 + 17h00
Hanging by a Branch: a circus-theater fairytale acrobatics, dance, trapeze and spoken word (free, in English)
Hanging by a Branch: un cirque-théâtre de fées acrobatie, danse, trapèze et de l’oral (gratuit, en anglais)
Starts ...
June 15th, 2008
Photo du jour: Mohawk
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
On the 80 bus at Bleury and Ste. Catherine. July 30, 2007
Montage du jour : L’académie commerciale
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Vers 1950-2008
L'histoire complète fut publiée précédemment dans l'article : La construction de la Place des Arts.
Fringe for free: Monday the 16th
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Here are tomorrow's free Fringe events:
June 16 juin @ 18h00
Dr. Sketchy Fringe Special: life drawing lounge (free, bilingual)
Dr. Sketchy Fringe Special: dessin avec des modèles (gratuit, bilingue)
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: English / français
Photo by Coreyu on Flickr.
June 16th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le monument de sir John A. Macdonald
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Ce monument fut dévoilé lors d'une cérémonie officielle le 6 juin 1895.
Photo du jour: Mountain tram
By Christopher DeWolf // 16 Comments
Before the construction of the voie Camillien-Houde and Remembrance Road on the mountain in the 1960s, the quickest way to get up was by tramway. For decades, the number 11 tram line, the predecessor to today's number 11 bus, trundled up the slopes of Mount Royal.I'm not entirely sure what happened to the streetcar tracks. There's an even bigger mystery, too: in the STM archive photo above you can see that, at one point, the trams passed through a tunnel. Is it still there? If not, what happened to it?
Fringe for free: Tuesday the 17th
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Here are tomorrow's free Fringe events:
June 17 juin @ 14h15
Hanging by a Branch: a circus-theater fairytale acrobatics, dance, trapeze and spoken word (free, in English)
Hanging by a Branch: un cirque-théâtre de fées acrobatie, danse, trapèze et de l’oral (gratuit, en anglais)
Starts at Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]; proceeds to Parc Jeanne-Mance
Link: English / français
June 17 juin @ 19h00
The Uncalled-For All-Star Fringeprov Jam (free, in ...
Odd things around the Darling Foundry
By Chris Erb // 4 Comments
Everyday, on my way to work, I bike by the Darling Foundry. Being a rather eclectic arts centre, it's not surprising that the area around the building features some very odd things. The first of which is the street in which the building itself is on. Last month, the last block of Ottawa Street between Prince and Queen was shut down to traffic and turned into car-free public space. Picnic tables have been installed and long narrow gardens jut out from the sidewalk. A sign explaining the project was ...
June 17th, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison Van Horne
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1965-2008
Voici une rare photo représentant la maison Van Horne sur la rue Sherbrooke. Celle-ci fut démolie en 1973 et remplacée par une tour à bureaux de 17 étages, maintenant occupée depuis 2003 par l'hôtel Sofitel.
Ce montage sera le dernier publié pour le moment.
Le parc Belmont et la mort du parc d’attractions ailleurs dans le monde
By Cédric Sam // 5 Comments
Téléchargez
Adieu parc Belmont! (Archives de Radio-Canada)
Le site des Archives de Radio-Canada recèle de nombreux petits trésors, dont ce clip vidéo sans narration de sept minutes, datant de 1963 et qui traite du parc Belmont. Le célèbre parc d'attractions était situé à Cartierville au nord-ouest de Montréal et ferma définitivement ses portes en 1983, après 60 années d'existence.
Les problèmes du parc Belmont débutent dès la création de La Ronde, lors de l'exposition universelle de 1967. Malgré une année record, en 1972, de 750 000 entrées, le nombre de visiteurs ...
Photo du jour: Beaver Lake, 1am
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
On a warm Saturday night, groups of friends sat around Beaver Lake, chatting and drinking in the strange artificial light. Every ten minutes or so, some people in the distance set off a firework. The sound of stereos thumping in the parking lot near the cemetery floated through the trees.
June 15, 2008
Labatt wins street fair exclusivity
By Christopher DeWolf // 18 Comments
You've probably noticed some of Labatt's new St-Jean-Baptiste-themed ads around town lately. "On est tous Québécois, même à Montréal," they read, which I think is kind of cheeky and cute, even if it's grammatically incorrect (shouldn't it be "québécois," since it's an adjective?). But Labatt is doing more than just spreading good will on June 24th: it's clearly angling for a bigger market share in Montreal and it is even going so far as to impose itself on a major street fair.
From now until the end of August, Ste. Catherine St. in the Village will be ...
Fringe for free: Wednesday the 18th
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Here is tomorrow's free public Fringe event:
June 18 juin @ 19h00
Dramaturkey: Local playwrights read some of their most embarrassing work (free, in English)
Dramaturkey: Dramaturges locaux vont lire leurs travaux plus embarrassant (gratuit, en anglais)
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: English / français
Photo by sfllaw on Flickr.
Toronto Tuesday : Rooftop fights, New street furniture, and Counterfeit tickets
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // 1 Comment
Rooftop fights, part II : In a bizarre blurring of public and private space, Matthew Blackett offers a "killer view" at rooftop kickboxing. Part II? That's right.
Toronto's new street furniture : Toronto unveils prototypes for it's new street furniture. While the rendered models of the designs have been criticized for quite some time, now is the chance to test and criticize the actual objects.
TTC employee arrested for selling counterfeit tickets : Adult tickets will be phased out by September to combat ongoing counterfeit operations. Counterfeit tickets would amount to, apparently, $300,000 to ...
Solstice tree tours
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? Tree tours of the McGill campus
WHEN? Wednesday, June 18th (French) and Thursday the 19th (English) at 5pm
WHERE? Steps of the Redpath Museum
HOW MUCH $10 adults, $5 students
The longest days of the year are upon us, so what better way to celebrate that than with an evening tour of McGill University's trees? Bronwyn Chester --- whom I wrote about not too long ago --- will be offering two tours this week, one in French, the other in English.
Revered for their size, beauty, wood, healing powers, fruit and flame, certain trees have played important roles ...
June 18th, 2008
Photo du jour: Portuguese pride
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Most neighbourhoods in Montreal have a diversity of flags flying in support of the countries participating in this year's Euro Cup. Not so for the neighbourhood just south of the Chabanel Street garment district. (Does it have a name? Or is it just Chabanel?). As I biked through there on Sunday, there were dozens of Portuguese flags flying from cars, balconies and windows. In fact, every flag that I saw was Portuguese, except for one lonely Turkish flag.
June 15, 2008
Know Hope: Mont Royal
By Kimberley Mok // 2 Comments
By Dave Bergeron and Kimberley Mok
"Know Hope" will be a series of illustrative vignettes exploring and re-imagining Montréal's urban spaces, cultural life and other compelling urban mysteries which are always in the process of unfolding. Psychogeographical* in nature, this series of humourous visual reveries hopes to chart a slightly different map of urban consciousness.
This first installation is a mandala** depicting Mont Royal and her environs, inspired by a daydream of the tam-tams as the locus of intense energy in the city during Sundays, prompting the angel statue to fly off in ...
New recycling bins at the Jean-Talon Market
By Christopher DeWolf // 13 Comments
Last Saturday, as some friends and I wandered through Little Italy in the muggy afternoon, we stopped by the Jean-Talon Market. I noticed that new recycling bins have been installed inside the main market hall --- recycling bins identical to those installed last year on McGill's lower campus. Back then, I praised their ease-of-use and attractiveness and suggested that Montreal install them on its streets. One commenter pointed out a design flaw --- the bins can't be emptied when someone locks their bike to them --- and another suggested that installing them city-wide would be ...
Montreal’s missing beaches
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Beach in Cartierville, on the Rivière des Prairies, around 1910
Nathalie Collard has a column in today's La Presse lamenting the lack of access Montrealers have to their waterways. "Les Montréalais habitent une île, mais n'ont pratiquement pas accès à l'eau. C'est aberrant," she writes. It's true: despite being surrounded by water, including a variety of lakes, basins, channels, rapids and one of North America's great rivers, Montreal is one of the least water-accessible cities I know. Whatever local instinct we once had to head to the water has been quashed by pollution, industry and highways. ...
Fringe for free: Thursday the 19th
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Lots of public events at the Fringe tomorrow, gearing up to the final weekend:
June 19 juin @ 12h00
Indyish Art Marts craft sale (free, bilingual)
Indyish Art Marts vente d'artisanat (gratuit, bilingue)
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
English / français
June 19 juin @ 14h15
Hanging by a Branch: a circus-theater fairytale acrobatics, dance, trapeze and spoken word (free, in English)
Hanging by a Branch: un cirque-théâtre de fées acrobatie, danse, trapèze et de l’oral (gratuit, en anglais)
Starts at Parc des Amériques, ...
June 19th, 2008
Photo(s) du jour: Dance party
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Italian dance party on Dante Street. June 14, 2008
Fringe for free: Friday the 20th
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Today's free Fringe events include one that's not free, but will be held in an interesting public location, the Bain St-Michel on St-Dominique Street. Could be worth checking out.
June 20 juin
Music / Musique (free/gratuit)
Maurice Benjamin @ 14.00
Lee Mellor @ 15h00
The Wells @ 16h00
Rockabillyfillyhamer @ 17.00
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: English / français
June 20 juin @ 14h15
Hanging by a Branch: a circus-theater fairytale acrobatics, dance, trapeze and spoken word (free, in English)
Hanging by a Branch: un cirque-théâtre de fées acrobatie, danse, trapèze et de l’oral (gratuit, en anglais)
Starts at Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel ...
June 20th, 2008
Popolo dans le parc / Popolo in the Park
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
As part of the yearly month-long Suoni per il Popolo music festival held at Casa del Popolo and Sala Rossa, Popolo in the Park takes the famed fest's avant-garde and experimental music outside to Parc Lahaie, located at the corner of St-Laurent and St-Joseph.
The family-friendly afternoon fête features saxophonist Matana Roberts, performers from improv group
Kalmunity Vibe Collective, and Head And Hands Youth.
The ...
Photo du jour: M9
By Chris Erb // 14 Comments
Rear end of the M9 condo development (phase 1) on rue Prince in the Cité Multimédia.
Madness on the Main!
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Main Madness, the giant St. Laurent street fair that stretches from Mount Royal all the way down to Sherbrooke, happens twice a year, but the June edition is always the best. Summer is still fresh and, most importantly, there is always a ton of stuff happening. Along with the street fair itself, there are a number of activities happening along the Main, including Popolo in the Park and the Fringe Festival (check out Julie Fournier's daily updates of free Fringe activities). Here are a few more things that might interest you.
Up the Yangtze: There's ...
Fringe for free: Saturday the 21st
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
June 21 juin @ 12h00
Indyish Art Marts craft sale (free, bilingual)
Indyish Art Marts vente d'artisanat (gratuit, bilingue)
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: English / français
June 21 juin @ 16h00
Drag Races: drag-queen showdown concluding with the crowning of "Queen of the Fringe" (free, bilingual)
Drag Races: Compétition "drag queen", conclure avec le couronnement de "La Reine de la Fringe" (gratuit, bilingue)
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: English / ...
June 21st, 2008
Photo du jour: Odd graffiti
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Atwater metro, June 14, 2008
Fringe for free: Closing day, Sunday June 22nd
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Tomorrow is the closing day of the Fringe. Before they pack up for the year, here are the final day's free public events:
June 22 juin @ 12h00
Indyish Art Marts craft sale (free, bilingual)
Indyish Art Marts vente d'artisanat (gratuit, bilingue)
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: English / français
June 22 juin
Music / Musique (free/gratuit)
Puff & The Pill Poppers @ 14.00
Eric Lawrence @ 15.00
On Bodies @ 16.00
Fraser Macdougall @ 17.00
Parc des Amériques, St-Laurent/Rachel [map]
Link: ...
L’exposition « Hochelaga-Maisonneuve en trois temps » au Château Dufresne
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Carte postale du boulevard Pie-IX vers 1920 (détail)
Peu de gens le savent, mais 2008 marque le 125e anniversaire de l'annexation de la ville d'Hochelaga par Montréal, et aussi du 125e anniversaire de la fondation de Maisonneuve, sa voisine directement à l'Est.
Dans mon unique cours à vie en architecture, au cégep, je me rappelle avoir été présenté l'idée de cette nouvelle bourgeoisie canadienne-française, s'étant bâti une ville moderne à la fin du 19e siècle quelque part dans l'est de Montréal. Je me souviens surtout du Château Dufresne, construit par ...
June 22nd, 2008
Photo du jour: TV in the metro
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Lionel-Groulx station, June 14, 2008
June 23rd, 2008
Photo du jour: North end
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Gouin near Saint-Michel in Ahuntsic. June 15, 2008
Bonne St-Jean!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Tomorrow is the Fête nationale des Québécois or, as everyone who is not the government puts it, la Saint-Jean-Baptiste. I'm not big on national holidays in general but what makes this one so agreeable is that it involves a ton of great public celebrations, including dozens of small-scale neighbourhood parties, in every corner of town. The official Fête nationale website has a comprehensive list, by district, of the celebration. Some are more exciting than others (personally, I'm not willing to get out of bed before noon for face-painting and clowns) but there's at least plenty ...
Montrealers don’t have equal access to pools
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
If you want easy access to a good and spacious pool, you're better off living in the west end or a demerged suburb, La Presse reported on Sunday. There's nothing surprising there---that's often the case with any kind of municipal service---but the disparity in pool access in different neighbourhoods is pretty astonishing:
Après avoir comparé le nombre d’habitants à celui des piscines des arrondissements et des villes reconstituées, on remarque que ces dernières sont nettement avantagées.
Les écarts sont énormes. Dans la petite municipalité de Senneville, on compte une piscine pour 967 habitants. Dans l’arrondissement de Ville-Marie, ...
June 24th, 2008
Photo du jour: St-Jean barbecue
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Barbecue on an apartment terrace behind Park Avenue. June 24, 2004
La rue Ste-Catherine, piétonnière de Berri à Papineau
By Cédric Sam // 4 Comments
Depuis le début de l'année, Spacing vous a proposé quelques articles sur la piétonnisation de la rue Ste-Catherine, entre Berri et Papineau (1 | 2 | 3 - articles en anglais). Voilà que depuis la semaine dernière, des bornes ont été posées, et les terrasses des propriétaires de commerce, allongées, tout au long de l'artère commerciale montréalaise traversant entre autres le Village Gai de Montréal:
Cette portion de la rue Sainte-Catherine Est sera fermée en permanence sauf les deux voies sud de celle-ci ...
Toronto Tuesday: The Bike Film Fest, ROM Rooftop Garden, and What We Think of the Gardiner
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments. Bike Film Festival: This year 17 cities worldwide had the chance to explore a filmic celebration of bikes. This past weekend, the festival’s films graced the screen of The Royal cinema, located on College ...
June 25th, 2008
Photo(s) du jour: Cycling on planks
By Asa Bergman // 3 Comments
Corner of Saint-Denis and De Maisonneuve, looking west.
Corner of Saint-Denis and De Maisonneuve, looking east.
Biking along De Maisonneuve on the recently named Claire-Morissette bike path I noticed the change of surface and the works en cours in the UQAM area, between Sanguinet and Berri. Riding on the planks was pleasant enough, yet made me slow down somewhat, which is what I suppose is the purpose of these planks.
Montreal Ritz Carlton is modernizing
By Nithya Vijayakumar // 7 Comments
CTV reported on Monday that the Ritz-Carlton is getting a makeover! The Ritz finally got the message: it's a little bit frumpy. The solution? Auction off everything old in the rooms and add a modern extension to the almost 100-year old building.
Miscellaneous items for sale.
The auction is June 25-26, but if you have no interest in trying to snag that chair Queen Elizabeth sat on (who are you?) then you can also peruse the items for sale at ...
June 26th, 2008
Shoes in the Sky
By Julie Fournier // 4 Comments
When I began writing for Spacing Montreal I planned to write an exposé on mysterious shoes hanging from power lines. Just a couple of days prior I'd woken up to find a pair of yellow sneakers dangling from lines right in front of my bedroom window, and it had got me thinking about this strange phenomenon.
I asked a few friends what they thought these shoes signified, and heard a hilarious variety of theories of what they marked: drug dens, a speakeasy, gang territory, murder ...
Montreal’s hotel boom
By Chris Erb // 12 Comments
The Gazette reported today that, within the next couple years, Montreal will be home to Canada's first location of the prestigious Waldorf=Astoria Hotel (artist's rendition above) to be built at the corner of Guy and Sherbrooke:
Local real estate company Monit Investments will spend $200 million developing and building the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel & Residence Montreal on what is now a parking lot it owns near Guy and Sherbrooke Sts.
The 32-storey hotel, consisting of twin towers, will be modelled on its namesake on New York City's Park Ave.
Like the Manhattan hotel, the Montreal version will be luxuriously appointed, featuring ...
Photo du jour: Bière froide à la caisse
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Dep at St. Vallier and St. Zotique, Little Italy/Petite Patrie. May 17, 2008
June 27th, 2008
Photo du jour: Football
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Soccer in Jeanne Mance Park. June 14, 2006
Feux d’artifice
By Julie Fournier // 5 Comments
Montreal's annual fireworks festival — properly (and clumsily) named l'International des Feux Loto-Quebec presented by Telus — began last weekend and continues each Saturday (and some Wednesdays) until early August.
The fireworks are shot from La Ronde, and the promoters obviously encourage spectators to buy park admission to watch, but surely there are lots of opportune places all over the city to view the spectacle from without spending any money.
Where do you think is ...
June 28th, 2008
Photo du jour : Sur la piste cyclable
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Cette photo a été prise hier sur la rue Rachel, où passe la principale voie est-ouest cyclable du Plateau Mont-Royal.
McGill University’s Molson & McConnell Halls
By Cédric Sam // 4 Comments
Molson Hall
McConnell Hall
McGill's Molson and McConnell Halls are adjacent to each other, and both located above Molson Stadium. To outsiders, such as myself (a McGill alumni who did not live in residence), the world of student halls is a foreign one, belonging to some parallel universe. These particular staircases have always fascinated me.
Sometime during my undergrad studies, I ventured up the residence area north ...
Some weekend headlines
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
Les cols bleus à la disposition des déménageurs | Moving is a dirty job - for city crews: one of the several down-sides of having a coordinated "moving day", for sure. Yuck.
Critics fear more development at Benny site. NDG citizens worry that the planned construction of a sports complex across from Benny Farm will bring other, less community-minded development.
Later store hours debated | Montreal seeks later hours ...
A couple of cautionary tales
By Julie Fournier // 18 Comments
⋅ Man dies in hit-and-run in Montreal | Délit de fuite mortel | Le conducteur d'un scooter meurt dans un délit de fuite
An SUV hit and killed man on a scooter around 2 am Saturday near St-Laurent and Villeneuve. The SUV driver then dragged the scooter all the way to Rachel and de l'Esplanade. The police later found the vehicle outside a bar in Vieux-Montreal.
What a horrifying story. It's difficult to know what to take ...
June 29th, 2008
Photo du jour: Vacant lot sculpture garden
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
One of my favourite things about the area around the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks in Mile End is that they seethe with life: there's always something going on along them, and often enough, it's something creative. In a vacant lot at the corner of St. Urbain and Van Horne, the artist Glen Lemesurier has created a sculpture garden, a surreal collection of art made from recycled materials. It's a particularly well-located garden, too, located at the end of the CPR bike path at a spot where many people cross over the tracks.
Le Devoir's Odile Tremblay ...
Street party for Spain
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
This morning, my friends---all of them Spain supporters, except for one, who kept quiet---decided to watch today's Euro Cup final between Spain and Germany at the Club Español de Quebec, the unofficial hub of Montreal's Spanish immigrant community. We arrived early, at noon, to secure a table and have lunch, but it was already packed. By the time the game actually started the building was crammed full beyond capacity, the noise of the crowd deafening.
By the 85th minute of the game it became clear that Spain would win; they had scored a goal early on ...
June 30th, 2008
Photo du jour: C.W.A.C.
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Until the 1960s, signs and advertisements were far more loosely regulated than they are today, as you can see in this 1943 photo of Papineau and Mount Royal. (The billboard you see here is for the Canadian Women's Army Corps.)
Close, but no cigar
By Julie Fournier // 2 Comments
I frequently notice that parking posts with bike rings are installed as far out of the way of pedestrians as possible. I don't disagree with this on principle — sidewalks are primarily for pedestrians, and bike parking takes up space. But in many cases, the posts are so close to the buildings that only one bike can be parked at each. On occasion I've wedged my bike between the post and the building successfully, but sometimes my basket makes this impossible.
It seems like just ...
July 1st, 2008
Photo du jour: Happy Moving Day
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Also known in some parts of the country as Canada Day.
Sherbrooke and Ste. Famille, July 3, 2004
Toronto Tuesday: Murmur, the Bike Train, and new maps.
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
Murmur
Since it began in Kensington Market in 2003, the Murmur project has provided Torontonians with a unique way to experience their city. Scattered throughout Toronto's neighborboods are bright green Murmur signs containing a phone number and code. Whoever stumbles upon these ...
July 2nd, 2008
Photo du jour: Verdun Plymouth
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
1960s-era car, triplexes and unusual rowhouses on a sidestreet in Verdun.
September 21, 2002
Some mid-week news
By Julie Fournier // 6 Comments
Night flights to end over Laval, St. Laurent
The agreement, made in 2006, was to merely test night flights over those areas, and the airport has decided not to continue. Lachine will still be seeing the flights until a decision is made there.
When I first moved to Quebec I lived in Ville St-Laurent, a couple of blocks from Cote-Vertu metro, and while regular flights from YUL stop between 1 AM and 7 AM, when they passed my ...
July 3rd, 2008
Photo du jour: Public art
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
As usual, Jeanne Mance Street is closed for the jazz fest, but this year the parking lot on its west side has been replaced by a large construction site for a forthcoming plaza. In the meantime, a portion of the construction hoarding has been turned into a free-for-all mural.
June 26, 2008
July 4th, 2008
Photo du jour: Hasidic celebration
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Bernard Street in Outremont. June 27, 2008
The Moving Day mess
By Christopher DeWolf // 10 Comments
115,000 households packed up and moved on Tuesday, making it quite possibly the single largest instance of a mass moving day in North America. Even on normal days there's a lot of junk left out in Montreal streets and alleys, but nothing compares to the days following July 1st, when thousands of people get rid of surplus or unwanted furniture by simply leaving it for someone else to take.
Needless to say, this creates quite a problem with cleanliness, especially since there is usually several times more trash dumped on the street than actual reusable objects. ...
New life for the Mile End garment district
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
In this week's edition of the Mirror I have an article outlining some of the issues surrounding the city's planned redevelopment of the Mile End garment district. This summer, work will begin on refurbishing the portion of St. Viateur between St. Laurent and de Gaspé; a new sidewalk will also be built on the east side of de Gaspé, where one does not currently exist. Next year, St. Viateur will be extended east from Gaspé to Henri-Julien, and after that a new footbridge will be built over the CPR tracks connecting the area to Rosemont metro. ...
July 5th, 2008
Photo du jour: Outremont evening
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Lajoie and Querbes, June 27, 2008
Weekend news
By Julie Fournier // 10 Comments
4Cyclist hit, dragged by car on St. Denis around 3pm Thursday afternoon. First she was doored, which threw her into traffic, where she was hit and then dragged. She's now in critical condition. A reminder that these things can happen in plain daylight too. I hope she pulls through OK.
4Night-flight plans temporarily grounded | ...
July 6th, 2008
Photo du jour: Park Ex dep
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Dépanneur at the corner of Ogilvy and Durocher in Park Extension.
June 24, 2008
July 7th, 2008
Photo du jour: Cross
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Pine Avenue with the Hôtel-Dieu in the foreground and Mount Royal and its cross behind.
June 22, 2008
Roadsworth’s downtown street stencils
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Who doesn't remember Roadsworth, the artist whose quirky street-and-sidewalk stencils vaulted him into street art stardom in 2004 after he ran into trouble with the law? Since then, Peter Gibson---the artist's real name---has made a living working in a perfectly legal capacity with City Hall and various other public organizations. Last spring, the Commission scolaire de Montréal commissioned him to redesign a concrete schoolyard at Bernard and St. Urbain; in the fall, the Ville-Marie borough invited him to paint a giant chess board at Berri Square.
The fruits of Roadsworth's most recent effort can ...
Jean Talon Market vendors told to quit BBQing
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Restaurants, butchers and other vendors at the Jean Talon Market have been told to stop cooking food outdoors or they will risk a $200 fine. Apparently, the Rosemont---Petite-Patrie borough decided to issue a warning after it received several complaints about barbecue smoke from nearby residents. Here's the full story from the CBC:
Jean Talon Market shop owners warned against grilling food outdoors say they will continue their time-honoured summer practice, despite complaints about the smell.
Several butcher shops at the popular Montreal market have received warning letters from the Rosemont-Petite-Patrie borough informing them the practice of cooking ...
July 8th, 2008
Photo du jour: Bridge to nowhere
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
I distinctly remember walking over this footbridge that links St. Roch in Park Ex to Jarry Park and the tennis stadium on the other side of the train tracks. There's a great view of the tracks and the Parc commuter train station. Now, though, the staircase leading up to the bridge has been destroyed. What gives?
June 24, 2008
Toronto Tuesday: Selling the David Dunlop Observatory, Pride Week, and a lesson from WALL-E
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share with you some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will enable constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities, though we’ll settle for some witty jibes against la Ville reine in the comments.
David Dunlop Observatory Sold
The University of Toronto has announced its plans to sell the David Dunlop Observatory. Located in Richmond Hill, the building was home to the discovery of black holes in the 1970s. This choice was made on the grounds that David Dunlop's memory could be better preserved ...
The hits just keep on comin’
By Julie Fournier // 4 Comments
4Public transit workers okay strike mandate: 'Bargaining tool'; Might walk if wages remain frozen in '07 | It's a safe bet there will be snow on the ground when city drivers walk out. A couple of perhaps-premature scare stories about the idea of a public-transit strike.
4Montreal transit cards sidelined because (oh, Montreal!) they were too confusing to people. The six-trip cards won't be sold again ...
July 9th, 2008
Photo du jour: Ontario Street
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Ontario seen from Valois in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
September 25, 2007
Crosswalk pranks
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Thanks to Fagstein, I've been introduced to Improv Everywhere's new Urban Prankster blog, including its latest post, with video footage of some creative sidewalk pranks in France and Israel.
"I can’t imagine any Montreal driver having such patience. Or, for that matter, stopping at the crosswalk in the first place," he writes, and I would have to agree. How would you pull stunts like these in a city where drivers don't even stop for pedestrians in the first place?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvsYl-MX1HI[/youtube]
July 10th, 2008
Photo du jour: Forgotten wall
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Old wall in a parking lot near Victoria Square. May 28, 2008
Beijing: Public exercise spaces
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Megan Hall, Spacing Toronto's correspondent in Beijing this summer, wrote a very interesting post on public exercise equipment in Beijing's parks and playgrounds. Back in April, I stayed in Beijing for two weeks, and also had the opportunity to discover how Beijingers invested the public spaces to keep in shape. Megan's post inspired me to do a quick search of my own through my photo collection.
For ...
Fantasia and Nomad Circle: outdoor movies this weekend
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Chinatown is the place to be this weekend for all those who like to combine interesting film with public space. (Isn't everything better when you do it outdoors?) In the Parc de la Paix, just outside the Chinatown gates on St. Laurent near René Lévesque, Fantasia is teaming up with the SAT to host a series of movies, music and visual performances. Show up tomorrow night at 9pm and you'll be able to catch some of the best animated shorts shown at last year's edition of the festival. Check out the Fantasia website for ...
July 11th, 2008
Photo du jour: Monsieur Hot Dog
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Old diner sign, now gone, on Sherbrooke near Concordia's Loyola campus.
March 29, 2007
July 12th, 2008
Photo du jour: Dairy Queen
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Dairy Queen on Bellechasse near Christophe-Colomb in Rosemont.
May 17, 2008
The Saturday paper
By Julie Fournier // 1 Comment
4Attention à la dermatite du baigneur. Grossness at lac Mephrémagaog.
4Un homme de 60 ans entre la vie et la mort | Montreal pedestrian in critical condition after being hit by car while crossing against a red light.
4La STM fait la guerre aux fraudeurs. New systems bring new problems.
4...
Montreal’s public washrooms
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
La Presse has taken upon itself to evaluate the state of Montreal's public washrooms. While this might seem, in some respects, like an exercise in summer-brand Journalism Lite, it's actually a pretty important topic. Public toilets are an essential but woefully overlooked aspect of public space, if only because they enable people to actually use that space --- after all, everybody's gotta pee at some point or another, and it just isn't right to expect them to run home or into a private business to relieve themselves. For people who spent most of their time in the ...
July 14th, 2008
Photo du jour: Colonial
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
Montreal is often compared to Boston, in the kind of good twin/evil twin way, but it's rare to find any sort of American colonial architecture here. This corner in NDG is the exception.
July 2, 2008
July 15th, 2008
Photo(s) du jour: Red Light District
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Back in the winter, when Montreal was a completely different city, I interviewed lighting designer Axel Morgenthaler about his work in the Quartier des spectacles. You can see some of his work in front of the SAT, where I found myself last Thursday during Pecha Kucha night.
Toronto Tuesday: Rethinking the suburban arts, the Queen Street Market’s story, and passive-aggressive posters at the AGO
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
An afternoon on Toronto's Center Island.
Exhibition Review
In his review of "Fringe Benefits: Cosmopolitan Dynamics of a Multicultural City," currently showing at Toronto's Design Exchange, Dylan Reid tempts readers to expand the geographical barriers of what they perceive to be Toronto's cultural core. In the second edition of this post, he elaborates on the exhibit's theme of "informal urbanism," looking at how suburban communities transform their space to accommodate their needs.
This Ain't the St. Lawrence Market
Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler takes a look at the history of the Queen Street market- an inconspicuous building on Queen ...
Dancing in the streets
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-2EuNC5ejk[/youtube]
One of my favourite things about summer in Montreal is the sheer abundance of street closures. Of course, they aren't closures at all, they're openings --- streets given over to pedestrians. This past weekend, cars were banned from at least seven areas, including most of the streets in the Latin Quarter, all of Ste. Catherine St. in the Village, Plaza St. Hubert, Crescent St. and, most impressively, the entire two-kilometre stretch of Ste. Catherine from St. Urbain to St. Marc. Although it was pouring rain for most of Sunday, Saturday was a perfect day to get out and explore the ...
July 16th, 2008
Photo du jour: Lonely House
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Towers Street in the downtown west end. July 1, 2008
Mid-week headlines
By Julie Fournier // 4 Comments
4Discrimination raciale: Des agents du SPVM sont blâmés
4Agression dans Côte-des-Neiges: une adolescente se rend
4Road deaths less than in '07: SAAQ but there has been in increase in the last few weeks.
4Moins de journées de smog | Quatre fois moins de smog cet été. I guess that's good news.
4...
Roadsworth, the movie
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Roadsworth's notoriety, already well-entrenched in Montreal and the art world, is about to spread. Director Alan Kohl and the National Film Board have just released a new documentary about Peter Gibson and his imaginative stencil graffiti. Here's the official synopsis to accompany the six-minute trailer you can see above:
Roadsworth: Crossing the Line details a Montreal stencil artist’s clandestine campaign to make his mark on the city streets. As he is prosecuted at home and celebrated abroad, Roadsworth struggles to defend his work, define himself as an artist and address difficult questions ...
Making the ad creeps pay
By Julie Fournier // 1 Comment
In an interesting case from the Pacific Northwest, the city of Portland, Oregon, is suing employment-classifieds site Jobdango for the almost $5500 it cost to remove hundreds of illegal chalk advertisements the company placed on sidewalks last fall. The suit was filed by the city after waiting ten months for the company to pay the fines they were issued.
The September Jobdango ad campaign was essentially a big old middle finger to the city of Portland, ...
Sidewalk-cleaning graffiti
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Guerilla advertising in the form of sidewalk stencils is nothing new---Julie's post below details the city of Portland's lawsuit against one company that made persistent use of this medium, which is illegal---but a series of Telus ads I saw recently on McGill College Avenue struck me as unusual. Instead of being painted on the surface of the sidewalk, the advertisements are actually created by removing dirt from a particularly grimy section of it.
As with most forms of guerilla advertising, this one has its origins in street art: in this case, a peculiar form of ...
July 17th, 2008
Photo du jour: Delivery
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
La Gauchetière near St. Urbain. July 9, 2008
July 18th, 2008
Photo du jour: Canal bridge
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
I have a confession: if I were riding my bike and I came across this bridge, I probably wouldn't dismount either.
Lachine Canal at the Atwater Market, July 8, 2008
July 19th, 2008
Photo du jour: Boxes
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
La Gauchetière at St. Laurent. July 9, 2008
Saturday headlines
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
4Large pothole shuts Turcot ramp in Montreal | Hole discovered in Montreal's Turcot interchange | Travaux d'urgence | Un trou sur l'échangeur Turcot provoque une congestion. This doesn't come as much of a surprise to me, considering the conversation I had with a friend recently about how when we're on the Turcot we just close our eyes and pray we make it to the other side.
4Montreal man charged in sex assaults of 4 prostitutes | Police ask alleged sexual assault victims of ...
July 20th, 2008
Photo du jour: Kien Vinh
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
St. Laurent near La Gauchetière. July 9, 2008
‘Transit freak’ stole Dade buses for kicks
By Julie Fournier // 1 Comment
Here's an odd little story from Florida. On June 1st, an 18-year-old transit fan, James Harris, walked straight past security guards at the Miami-Dade Transit bus depot and selected a bus, which he then used to pick up fares on the 123 South Beach Local route. He was wearing a uniform he'd been given by bus drivers he'd befriended, one of whom later reported him.
While out on bail for burglary and grand theft, Harris took another bus from a different depot. Dispatch used the on-board GPS to locate the bus, ...
Walking Outremont’s parks
By Christopher DeWolf // 11 Comments
On a warm day---or, even better, on a warm night---I like to walk through Outremont. It's one of Montreal's most picturesque boroughs, with streets as orderly and genteel as many of its inhabitants. Like Westmount, Outremont was conceived almost from the beginning as an enclave of the well-to-do. Building codes mandated large setbacks, abundant greenery and the use of high-quality building materials in order to keep housing costs high. Architectural features perceived as unsightly and working-class, like outdoor staircases, were banned.
One happy consequence of all this was that Outremont ended up with a collection of ...
July 21st, 2008
Photo du jour: Strange house
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
I've walked up the block of Rose de Lima between Notre Dame and St. Ambroise many times, but for some reason I only recently noticed this odd house tucked away between two small duplexes. The the entire thing must be no more than 15 feet wide; it appears to be crooked, too, as if it were cowering under the stern glare of the Atwater Market's clock tower.
July 8, 2008
The Gazette wants your transit complaints
By Christopher DeWolf // 22 Comments
The Gazette wants to hear you complain about public transit. Oops, sorry -- I mean it wants you to ask intelligent questions about public transit. That's the goal of a new column that invites questions from readers that will be answered by someone from the STM. In the inaugural edition, one reader asks why the metro car doors close so quickly. "I was caught between the doors about a month ago and thankfully, my backpack took most of the blow. I bore a bruise on my upper arm for almost a month due to this ...
July 22nd, 2008
Photo du jour: Bernard Street, Outremont
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Bernard at Champagneur, Outremont
July 7, 2008
Toronto Tuesday: Streetcars, a San Franciscan on Toronto and a lesson from Shanghai
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
A scene from Streets are for Picnics, held on July 13th.
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts with you from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
TTC suspends streetcar purchases
Toronto’s bright red streetcars are a unique and wonderful part of the city’s character. The current vehicles, however, no longer live up to the Toronto's transportation needs. Last month, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone announced plans for 120 kilometers of new light rail tracks and the addition of new and accessible ...
July 23rd, 2008
Photo du jour: Bernard Street, Mile End
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Bernard at Esplanade, Mile End
July 7, 2008
Mid-week news overview
By Julie Fournier // 2 Comments
Billboards are here to stay, city says. (A proposed bylaw in provincial capital would ban the signs from its territory.)
Opération économie d'essence à la police | New wheels are causing a stir: article includes a Youtube link to show the cops' new T3 Motions in action.
Gay Village is in full party mode - and loving it. This story doesn't mention the objections made by emergency workers earlier in the summer about access, but it does tell us that ...
Montreal in the 1950s and 60s
By Christopher DeWolf // 19 Comments
The NFB is about to release La mémoire des anges, a new film by Luc Bourdon about life in 1950s and 60s Montreal, created by stitching together footage from the NFB's vast archives. If this trailer is any indication, it will be an absolutely fascinating look at a city that, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. The Montreal you see here is brash and cocky, a self-assured metropolis still unaware that it would be forced to suffer a prolonged existential crisis in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
Thanks to Kate ...
Montage du jour : Le cinéma Loew’s
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1924-2008
Vers 1915, l'exploitation cinématographique est en plein essor. Ainsi donc, les cinémas de type «super palaces» conçu pour attirer une clientèle plus aisées firent leur apparition à Montréal.
Construit en 1917, le cinéma Loew's était alors doté de toutes les caractéristique d'un «super palace». On y accédait depuis la rue Sainte-Catherine par un immeuble de faible envergure qui donnait sur un hall tout en longueur. La salle de spectacle était dotée d'un foyer principal orientant la ...
July 24th, 2008
Photo du jour : L’ange
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Dimanche aux tam-tams, le 6 juillet 2008
Treestump Garden
By Sherwin Tjia // 3 Comments
The other day while biking up Laval st. in the Plateau, I passed by this entirely charming reclamation of a treestump. It was obvious that someone had lovingly filled the hollow with black soil and planted this pretty array of flowers and plants. I liked it so much I had to take a picture. Usually I examine stumps very closely out of sheer curiousity. I like to count the rings and figure out how old a tree that big is. Sometimes they have graffiti carved into them. But this discovery was ...
July 25th, 2008
Photo du jour: Mets chinois
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
It's always a delight to find an old sign like this that uses that hilariously clichéd and outdated font, Rickshaw, which surely ranks with Comic Sans as one of the biggest groaners in the world of typefaces.
Sherbrooke Street West in NDG. July 2, 2008
July 26th, 2008
Weekend news
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
4Good news: Raw sewage flows back to right place. City workers say 48 Isle des Soeurs households' toilets were flushing right into the river.
4A greener way to park it. Montreal à Velo holds a "park-in" at a parking spot on Mount-Royal near St-Denis, but got busted after two hours.
4Tornado-like waterspouts seen in Montreal this past Wednesday.
4L'autoroute Ville-Marie encore entravée: "Après la découverte de trois piliers fracturés, des travaux imprévus qui se sont ...
July 27th, 2008
Photo du jour : Autoroute 15, Ville Mont-Royal
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
A subtle stretch of autoroute Décarie (highway 15, between the 20 and 40), which is the main artery bringing traffic to downtown Montreal from the north, belongs in Ville Mont-Royal (Town Mount Royal - or TMR). In fact, few people realize that between what was formerly Ville-St-Laurent (now a borough of Montreal) and Côte-St-Luc, lies a outgrowth of TMR that mostly consists of industries, including Kraft Foods' Montreal factory (it might smell of KD cheese mix when you pass on ...
Policing our parks
By Christopher DeWolf // 19 Comments
In last week's edition of Hour, Jamie O'Meara in last week's Hour touched on the behaviour of Montreal's police in city parks, and in particular their arbitrary enforcement of closing hours, which last from 11pm to 6am in most parks and midnight to 6am in others. (The article has already been taken offline, but you can see a Google cache version here.) I'm willing to bet that most Montrealers have made a late-night excursion into some park or another without any trouble. Every so often, though, an unlucky few are targeted by police, who seem ...
July 28th, 2008
Photo du jour: Laneway soccer
By Chris Erb // 6 Comments
Two kids try to play a couple more minutes of soccer in a Villeray alley before yet another unexpected rainfall forced them inside.
Photo taken July 20, 2008
A trip to Montreal East
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
Earlier this month, Montreal City's Kate McDonnell took a trip with her friend Ben Soo to Montreal East, where they poked around the vast industrial areas that make up most of the small, overlooked town on the east end of Montreal Island. Kate posted some shots on Urbanphoto and wrote a bit about the place:
There’s always a tang of sulphur in the air from the hydrocarbon cracking. The streets are in poor shape and the sidewalks rudimentary: people mostly don’t walk here, they drive to and from work, and big tanker trucks ...
July 29th, 2008
Photo du jour: Harper sucks!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Graffiti in an alley on the eastern Plateau, near Papineau and Mount Royal.
June 9, 2007
Toronto Tuesday: The Igor Effect, rising ROM prices and instant downtowns
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
The Igor Effect
Discourse on bike security has snowballed in the Toronto media since the recent arrest of Bicycle Clinic owner Igor Kenk. Police found Kenk's shop to be filled with stolen bikes, and have found thousands of bikes connected to his business hidden in warehouses around the city. Dylan Reid argues that this event and the publicity surrounding it could lead to a major change in Toronto's bike security, if the community seizes this opportunity.
The ROM- How much is too much?
The ROM's alluring exterior may attract potential visitors, but its recent admission ...
Neighbourhoods of Canada, unite!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Not too long ago I picked up a copy of an interesting little zine, Savfaire, from the counter of a Mile End boutique. Now, with the launch of its second issue, featuring a cover illustration by Jack Dylan, I'm even more intrigued.
Based in Vancouver, but loaded with contributions from Toronto and Montreal, Savfaire has turned its attention to the neighbourhoods of those three cities, travelling all the way from Park Ex to Mount Pleasant via NDG, Rexdale and Gastown, among others. Even Beaconsfield gets a nod with ...
Mount Royal by bike — at night
By Christopher DeWolf // 8 Comments
For years, I ignored the brooding hulk of Mount Royal at night, pausing only occasionally to contemplate the shape of its silhouette or the glow of the cross atop it. It was only recently that I actually began to venture onto the mountain after dark, well after most park-goers head home, and when the woods become especially dark and spooky. Sometimes I would head up to its lower reaches, alone or with friends, to lie on the grass, drink some beer and look out over the city. On a couple of occasions, I biked all the ...
Montage du jour : La caserne d’incendie #16
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1896-2008
Cette caserne d'incendie située au coin des rue Rachel et Amherst fut construite en 1894.
July 30th, 2008
Photo du jour: Place d’Armes metro
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Corner of Viger and St. Urbain, just outside Place d'Armes metro.
July 24, 2007
Montage du jour : La rue Notre-Dame
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1890-2008
La rue Notre-Dame avant et après le prolongement vers le sud du boulevard St-Laurent.
Mid-week headlines
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
4Artificial soccer turf a health hazard, Jeanne-Mance Park users say [CBC.ca]
4Le tarif réduit passera par l'Opus [Radio-Canada.ca] | La STM cible d'abord les étudiants pour la carte OPUS [La Presse] | Les étudiants feront l'essai de la carte Opus [LCN] | New student bus passes useless to thieves [Montreal Gazette]
4Woman killed by bus [Montreal Gazette] Not many details, but the incident ...
Bike movies every Friday in August
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Kate Molleson, who runs the Gazette's On Two Wheels cycling blog, received an email last week telling her about a series of bike-themed movies that will take place every Friday evening for the rest of the summer. Last Friday's movie was Les Triplettes de Belleville and there are a number of other great films that will be screened in August.
Each night will begin with a group ride leaving from Parc de la Bolduc (Rachel + Berri) at 8:45 pm. Email me at jacques_gallant@hotmail.com for info, if looks like it might rain, or to ...
Get your bus schedules on the fly
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
Students will start getting their Opus cards soon, but for those who have snapped up Apple's iPhone, perhaps from the shiny new Apple Store on Ste. Catherine Street, will get to play with a new transit-related application. STM Mobile, available for download from Apple for 99 cents, is an attractive and interactive timetable for the STM's bus and metro lines. As Fagstein notes, however, the poor saps who are still using humdrum mobile phones can always turn to busmob.com, a lightweight website that also contains timetable information.
If you're one of ...
July 31st, 2008
Photo du jour: Supermarket
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
St. Laurent near La Gauchetière. October 9, 2005
Notes from Calgary: Scramble!
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
I'm in Calgary at the moment, en route to Hong Kong, where I will be doing a master's degree for the next couple of years. This is a fast-growing, fast-changing city, and there are a couple of interesting changes that I noticed while I was here. One of them is the introduction of two new scramble crossings in the Eau Claire neighbourhood of the city's downtown area.
Often associated with Tokyo's famous Shibuya Crossing, scramble crossings are in fact a North American invention, originating in Kansas City and Vancouver in the 1940s. Basically, the ...
Spacing Montreal wants YOU!
By Spacing // 2 Comments
It's been a little over a year since Spacing Montreal was officially launched. Since then, our readership has grown quickly, to nearly 2,000 unique visitors per day, and we've tackled a number of topics that were under-represented or absent in Montreal's media. Soon, though, a number of Spacing contributors will move on: Thomas Bernard-Kenniff is leaving for London, Christopher DeWolf is moving to Hong Kong and Misha Warbanski has already left for Whitehorse. We need new people to fill their shoes.
Spacing Montreal is dedicated to covering all aspects of public space and public life in ...
Spacing Montréal cherche des collaborateurs !
By Spacing // 3 Comments
Spacing Montréal a tout juste célébré son premier anniversaire de fondation cet été. Depuis lors, notre lectorat s'est élargi rapidement pour atteindre les 2000 visiteurs uniques par jour, et avons couvert plusieurs sujets alors sous-représentés ou encore juste absent des médias montréalais. Malgré cela, quelques uns des collaborateurs de Spacing partiront bientôt sous d'autres cieux : Thomas Bernard-Kenniff s'en va à Londres, Christopher DeWolf déménagera à Hong Kong et Misha Warbanski est déjà partie à Whitehorse. Nous avons besoin de gens qui prendront leur place.
Spacing Montréal est dédié à couvrir tous les aspects de l'espace public et ...
Montage du jour : La rue St-Antoine depuis le champs-de-mars
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1983-2008
“Pedestrian Modern” : Conférence au CCA ce soir
By Thomas-Bernard Kenniff // No Comments
QUOI: conférence Pedestian Modern par David Smiley
OÙ: CCA, 1920 rue Baile, métro Guy-Concordia
QUAND: 31 juillet 2008, 18h
RÉSERVATION NÉCESSAIRE! Appeler au 514 939 7001 x. 1409
Le Centre Canadien d'Architecture présente Pedestrian Modern: Stores, Shopping Centers and American Architecture, 1950, une conférence donnée par David Smiley, maître assistant d'architecture et études urbaines au Collège Barnard de l'Université Columbia.
La plupart des histoires architecturales du modernisme présentent les magasins et les centres commerciaux comme des entreprises secondaires, compromises et circonscrites, dépourvues de pertinence professionnelle ou disciplinaire.
Pedestrian Modern montre en revanche que les projets de vente au détail, petits et grands, ...
August 1st, 2008
Photo du jour: Liquidacion final
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
St. Laurent near Mount Royal. May 18, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Peel depuis la rue St-Jacques
By Guillaume St-Jean // 9 Comments
Vers 1935-2008
August 2nd, 2008
Photo du jour: Khadija Assad
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Concert poster on Jean-Talon near Papineau.
May 21, 2007
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke depuis la rue Simpson
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1966-2008
L'église unitarienne située au coin des rues Sherbrooke et Simpson fut détruite lors d'un incendie allumé par un pyromane le 24 mai 1987. Les maisons en rangée situées autrefois à l'est de l'église furent quant à elles remplacées en 1966 par un immeuble de 33 étages nommé le Port Royal.
Près de 20 ans plus tard, les ruines de l'église furent démolies et une luxueuse tour de 12 étages comprenant 36 unité de condominiums est actuellement en construction sur le ...
Hydroelectricity’s Landscape
By Alanah Heffez // 5 Comments
Les Escaliers des Géants: Spillway of the Robert Bourassa Hydroelectric Dam. Photo by Lily Pan, June 24th 2008. Used with permission.
1300 kilometers north of Montreal, I have reached the end of the road.
To the west, the town of Radisson perches below the Robert Bourassa (LG-2) hydroelectric complex, buzzing under a thick forest of electrical towers. To the east, towards James Bay, lies the infamously displaced Cree community of Chisasibi.
Montrealers have all, indreictly, had a hand shaping the landscape of this remote hinterland. Our city is connected to this place by a direct lifeline or, more precisely, by over 60,000 kms of aluminum powerlines.
Second-hand happiness in a tiny, tiny park
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
I doubt many people think of the Parc du Bonheur d'occasion as a park. A small plaza, sure, or maybe a glorified bus stop, but not a park. Sure enough, though, this small triangle of greenery, at the corner of Rose de Lima and Notre Dame streets in St. Henri, is an officially designated park, and one named after a particularly important work of Canadian literature to boot.
In today's Gazette, I take a look at this park and ask city officials why it even exists. Turns out that the folks in City Hall, as helpful as they ...
August 3rd, 2008
Montage du jour : Le théâtre du nouveau monde
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1960-2008
L'édifice moderne que nous connaissons aujourd'hui s'est passablement transformé depuis sa construction en 1912.
En effet, les lieux servirent de théâtre de 1912 à 1932, de cinéma de 1932 à 1941 et redevinrent un théâtre après 1941.
En 1956, l'acteur Gratien Gélinas acheta la bâtisse et la fit rénover. Le théâtre portait alors le nom de la «Comédie canadienne».
Enfin, le Théâtre du nouveau monde fut totalement remodelé en 1997 afin de répondre aux ...
Photo du jour: Giant rabbit
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Alley near Pine and St. Urbain. June 5, 2008
Norvick, Saint-Laurent
By Mathieu Payette-Hamelin // 5 Comments
Il y a de ces secteurs qui semblent directement sortis d’une autre époque. Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais les quartiers de war time housing m’ont toujours fait cette impression. Norvick, un secteur de ville Saint-Laurent, fait parti de ces ensembles résidentiels construits pendant la Deuxième Guerre par le gouvernement fédéral pour y loger les ouvriers attachés à l’effort de guerre. J’avais déjà visité ce secteur de la ville il y a quelques années, si bien qu’en me promenant sur la piste cyclable longeant la rivière des Prairies, j’ai décidé de ...
August 4th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue McGill college
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1920-2008
La photographie ci-dessus nous présente l'hôtel prince de Galles qui occupait alors les maisons situées aux numéros 17 et 19 de l'avenue McGill college.
En effet, cette rue, autrefois à vocation purement résidentielle, était bordée de part et d'autre de maisons en rangée construites vers 1875.
Photo du jour: Dorchester Square
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Dorchester Square, which is still widely known by its original name, Dominion Square, is set for a makeover. $3.5 million will be invested in giving it, along with the adjacent Place du Canada, "a little contemporary twist," according to one landscape architect working on the project. Something tells me the picnic tables that currently dot the squares will be scrapped.
August 5th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’église Baptiste de l’oratoire
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1910-2008
L'église Baptiste de l'oratoire, probablement démolie au cours des années 1960, occupait en 1910 les numéros civiques 14 à 20 de la rue Jeanne-Mance.
This weekend~cette fin de semaine: 2008 Fête Bio-Paysanne
By Julie Fournier // 2 Comments
Cette fin de semaine, de vendredi à dimanche, La Tohu (une organization qui est associer avec l'École nationale de cirque) sera l'hôte de la cinquième édition de la Fête Bio-Paysanne.
Je n'ai pas y allé encore mais cette année je suis heureux d'y aller. La site Web à beaucoup des détails qui je ne vais pas raconter içi, mais attendez le marché, échantillons alimentaires, animaux de ferme, visites guidées du Complexe environnemental de Saint-Michel, et plus. J'espère que le méteo sera coopérer!
Maintenant, je voudrais savoir comment y aller en ...
Photo du jour: Porte cochère
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Looking through a porte cochère into a St. Henri courtyard.
July 8, 2008
Toronto Tuesday: Beijing, poor tree planting and Old Markham
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Beijing’s central axis
Beijing correspondent Megan Hall traces the development of the city’s central axis from its earliest buildings to the erection of the Water Cube and the Birds nest, designed specifically for the Beijing Olympics.
Tree Neglect
Despite the fact that raised concrete planters are some of the worst homes for trees, they are found all over the city of Toronto. Matt Blackett takes a look at one particular patch of trees that have clearly not benefited from the numerous torrential downpours that have made this the wettest Toronto summer in recorded local history ...
Tree Tuesday: The Amur Maple
By Bronwyn Chester // 6 Comments
Editor's note: We're pleased to introduce a new weekly column by the writer and tree enthusiast Bronwyn Chester. Each Tuesday, Bronwyn will guide Spacing Montreal readers around the trees of Montreal; if you're keen to know more, she also offers regular tree tours of Montreal's parks and neighbourhoods. We'll post details before each tour.
Welcome to the first week of Tree Tuesday, an offshoot of Spacing Toronto’s column of the same name. Like Todd Irvine of Toronto Tree Tours, I’m convinced that knowing more about our silent, woody neighbours makes life in the city just ...
“Tempest in a beer cup”
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
The Globe and Mail turned its attention to the summer pedestrianization of Ste. Catherine St. in the Village today, focusing in particular on the controversy over the local merchants' association's requirement that all of the street's bars, café and restaurants serve only Labatt's products on their terrasses. It includes a couple of quotes from yours truly, along with some interesting comments from Steve Davies, VP of the New York-based Project for Public Spaces.
Across North America, summer festivals run by private entities take over parks and streets, often with exclusive rights to allow access and to sell ...
August 6th, 2008
Photo du jour: Filles
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
School on Côte des Neiges Road. July 12, 2008
Montage du jour : La caserne d’incendie #10
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
La caserne d'incendie numéro 10 était autrefois située sur la rue Sainte-Catherine près de l'intersection de la rue Guy. Un immeuble à logements construit en 1935 occupe aujourd'hui les lieux.
Beijing’s Nanluogu Xiang: hutongs for tourists
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
For the entire first week of my two-week stay in Beijing last April, my host, an American-Chinese living in Beijing, has been chanting me praises of Nanluogu Xiang (Nanluogu Lane or 南锣鼓巷 in Chinese characters), a narrow alleyway (also called "hutong") typical of Beijing, at the heart of the city, now lined with trendy shops and Western-style cafés catering to an expat and tourist crowd.
Nanluogu Xiang is located on Beijing's central axis, described by Spacing Toronto's Megan Hall ...
Bubble battle this Saturday
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Flashmob and urban prank enthusiasts will want to head down to Phillips Square on Saturday, where a mischievous/playful group of people will be staging a "bubble battle" at 4pm. Here's more information from the event's Facebook page:
This Saturday, come blow bubbles with us at Phillips Square. Watch people's eyes light up as millions of bubbles soar majestically through the air. Bring friends, cameras and, of course, what you need to create bubbles
I guess that's all there is to it. Don't forget to bring your bubbles.
via Fagstein
Photo of bubble battle in New York by MacRonin47
August 7th, 2008
Photo du jour: Rainy days
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Ogilvy Street in Park Ex. July 22, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Antoine depuis la Place Jean-Paul Riopelle
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1900-2008
The Greek goddess at Pine and Park
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Last year, Montrealers were invited to share their visions for the new Pine/Park interchange. Eventually, something will be done with the two parcels of land straddling Park Avenue just south of Pine, but for the time being, they are sitting empty, covered with turf and nothing else. Glen Lemesurier, the Mile End artist whose sculpture garden along Van Horne Avenue, next to the CPR tracks, has won him a lot of attention, was fed up with the dilly-dallying, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. Earlier this week, he installed a sculpture made from ...
August 8th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’édifice Roger & King
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1891-2008
Le mur avant de cet édifice construit vers 1885 est maintenant devenu un bel exemple de façadisme. En effet, ce dernier fut intégré au Palais des congrès lors de son expansion.
Photo du jour: Gassing up
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Gas station at Sherbrooke and Jeanne-Mance. July 16, 2008
August 9th, 2008
Photo du jour: Down the hill
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
St. Urbain at Sherbrooke. July 16, 2008
The weather sucks, here’s some news
By Julie Fournier // 2 Comments
4Montreal's Chinatown Olympics celebration not hampered by cloudy skies | Cérémonies d'ouverture: Les yeux rivés sur Pékin The Olympics will be broadcast live at Sun Yat-Sen Park from 10am-10pm every day right up to the closing ceremonies.
4Agression sauvage sur un itinérant Awful.
4Guerre confirmée avec la mafia
4Cellulaire au volant: 1700 contraventions à Montréal This is interesting news. I was just thinking the other day while witnessing guy talking on his phone while ...
Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in Montreal Chinatown
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
On Friday morning, I went to Chinatown to watch the opening ceremony to the 2008 Olympic Games. Sun Yat-sen park was full by 7:45AM, when I arrived. As soon as the speeches were done, there was a lion dance, before the organizers switched off the mute button on the Radio-Canada Television feed. The crowd naturally reacted with ohs, ahs and applause to the best parts of the initial choreography, like the switch blocks that formed the ancient and modern representations ...
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine depuis la rue Guy
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1909-2008
August 10th, 2008
Photo du jour: Van Horne shadows
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Van Horne at Waverly. July 11, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison Shaughnessy
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Vers 1924-2008
La maison Shaughnessy, composée de 2 résidences construites en 1874 est maintenant intégrée au Centre Canadien d'architecture. Lors des travaux de transformation en musée, l'ajout construit en 1897 sur la maison est fut malheureusement démoli. Cette partie comportait à l'origine, 2 chambres de domestiques au sous-sol ainsi qu'un cellier, une salle de billard au rez-de-chaussée, 1 chambre à l'étage et enfin, 2 chambres additionnelles au 3e niveau.
L’Institut Marie-Clarac, un ensemble moderne à Montréal-Nord
By Mathieu Payette-Hamelin // 2 Comments
C’est entre le boulevard Gouin et Henri-Bourassa, juste à l’est du boulevard Saint-Michel, que se situe l’Institut Marie-Clarac, l’un des plus intéressants exemples d’architecture moderne de l’arrondissement de Montréal-Nord. Composé d’un hôpital, d’une école et d’un couvent, cet ensemble conventuel fut construit entre 1963 et 1965 pour la congrégation des Sœurs de la Charité de Sainte-Marie par l’architecte Pierre Cantin.
C’est en plein boom immobilier que Cantin conçoit l’ensemble sur un terrain bordant la rivière des Prairies. S’il était à l’origine l’un ...
August 11th, 2008
Photo du jour: Faces
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
In the alley behind St. Michael's Church, near St. Viateur St., July 10, 2008
Montage du jour : Le cinéma Rivoli
By Guillaume St-Jean // 10 Comments
Vers 1984-2008
Construit en 1926, le cinéma Rivoli ferma ses portes en 1982. Le somptueux décor intérieur fut alors démoli et remplacé par les étagères métallique d'une pharmacie.
Scenes from away
By Christopher DeWolf // 3 Comments
Early in 2007, when the city was under cover of snow, somebody stapled pictures of lush gardens and inviting squares onto the wooden hydro poles around Mile End. "This is where we make good on life," it was written below one of the photos. It was a nice gesture, reminding us that gentler weather was ahead, and perhaps commenting in on the state of our public spaces by showing examples of good urban design.
Last month, the same person (or maybe just an imitator) stapled new photos around Mile End. This time, though, they depict ...
Radiant City
By Catherine Vandermeulen // No Comments
DocVille is presenting Radiant City at Cinema du Parc Thursday the 14th @ 19:00. Christopher Gobeil a spokesperson for the Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown will be moderating a debate after the screening.
DocVille présente "Radiant City" au Cinéma du Parc Jeudi le 14 @ 19h00. La projection sera suivie d'un débat avec Christopher Gobeil, porte-parole du Comité pour le sain redéveloppement de Griffintown.
Pour plus d'information - For more information: http://www.ridm.qc.ca/fr/accueil.html
August 12th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le théâtre Monkland
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Vers 1984-2008
Construit en 1929, le théâtre Monkland, qui comportait alors 1500 places fut le premier théâtre au Canada à être conçu spécialement pour le cinéma parlant. En 1985, l'intérieur du théâtre fut totalement détruit et l'édifice est utilisé depuis à des fins commerciales.
Toronto Tuesday: A sacred tree on Queen, the Igor saga continues, and a pomo promo
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
A Sacred Tree on Queen
In response to the mysterious destruction of a tree stump on Queen Street that has functioned as a canvas for public graffiti, Matthew Backett asks Spacing readers what should take its place.
What should be done with Igor's bikes?
A couple of weeks ago I summarized an article about infamous Toronto bike thief Igor Kenk. This week Dylan Reid puts forth ...
Photo du jour: Strange shrine
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Toronto just lost its beloved "graffiti tree" on Queen Street West, but we still have our... whatever it is. I came across this strange collection of flowers, stuffed animals, Christmas decorations and magazine clippings in Little Italy, near Dante Street. I have no idea if it's maintained permanently or if it was a one-off thing. Either way, it's pretty oddball.
Incredible online map collection
By Julie Fournier // No Comments
The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, started in the 1980s and digitized gradually over the last 10 years, now has over 18,000 maps available online.
One of the maps, Montreal 1815, can be overlaid with varying transparency on Google Maps to demonstrate the tiny boundaries of 1815 Montreal compared to today's metropolis.
There are so many ways to view this massive collection I can't even begin to make a recommendation (the site itself could use some maps) so start at the home page and ...
Our friend, Côte-de Liesse
By Julie Fournier // 1 Comment
I had an opportunity to spend some time on l'Autoroute de la Côte-de-Liesse on foot one rainy day last week. Don't ask — just trust that I sometimes make decisions like these on very little sleep.
The picture I posted not only depicts the industrial/commercial blight one is immersed in on Côte-de-Liesse, but somehow also captures the emotional state the area imposes on a pedestrian. So far as I could tell, everything is walkable — sidewalks line the road, and where cross-streets ...
Tree Tuesday / Le mardi des arbres: The American elm (Ulmus americana, Orme d’Amérique)
By Bronwyn Chester // 8 Comments
Many thanks for the warm reception of last week’s inaugural column. One thing I forgot to mention was that the language of the column will alternate from week to week. Alors, la semaine prochaine, cherchez Le mardi des arbres.
Tree Tuesday reader “Sid” wondered about the fate of the elm in Montreal. Was the iconic parasol-shaped tree of farmers’ fields and grand city streets wiped out by Dutch elm disease? As you will conclude from this photo taken at the corner of McTavish and Dr. Penfield streets: No, not completely. The elm – the American elm that ...
August 13th, 2008
Photo du jour: Concrete and glass
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Concordia's EV building and an apartment building behind it.
September 13, 2005
Montage du jour : L’hôpital Royal-Victoria
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Vers 1920-2008
Il fut un temps où les aires de stationnements publics n'existaient pas...
What to make of the Montreal North riots?
By Christopher DeWolf // 26 Comments
[youtube]uZ_kgFcFGy8[/youtube]
Montreal is no stranger to riots. Over the course of its history, it has seen political riots, sports riots, nationalist riots and punk riots. From 1844 to 1849, Montreal was the capital of a united Canada, but imperial authorities stripped it of that status after rioters (most of them conservatives angry over the supposedly light punishment given to the 1838/39 rebels) trashed and burned down the colonial parliament. A little over a century later, Montrealers angry over the suspension of Maurice Richard left Ste. Catherine St. in tatters; the Richard Riot, as it was known, signalled the dawn of the ...
“Point de rencontre” in Cabot Square
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
WHAT? "Point de rencontre," an artistic intervention in Cabot Square
WHERE? Cabot Square, corner of Ste. Catherine and Atwater
WHEN? August 1st through 15th 2008, between 9:30 AM & 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM & 4:30 PM
DON'T MISS! Picnic and vernissage, August 15th 2008, between 6:00 PM & 9:00 PM
Dare-Dare, the artist-run centre that made great use of its site in Mile End's "Park With No Name," has decamped for the west end of downtown, where it is now occupying Cabot Square. "Point de rencontre," an artistic intervention that will take place until Friday, when it will ...
Public underwear art battle on Thursday
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
WHAT? Lunchtime art battle against cancer
WHERE? Victoria Square
WHEN? Thursday, August 14th, between noon and 2:30pm
An underwear-themed "art battle" will take place in Victoria Square tomorrow afternoon to raise awareness about "cancers below the waist" (such as prostate, colorectal, cervical and ovarian) and to benefit the Jewish General Hospital's research on those cancers.
Several noted Montreal artists are squaring off in an “art battle” to raise awareness about the Segal Cancer Centre’s Underwear Affair. Local artists, Arnaud Bayssett, Stephanie Bush, Dana Dale Lee, and Peter Farmer will be painting large pairs of underwear on canvasses right before ...
“Hampstead still hates the environment”
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Back when areas like the Plateau were considered old, decrepit and nasty, rather than trendy and desirable, a number of affluent suburbs did all they could to distance themselves from the working-class neighbourhoods downtown. One popular move was to ban clotheslines, which were considered unsightly and indicative of poverty --- after all, only those who couldn't afford dryers would hang their clothes outside.
Now, of course, it's well-understood that dryers are inefficient energy hogs and clotheslines are a perfectly effective and energy-saving way of drying clothes. In fact, drying clothes in the sun actually has ...
August 14th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’église Saint-Jacques
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
August 15th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke depuis la rue Sainte-Famille
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1955-2008
Up the Yangtze encore at the Forum
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
If you didn't get a chance to catch Montreal filmmaker Yung Chang's excellent documentary, Up the Yangtze, it will begin an encore run at the AMC Forum starting tonight, screening daily at 2:30, 5:00, 7:40 and 10:15.
Back by popular demand, Up the Yangtze will return to theatres this Friday August 15 for an open run at Montreal’s AMC Forum. The epic documentary provides another face to China not shown during the Olympic Games, exploring the lives of people living along the Yangtze River, forced to deal with flooding from the ...
Photo du jour: Vive la Commune!
By Chris Erb // 5 Comments
Corner of St-Hubert and Faillon, Villeray.
August 16th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’édifice du crédit foncier franco-canadien
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1911-2008
L'édifice du crédit foncier franco-canadien, construit entre 1907 et 1908 était autrefois situé aux coins des rues St-Jacques et St-Laurent. Cet immeuble dont les pierres furent importées des carrières de l'Indiana fut démoli à la fin des années 1960 pour être remplacé par la place de la justice.
Photo du jour: Satan’s gas station
By Chris Erb // 4 Comments
Gas station under construction at Beaubien Rosemont and Christophe-Colomb.
August 17th, 2008
Montage du jour : La synagogue Chevra Kadisha
By Guillaume St-Jean // 9 Comments
Vers 1914-2008
Construite en 1903, la synagogue Chevra Kadisha, fréquentée par les juifs d'origine Polonaise se trouvait autrefois sur la rue St-Urbain, juste au sud du théâtre Gayety, aujourd'hui le TNM. Elle fut malheureusement détruite lors d'un incendie en 1920.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/VIEW-10760§ion=196
VIEW-10760
Église Sainte-Germaine-Cousin, Pointe-aux-Trembles
By Mathieu Payette-Hamelin // 4 Comments
L’église Sainte-Germaine-Cousin, située dans l’arrondissement de Pointe-aux-Trembles, constitue sans aucun doute l’un des exemples d’architecture religieuse moderne les plus intéressants de l’île de Montréal. Construite par l’architecte Gérard Notebaert, elle se démarque par l’audace de ses formes ainsi que par sa forme pyramidale.
Cette église, qui fut construite entre 1960 et 1962, témoigne du renouveau de l’architecture des églises du Québec. Après le concile Vatican II, tenu à la fin des années 1950, l’architecture religieuse connaît une intense période d’expérimentation. C’est dans ce contexte d’exploration que Notebaert construit ...
August 18th, 2008
Photo du jour: Ad scooter
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
Maybe the companies that run ad trucks down the city's major streets finally realized how wasteful that was --- it now seems that at least some of them have switched to scooters. Kate McDonnell snapped this photo last week. "Two of these things zipped past me yesterday on Saint-Viateur," she wrote. "They may be slightly less damaging to the environment than the ones using pickup trucks, but they're just as ugly. And they're recruiting, so expect to see more.
Montage du jour : L’édifice de la compagnie Montréal Light Heat and Power
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1910-2008
Cet immeuble se situait aux coins des rues St-Antoine et St-Urbain.
On second thoughts, don’t bike here
By Alanah Heffez // 8 Comments
Photo taken Aug 14th, 2008 on De Maisonneuve near Vendome Metro.
It seems that the city has realized that white paint and good intentions alone do not guarantee cyclists' safety on the streets.
The bike chevrons indicating cyclists' right of way been blacked out along de Maisonneuve between Décarie Blvd and Claremont Ave. I'm hoping that those dotted lines are the first sign of a more enlightened plan for the hundreds of cyclists who commute downtown along this path each ...
Island life in Hong Kong
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
HONG KONG --- One of my favourite things about Hong Kong is its geographic diversity. In an area of just 1,100 square kilometres --- about twice the size of Montreal Island --- you'll find astoundingly dense urban areas, rural villages, country parks, mountains and dozens of islands. The islands are particularly noteworthy. Traditionally home to fishing villages, many are now laid-back escapes from the stress of city life, car-free and connected to the rest of the world only by ferries and the damp sea breeze.
Earlier this year, when I was last in Hong Kong, my girlfriend and I caught a late-afternoon ferry to Cheung Chau, a small but densely-populated island. Its name means "Long Island" in Cantonese and, on a map, you can spot it by its barbell-like shape: two chunky and misshapen pieces of land linked by a narrow isthmus. The ferry from Central, which takes about 30 minutes, brings you right to the heart of the isthmus, on which the bulk of Cheung Chau's population lives. On one side is a busy fishing harbour; on the other, a sandy beach.
The first thing you notice about Cheung Chau is the lack of cars. The island has been inhabited by centuries and most of its development has taken the form of tightly-packed buildings, few of them taller than three stories, set along narrow, winding streets. Pedestrians and bicycles rule the island; the only motorized vehicles are little gas-powered trucks used by the fishing industry and tiny electric police cars, fire trucks and ambulances. Coming from central Hong Kong, where bikes are used only by deliverymen, it's a pleasant surprise to find a community where they form an essential part of daily life. Hundreds of bikes are parked all along the waterfront promenade, and nobody bothers locking them, presumably because there's nowhere a thief could take them; anyone caught surreptitiously loading bikes onto a boat would probably be viewed with suspicion, to say the least.
August 19th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le bain Morgan
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1916-2008
Le bain Morgan, situé sur l'avenue Morgan fut construit en 1915.
Bien que l'extérieur soit resté le même, l'intérieur à quant à lui subit de nombreuses transformations depuis ses débuts.
Plusieurs éléments décoratifs intérieurs tels que des colonnes ainsi que les douches et bains privés qu'utilisaient autrefois les travailleurs des usines du quartier furent retirés en 1962. De plus, afin de mieux répondre aux besoins des familles d'aujourd'hui, l'édifice à subit une nouvelle cure de rajeunissement en 2005.
Bref, le bain Morgan est peut-être devenu ...
Photo du Jour: Free-for-all
By Chris Erb // No Comments
In April, a massive fire destroyed this apartment building on ave des Pins forcing over 100 people to move and rebuild their lives elsewhere. Since then, the windows have been boarded up and a huge blue tarp covers the top floor. However, the building's vacancy and the ample balconies running the entire length of the building have since created an easy blank slate for graffiti writers.
Photo taken August 15th, 2008.
Tree Tuesday/Les arbres du mardi : Le temps des cerises; le merisier, Prunus pensylvania, Pin cherry
By Bronwyn Chester // 2 Comments
Bonjour du Bas-du-fleuve où je suis en vacances. Avant de vous parler de l’arbre de ce mardi, le merisier, j’ai quelques commentaires par rapport à l’arbre du mardi dernier, l’orme d’Amérique. Bien des lecteurs avaient des souvenirs des ormes à raconter. Charles, de Côte-des-Neiges, a écrit qu’un des plus grands ormes à Montréal se trouve au Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. Adam nous a rappelé que les ormes de Winnipeg sont encore nombreux à 200 000 et en bonne santé. Là-bas la maladie des ormes est arrivée seulement en 1975 tandis qu’à Montréal c’était en 1944, première ville atteinte ...
Toronto Tuesday: Streetcar turnaround, Atwood’s Toronto and the “Hug Me” tree
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Streetcar turnaround
According to the New York Times, North American streetcar use is on the rise. Citing the example of Cincinati’s streetcar resurgence, Monica Warzecha writes about the popularity of this time-honored means of urban transportation.
Atwood’s Toronto
Shawn Micallef has posted a link to a travel article on Toronto written in 1982 by Margaret Atwood, housed in the New York Times archives. Providing an account of ...
August 20th, 2008
Montage du jour : La morgue de la rue St-Antoine vue depuis le Champs-de-Mars
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1910-2008
Conçu au départ comme une église méthodiste française, ce bâtiment de pierres située aux coins des rues St-Antoine et Sainte-Élisabeth fut vendu en 1909 à la compagnie H. Bourgie Limitée qui transforma alors l'édifice en morgue.
Photo du jour: Crotch shot
By Christopher DeWolf // 12 Comments
Urbania magazine has had some memorable covers over the years...
St. Laurent near Guilbeault
How much private involvement in our transit?
By Christopher DeWolf // 9 Comments
Yesterday, La Presse revealed that the Agence métropolitaine de transport has awarded a private company a contract to operate two "luxury" express bus lines. One will run between Vaudreuil and Côte-Vertu and another will connect the new Bell Canada campus on Nun's Island with the South Shore. Both routes will feature air-conditioned buses, more comfortable seats and possibly even wifi internet.
L’AMT a confirmé à La Presse, hier, que le consortium Transdev-Limocar s’est vu attribuer pour cinq ans les contrats d’exploitation des nouveaux autobus express qui seront mis en service dès septembre prochain, et dont personne ...
Cities at night from space
By Shawn Micallef // 2 Comments
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEiy4zepuVE[/youtube]
A neat video showing photographs of cities from space with a resolution and quality not seen before. The ability of these rocket scientists to construct a mechanism to cancel out the earth’s orbital movement so the photo does not blur is amazing, though perhaps what one expects from rocket scientists.
If you can’t see it, this is the direct YouTube link.
Via the Creative Class blog.
August 21st, 2008
Montage du jour : Le Baxter block
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1915-2008
Le Baxter Block situé du 3660 au 3712 du côté ouest de la rue St-Laurent fut construit en 1892. Lors de sa conception, l'ensemble devait contenir 28 magasins, des logements aux étages supérieurs ainsi qu'une salle de théâtre de 2500 places. Le projet de théâtre ne vit jamais le jour.
Photo du Jour – Storm brewing over Place D’Armes
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Photo taken August 18th 2008.
August 22nd, 2008
Montage du jour : L’intersection de l’avenue du Parc et des Pins
By Guillaume St-Jean // 11 Comments
2005-2008
L'échangeur des Pins inauguré en 1962, fut démoli en 2005. Celui-ci est désormais remplacé par un tout nouveau carrefour dont l'aménagement, critiqué à maintes reprises, donna lieu à de nombreuses consultations publiques. En effet, tous les projets de nouvelles constructions furent finalement rejetés et le terrain fut transformé en espace vert.
From the NFB archives: 23 Skidoo
By Christopher DeWolf // 5 Comments
23 Skidoo
Julian Biggs, 1964, 8 min 12 sec
"If you erase the people of downtown America, the effect is bizarre, not to say disturbing. That is what this film does. It shows the familiar urban scene without a soul in sight: streets empty, buildings empty, yet everywhere there is evidence of recent life and activity. At the end of the film we learn what has happened."
The National Film Board recently launched a new digital archives, still in beta version, at which you can watch hundreds of films and animations. Through the ...
Main walking tour this weekend
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
WHAT? Walking tour of Mile End's Main
WHEN? Sunday, August 24th from 2pm to 5pm
WHERE Buy tickets at St. Laurent and Marie-Anne today, tomorrow and Sunday
HOW MUCH? $12
If you're heading down to the end-of-summer Main Madness this weekend, you might want to take a break from the crowds to explore a quieter part of the Main: this Sunday, Mile End Memories and Les Amis du boulevard Saint-Laurent will be hosting "The Voices of Mile End’s Main," a walking tour of St. Laurent Boulevard from Mount Royal to Van Horne.
Meet municipal politicians and owners who contributed ...
August 23rd, 2008
Montage du jour : L’hôtel Dominion
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Année inconnue-2008
Cet édifice, actuellement occupé par le Pub Dominion est situé sur la rue Metcalfe.
McGill University’s new life sciences buildings
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
In a past life, I was a university student in biochemistry at McGill University. Toward the end of my degree, there were talks that entrepreneur and scientist Dr. Francesco Bellini (who played a big role in Biochem Pharma, the maker of 3TC, an important drug for treating HIV) would give money to build a brand-new biological research centre at McGill University. The year was 2002.
Fast-forward to mid-2008: the Bellini building and the adjoining Cancer Pavillon ...
Photo du jour: Aiguisage Tony
By Christopher DeWolf // 16 Comments
I still find it amazing that there is a knife sharpener who drives around the city playing ice-cream-truck music.
June 10, 2008
Very local produce
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Please don't squeeze the tomatoes, reads a hand-written sign above a basket of oddly-shaped tomatoes at this veggie stand on Sherbrooke Street West. Stephen Homer, the friendly farmer behind the stand, easily convinced me to put down sixty cents for an organic purple heirloom tomato. He explained that the veggies were cultivated at Ferme du Zéphir, one of the only remaining farms on the Island of Montreal.
Homer divides his time between his home in NDG and an apartment near his farm in the West Island. ...
August 24th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’édifice de la Sun Life
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
Vers 1918-2008
Inauguré en 1918, l'édifice de la Sun Life fut agrandi à maintes reprises depuis ses débuts. L'église Knox situé à l'est de l'immeuble fut démolie et remplacé en 1923 par une nouvelle aile s'étendant jusqu'à la rue Mansfield. En1927, une nouvelle phase d'agrandissement força la démolition de plusieurs résidences le long de la rue Metcalfe. Enfin, la tour de 24 étages débutée à l'automne 1929 fut complétés en 1933.
Photo du Jour – A Good Soaking
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Photo taken July 24th, 2008 in Westmount Park.
August 25th, 2008
Montage du jour : The Young Men’s Christian Association building
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1907-2007
L'immeuble du Y.M.C.A situé au coin des rues René-Lévesque, autrefois Dorchester, et Metcalfe fut démoli en 1914.
Photo du jour: Acadian houses
By Christopher DeWolf // 4 Comments
These houses at the bottom of L'Acadie Boulevard, right next to the metro station, have always struck me as a bit odd. They're completely unlike the rest of the housing stock in Park Ex and, in fact, they don't even look much like Montreal houses at all.
September 24, 2005
Showing the Olympics in Chinatown
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
It's hard to believe that the Olympics are now finished! "F-I-NI, fini", as you would say in the local idioms. This was a picture taken this Saturday of the outdoor presentation of Radio-Canada's coverage of the Beijing Games, from 9 to 9, in Parc Sun Yat-sen at the heart of Montreal's Chinatown. It was a remarkable use of this public space, as people of all ages gathered to watch....
From the NFB archives: Our Street Was Paved with Gold
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
Our Street Was Paved with Gold
Albert Kish, 1973, 28 min 37 sec
"Filmmaker Albert Kish revisits Montreal's St Lawrence Boulevard - the Main - the road from the docks to the heart of immigrant Canada. This is a little Europe, a street of many languages, foods, and small courtesies that make a stranger feel at home. For the filmmaker his prevailing memory is of the seventeen steps of a walk-up apartment, but for all Canadians this film will evoke a shared multicultural experience."
The Main is easily the most nostalgic street in ...
The maybe-not by-election signs in Westmount—Ville-Marie
By Cédric Sam // 11 Comments
These signs are in the order at which each candidate's parties finished in the January 2006 election. Interestingly, none of these candidates ran in this riding during the last general election. According to the latest news, we may not even have this September 8th federal by-election, depending on how the game of chess unfolds this week.
Marc Garneau / Liberal Party...
Event Space / Espace Événements – August 26-31
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Starting in September, I will post a bi-weekly bilingual listing of events around town that explore public art, public space, architecture, urban planning and other favourite Spacing themes. To get things started, here are a few things going on around town this week. If you know of an event that would be of interest to SpacingMontreal readers, please contact me at alanah.montreal @ gmail.com
Débutant en Septembre, je rassemblerai une liste bilingue d'évenements locaux liés à l'art public, l'espace public, l'architecture, l'urbanisme, et les autres thèmes favories de Spacing. En attendant, voici quelques évenements qui auront lieu cette semaine. Si vous ...
Chez Schwartz’s à côté
By Cédric Sam // 10 Comments
Saw this sign two or three weeks ago, but it was only tonight that I had my camera with me to snap a picture. I literally fell down my virtual chair when I saw this sign posted next to Schwartz's. In terms of Montreal food landmarks, there is none other next to Schwartz's and its delicious melt in the mouth smoked meat (always get the large fat), besides maybe La Banquise's poutine or the St-Viateur/Fairmount bagels.
I think that part of Schwartz ...
August 26th, 2008
Photo du Jour – Pénitencier Pour Nains de Jardins Fugitifs
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Photo taken August 24th on Rivard, between Rachel and Marie Anne
Montage du jour : Le monument aux braves de la guerre Anglo-Boer
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1913-2008
Le décor environnant ce monument érigé dans le carré Dorchester s'est totalement transformé depuis la première photographie prise en 1913. En effet, l'ancien édifice du Y.M.C.A. fut démoli en 1914 et remplacé par la suite par celui de la Sun Life.
Toronto Tuesday: Mopeds, a hidden park and Dandyhorse
By Chloe Ellingson // 3 Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Mopeds in Shanghai
In their functionality mopeds are somewhere between bikes and motorcycles. Their batteries are charged electrically and they don’t come with the licensing and safety requirements of larger motor bikes. Having recently spent some time exploring Shanghai by moped, Megan Hall explores the delights and downfalls of the means of transportation, and its absence in Toronto.
Ireland Park
A stroll through the streets of any city is ...
Tree Tuesday: Respecting Our Elders – the Red Elderberry
By Bronwyn Chester // 7 Comments
How can I ever get it together/Without a wife in line/To pick the crop and get me hot/On elderberry wine
Lyrics from Elton John’s Elderberry Wine, 1972
Like the pin cherry/merisier of last week’s column, the red elderberry is in full fruit – at least in the Gaspésie where this photo was taken – and its clusters of tiny, scarlet berries distinguish it from other trees now in fruit. In this photo, for instance, you will notice the difference between the red fruit of the elderberry and the orange berries of the showy mountain ash (sorbier décoratif, ...
August 27th, 2008
Montage du jour : Vue de la ville depuis le Mont-Royal
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Vers 1870-2008
Photo du jour: Mendy’s Boulangerie Homemade
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Victoria Avenue across from Nelson Mendela Park. October 18, 2007
Montage du jour : La Plaza St-Hubert
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1960-2008
En guise de complément à l'article publié en décembre 2007 : «Plaza Saint-Hubert before the green awning»
August 29th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le silo à grain #2
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1912-2008
Construit en 1912, derrière le marché Bonsecours, le silo à grain # 2 était alors décrit dans les journaux comme étant un des plus gros silo du monde. Cet ensemble dont la structure était entièrement conçu en béton armé fut démoli en 1978 suite à l'élaboration du projet : «vue sur le fleuve».
Photo du jour: FFR from above
By Christopher DeWolf // 7 Comments
Farine Five Roses and Point St. Charles from several stories up.
July 16, 2007
August 30th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le square Philips
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Vers 1925-2008
Photo du jour : 24 saveurs de crème glacée molle que vous ne savourerez pas
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Une délicieuse histoire se cache derrière cette vitrine de la rue Sherbrooke Ouest, angle Harvard, dans le coin très anglo de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
Si vous regardez de plus près, vous verrez que des boîtes sont entassées devant, et que finalement, cette crèmerie n'en est plus une depuis plusieurs années. Chris DeWolf a trouvé pourquoi, et raconte sur son blogue que les propriétaires du commerce ont commencé à vendre des sirops pour mettre sur de la crème ...
August 31st, 2008
Montage du jour : Le château Dufresne
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1918-2008
Photo du jour : No garbage: do not feed pigeons please!
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo taken on August 22nd, 2008, on Sherbrooke West, between Wilson and Harvard.
September 1st, 2008
Montage du jour : Le marché Bonsecours
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1892-2008
From the NFB archives: Au Parc Lafontaine
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Au Parc Lafontaine
Pierre Petel, 1947, 6 min 9 sec
Il y a toujours au parc Lafontaine des ours noirs, des renards, des chats sauvages, des oiseaux de proie; il y a toujours des enfants qui s'amusent sous l'oeil attendri des parents, des amoureux qui se croient au pays des rêves et qui tantôt vont manquer leur dernier autobus, des âmes ardentes qui d'un monument à l'autre reconstituent l'histoire du passé. On y rencontre des gens de tous les âges, tous les types, tous les genres, car chaque jour tout Montréal a rendez-vous ...
Centre communautaire de l’Est, Pierrefonds-Roxboro
By Mathieu Payette-Hamelin // 12 Comments
Aujourd’hui, je délaisse un peu les questions de patrimoine pour m’intéresser à un bâtiment contemporain que j’ai récemment découvert. Comme de fait, son inauguration n’a pas encore eu lieu. Il s’agit du centre communautaire de l’Est de l’Arrondissement Pierrefonds-Roxboro.
Ce bâtiment, situé sur le boulevard Gouin Ouest, est implanté sur une partie du parc d’À-ma-Baie, face à la station de train Sunnybrooke. Sa construction, commencée il y a quelques mois, vient tout juste de se terminer. Aujourd’hui, on est d’ailleurs à finaliser les derniers détails avant son ouverture officielle, le 13 septembre prochain....
Event Space / Espace Événements 1 – 15 Sept.
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Spacing Montreal's biweekly, bilingual listing of events around town that explore public art, public space, architecture, urban planning and other favourite Spacing themes. If you know of an event that would be of interest to our readers, please contact me at alanah.montreal @ gmail.com
Voici la liste bilingue des évenements locaux liés à l’art public, l’espace public, l’architecture, l’urbanisme, et nos autres thèmes favories publié sur Spacing Montréal aux 2 semaines. Si vous connaissez d’autres évenements qui pourraient intéresser nos lecteurs, vous pouvez me faire parvenir l’information à alanah.montreal @ gmail.com.
02/09 - Atelier sur les toits verts
Le Centre d'Écologie Urbaine ...
September 2nd, 2008
Montage du jour : Le cinéma Strand
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1915-2008
Le cinéma Strand ouvrit ses portes en 1912 au coins des rues Sainte-Catherine et Mansfield. Rebaptisé le Pigalle en 1968, il fut démoli en 1973.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.2327.402.4§ion=196
MP-0000.2327.402.4
Photo du jour : Plaza d’achats Lachine
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Taken in Lachine, Rue Notre-Dame, near 28th Avenue, on August 31st, 2008.
This is a picture that I took on Sunday afternoon, on a pleasant walk that I did in what would be Old Lachine, in the area where the Lachine canal starts. Sure, there are new condos being built in the area, but the neighbourhood feels like it's straight out of the 60s, with signage like this. The Dairy Queen on the corner with 32nd Avenue surely adds to the ...
Le mardi des arbres: l’Olivier de Bohême, l’olivier prétendant
By Bronwyn Chester // 1 Comment
Mon voisin a résolu un mystère qui se passait dans ma cour. Mon olivier de Bohême (Russian olive, Elaeagnus angustifolia) est un arbre facilement reconnaissable pas ses feuilles minces et grises pâles et sa forme tordue comme l’olivier méditerranéen. Dernièrement, l’arbre perdait beaucoup de petits bouts de branches. Pourtant, il avait l’air en bonne condition, pas de feuilles décolorées, par exemple. Je croyais que c’était des camions de construction ...
Toronto Tuesday: Dundas scrambles, TTC reopens streetcar bids, ads hit London’s bike lanes
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Do the Scramble
Toronto's bustling Dundas and Yonge intersection can now be identified as not only home to the Eaton Center and Dundas Square, but also to Toronto's first scramble intersection. The scramble will allow pedestrians to traverse the intersection on a diagonal, and is said to be implemented soon at Yonge and Bloor and Bay and Bloor. Toronto photographer Sam Javanrouh documented a scene ...
September 3rd, 2008
Montage du jour : Le «English Provision Company»
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1894-2008
Cette épicerie qui ouvrit ses portes en 1891 au coin des rues Sainte-Catherine et Drummond offrait alors à ses clients un service de livraison sans frais... en carriole !
5 sens; 1 lieu
By Jacob Larsen // 1 Comment
Performers from last year's festival
This weekend, the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood is hosting its sixth annual street festival, entitled '5 continents, 5 sens'. The event takes place along chemin de la Côte-des-neiges from noon-5pm, Sunday, September 7. Its theme this year highlights historic trades and craftspeople and will feature an artisans village, a shuttle tour of historic sites and street sales. In the words of the organizers, it is "[u]n événement festif visant à rassembler le milieu des affaires et le milieu communautaire afin de célébrer la richesse culturelle, communautaire, économique et sociale du quartier ...
Street Sleeper
By Sherwin Tjia // 5 Comments
Riding my bike home one morning, around 7AM, I came upon this dude taking advantage of the late August moving day purge. This is the alleyway just west of Clark, and that's Duluth you see right there. As of this writing, all that stuff is gone. But the dude is around. I see him every once in a while.
Photo du jour: Dragon’s beard candy
By Christopher DeWolf // 6 Comments
La Gauchetière Street near Clark. August 25, 2006
September 4th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le palais des congrès
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1984-2008
September 5th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’épicerie St-James
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
1894-2008
Cette épicerie était située au coin sud-est des rues Sainte-Catherine et Drummond, soit juste à côté de son compétiteur, le «English Provision Company».
Photo du Jour – Swing Bridge
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Defunct Lachine Canal Swing Bridge, built by Canadian Pacific in 1915.
Local artist Scott McCleod has captured it as part of his Lachine Canal Project:
Spacing Montreal wants YOU!
By Spacing // 1 Comment
It's been a little over a year since Spacing Montreal was officially launched. Since then, our readership has grown quickly, to nearly 2,000 unique visitors per day, and we've tackled a number of topics that were under-represented or absent in Montreal's media.
Spacing Montreal is dedicated to covering all aspects of public space and public life in Montreal. That includes architecture, urbanism, design, art, history, transportation, politics and social issues. We're looking for contributors who are passionate and curious about their city, who enjoy discovering the quirks of its streets and history, and who are looking for a ...
Spacing Montréal cherche des collaborateurs !
By Spacing // No Comments
Spacing Montréal a tout juste célébré son premier anniversaire de fondation cet été. Depuis lors, notre lectorat s'est élargi rapidement pour atteindre les 2000 visiteurs uniques par jour, et avons couvert plusieurs sujets alors sous-représentés ou encore juste absent des médias montréalais.
Spacing Montréal est dédié à couvrir tous les aspects de l'espace public et de la vie publique de Montréal. Ceci inclut des sujets touchant l'architecture, l'urbanisme, le design, l'art, l'histoire, le transport, la politique et la société. Nous cherchons des collaborateurs curieux, passionnés de leur ville, qui aiment découvrir l'inusité dans ses rues et son histoire, ...
September 6th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le cinéma Princess
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Vers 1920-2008
Le cinéma Princess ouvrit ses portes en 1917. Celui-ci fut renommé le cinéma Le Parisien en 1963 et il ferma malheureusement ses portes en 2007.
Photo du Jour – Too Hot
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Photo taken Fall 2005 around St-Hubert and Ontario Street.
Is Expo-Driven Development what Montreal Needs?
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
Moulin à Images by Robert Lepage, Sept 1st, 2008. Sorry for the poor image quality - I was standing on a fire hydrant...
I was in Quebec City last weekend and got a taste of the 400th anniversary frenzy. Its impressive what a city can create (or what kind of creativity the city will let flourish) when it goes into official celebration mode.
Robert Lepage's Moulin à Images is remarkable for its shear grandeur: The entire old port of Quebec is transformed into a ...
TIFF goes to Montreal
By Shawn Micallef // 5 Comments
I was content to let the Toronto International Film Festival pass by without any personal involvement -- even riding out my way around Yorkville to avoid seeing the desperation of people trying to get into films and producers tying to sell their ideas -- until last night when I saw a screener of the new NFB film La Memoire des Anges (The Memories of Angels). It's a collage of bits of NFB films produced about Montreal and takes us on the most fantastic journey -- often from a pedestrian's point of view -- of that ...
September 7th, 2008
Montage du jour : La place royale
By Guillaume St-Jean // 9 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Photo du Jour – Allée des Bouquinistes
By Alanah Heffez // 8 Comments
Photo prise le 6 sept, 2008, coin Savoie et De Maisonneuve.
L'Allée des bouquinistes: Plusieurs vendeurs de livres d'occasion et d'illustrations s'installent toutes les fin de semaines, du 9 août au 12 octobre, dans les petites cabines en arrière de la Grande Bibliothèque (entre Saint-Denis et Berri).
J'ai ramassé une copie de Bonheur d'occasion (Gabrielle Roy) pour $3 hier. Mon but sera de lire, éventuellement, tout les romans qui se déroulent à Montréal.
September 8th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Antoine au coin de la rue Côté
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1906-2008
Ces maisons construites au cours de la première partie du 19e siècle furent remplacées en 1925 par un terminus de tramway qui fut lui même démoli en 1980.
Know Hope: Gnome Yo’self Graffiti in Mile End Laneway
By Kimberley Mok // 3 Comments
By Kimberley Mok
The first "Know Hope" installation back in June was a visual reinterpretation of the Mont Royal tam-tams going on in full swing. Now after a stroll down Mile End's quaint maze of laneways, here's the newest whimsical reverie about what happens when one encounters a short door (made for the Little People?) and a graffiti commandment to "Gnome Yo'self" (original photos below)?
Photo du Jour – Hobo / Hipster Railroad Party
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Photo taken September 6th, 2008 in downtown Montreal.
22 septembre : En ville sans ma voiture !
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
Whether it's something to plan for or something to plan around, car-free day is returning for a 6th edition in Montreal, on Monday September 22nd. In the pamphlet that I got in my mail today along with the first federal election fliers, it said that car-free day is followed in 1500 other cities in the world.
Basically, Ste-Catherine Street between McGill College and St-Urbain, as well as cross-streets in between, will ...
September 9th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’école des métiers de l’automobile
By Guillaume St-Jean // 8 Comments
1962-2008
Photo du Jour – Empress Theatre
By Alanah Heffez // 14 Comments
The old Empress Theatre, located on Sherbrooke Street W, corner Marcil, in NDG. Photo taken April 27th, 2008.
Built in 1927 the Egyptian-style building began its life as a vaudeville theatre, and then, in 1962 was re-incarnated as a burlesque dinner theatre called the Royal Follies. In 1968, it became known as Cinema V, and in the '70s switched to a repertory movie house and home of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. A fire in 1992 damaged the theatre and it has been closed ever since.
The Empress ...
Toronto Tuesday: [murmur] hits the Junction, mobile haikus, lawn parking in Parkdale
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Street performers q&a at the Junction Arts festival
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
[murmur] launches in the Junction
Murmur recently announced the installation its seventh Toronto chapter, located in Toronto's Junction. This west-end neighbourhood seems to be unknown to many Toronto residents, and the strong sense of history and community displayed by many of the Junction's denizens truly gives it the sense of a village within a city. The Junction Arts Festival also took ...
Tree Tuesday/Le mardi des arbres: The Ash That No One Knows
By Bronwyn Chester // 3 Comments
Before I pick up where I left off in last week's column on the subject of true members versus imposter members of the olive family, I'd like to announce that this Saturday in the abandoned Canadian Pacific railway yard, located where Henri-Julien meets the tracks, you will have the opportunity to meet most of the trees I have presented over the past six weeks, including today's. These are all trees that have made their own way to the abandoned lot. In addition, urban flower specialist Roger Latour will introduce you to ...
September 10th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’intersection des rues Hôtel-de-ville et Sainte-Catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1905-2008
Ces maisons furent remplacé en 1906 par l'édifice de La Patrie. L'église de la scientologie qui a acheté l'immeuble en 2007, au coût de 4,25 millions de dollars occupera bientôt les lieux.
Photo du Jour – Foundations
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Foundations for the Louis Boheme condo tower, on the corner De Maisonneuve and Bleury. Photo taken September 4th, 2008.
September 11th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’hôtel Chateau St-Louis
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1950-2008
Cet hôtel situé sur la rue St-Denis près du carré St-Louis est toujours en opération. Il possède toutefois une aile en moins...
September 12th, 2008
Montage du jour : Les terrasses Harp
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1910-2008
Les terrasses Harp furent construites en 1864 au coin des rues Sherbrooke et St-Laurent.
This weekend: Remember Griffintown
By Chris Erb // No Comments
This weekend, members of CUTV (Concordia University Television) will be hosting Remember Griffintown, an event which organisers say is a way to "allow the citizens of Montreal, as well as anyone else, to get to know a forgotten part of Montreal." and is "a celebration of the rich history this area has to offer." Organiser Paul Aflalo discusses the event and his reasons for staging it at length in a story featured last month in The Gazette.
Most of the events will take place in or around the New City Gas building at 950 rue Ottawa and in ...
September 13th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le théâtre Gayety
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1912-2008
Le théâtre Gayety construit en 1912 fut renommé : Théâtre du nouveau monde en 1958. Fait intéressant, la synagogue Chevra kadisha est visible sur la photo ancienne au sud du bâtiment.
September 14th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke depuis la rue Berri
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
September 15th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’église St-Jacques
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1972-2007
Cette photographie aérienne représente l'îlot de l'église St-Jacques délimité par les rues Sainte-Catherine, de Maisonneuve, Berri et St-Denis avant et après la construction des pavillons de l'UQAM.
Les éléments intéressant à observer sont les suivants :
1) La sacristie et le presbythère de l'église St-Jacques
2) L'édifice de l'ambulance St-Jean situé au coin nord est des rues St-Denis et de Maisonneuve
3) L'ancienne école St-James qui fut ...
Photo du Jour – Pointe Dep
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Photo prise le 14 Septembre 2008, sur le coin de Charlevoix et Chateauguay, dans le quartier Pointe-Saint-Charles.
Event Space / Espace Événements 15 – 30 Sept.
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Spacing Montreal’s biweekly, bilingual listing of events around town that explore public art, public space, architecture, urban planning and other favourite Spacing themes. If you know of an event that would be of interest to our readers, please contact me at alanah.montreal @ gmail.com
Voici la liste bilingue des événements locaux liés à l’art public, l’espace public, l’architecture, l’urbanisme, et aux autres thèmes favorie, publié sur Spacing Montréal aux 2 semaines. Si vous connaissez des événements qui pourraient intéresser nos lecteurs, vous pouvez me faire parvenir l’information à alanah.montreal @ gmail.com.
15/09 - 15/12 - Exposition Coin St-Laurent Ste-Catherine
La Maison ...
September 16th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le boulevard René-Lévesque près de la rue Mackay
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1961-2008
Les immeubles situés du côté sud du boulevard René-Lévesque entre les rues Guy et Lucien-L'Allier furent rasés pour ne jamais être remplacés. Quelqu'un saurait-il si ceux-ci furent démolis en 1987, lors de la saga de l'îlot Overdale ?
Sidewalk Terrace: Social Mixing or Public Nuisance?
By Alanah Heffez // 32 Comments
Everyone knows that walkable streets and sidewalk terraces enrich and enliven public space. But what happens when pedestrians and diners are vying for the same bit of sidewalk?
This summer, Pois Penché has rolled out the red carpet and set up a dinning room on the sidewalk of De Maisonneuve, at the corner of Drummond. Some pedestrians seem content to share the alley between tables with bow-tied waiters. Others don't feel comfortable strolling through the restaurant's terrace and prefer to make the detour into the adjacent bike lane....
Photo du jour: Post-industrial shadow
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
Corner of Richelieu and du Collège in St. Henri. September 13, 2007
Le mardi des arbres: l’Érable à sucre, reine de notre domaine forestier
By Bronwyn Chester // No Comments
Si on dit que notre érable le plus célèbre, l'érable à sucre, est la reine de la Forêt Montréal, qui en serait le roi? Et pourquoi avoir photographié celle-là et non celui-ci? C'est parce que le roi est moins flamboyant que la reine dans notre domaine forestier, l'érablière à caryer cordiforme. En fait, ses feuilles ressemblent beaucoup aux feuilles d'un autre arbre discret, le frêne rouge (red ash), dont il était dans ma chronique du mardi dernier. Peu importe que le roi soit d'allure modest, il ...
Toronto Tuesday: Portugal’s public space design, exploring Toronto’s campuses and new ideas for city streets
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Photo by Patricia Simoes
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Public space design in Portugal
Here Patricia Simoes shares series of photographs documenting her impressions of public space in the Portuguese communities of Coimbra, Figueira da Foz and Santana. Her photos draw light to the country's wide array of street signs, a form of art using ceramic tiles called azulejos and a type of pavement used in Portugal known as calçadas.
Exploring ...
September 17th, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison de L.G. Papineau
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1906-2008
Cette maison située rue St-Denis, entre Ontario et Maisonneuve fut construite en 1885.
Photos du Jour – NDG Laneway
By Alanah Heffez // 7 Comments
A path of hard packed earth littered with the season's first fallen leaves meanders between Melrose and Draper street backyards in NDG. Although the pedestrian alley is only one block long - between Monkland Ave and Terrebonne - this lane-way feels completely removed from the city's concrete grid.
The alley has just always been this way, says a Melrose street resident who has lived there for over 25 years. A tree growing in the centre of the path is evidence for her ...
Election notes from Hong Kong
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
As longtime readers well know, I have a thing for election signs, so I was particularly happy to see La Presse dedicate an article last week to their analysis. In a broader sense, though, I am really interested by the way that elections make themselves felt in public space, which are not usually so explicitly political. With that in mind, here's a brief dispatch from the weekend before last, when people in Hong Kong went to the polls to elect a new Legislative Council.
--
It's election time in Hong Kong. Today, hundreds of thousands of ...
Election signs: prenez la ligne orange
By Chris Erb // 12 Comments
While SpacingMontreal doesn't officially endorse any particular political party during elections, we do, however, often focus on election signs when they inevitably spring up during election time and discuss various topics surrounding them, usually their effect on public space (Christopher DeWolf's article, directly below, being an example). This evening's rain storm forced my bike and I onto the Metro and, upon exiting my train at Jean-Talon station, I was greeted by this election ad for the NDP on the wall.
This ad in particular is notable for many reasons, the first being that it is just incredibly clever. ...
September 18th, 2008
Montage du jour : Une vue du vieux-port
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1953-2008
La photographie de 1953 nous présente un vieux port bien différent de celui que nous connaissons aujourd'hui. En effet, nous pouvons apercevoir : le silo # 2, le marché Bonsecours alors dépourvu de son dôme, puisque celui-ci avait été endommagé lors d'un incendie en 1948 ainsi que l'édifice du poste de police de la cité du Havre.
Photo du Jour – Urban Language Breakdown
By Alanah Heffez // 12 Comments
This sculpture entitled "Langage Urbain" by Ken Story has stood in front of the Bank of Montreal Telus building on Réné-Levesque, corner University, since 1992. Originally, the two massive earhorns were engineered to rise and fall, always out of synch, briefly brushing by eachother along their paths. Even at the age of 12, that was a metaphor I could grasp.
These days, the two earhorns sit snuggled together, as if they are whispering secretes. According to a security guard at the building, "Langage Urbain" broke down 2 or ...
September 19th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le couvent des soeurs de la miséricorde
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1952-2008
Situé sur la rue St-Hubert, cet édifice fait aujourd'hui parti du CHSLD Jacques Viger.
“As a second car, consider a duplex.”
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Despite the condos that are popping up all over town, Montreal experiencing a suburban exodus, and loses thousands of families each year to the surrounding areas.
This ad by the City of Montreal, which aims to stop the flow toward the suburbs, brought to mind a study that I did a few years ago, while working on Équiterre's ecological transportation project. As an educator about alternative transportation, I spoke with many people who claimed that they were "prisoners of their cars" (a direct quote) because they lived in suburban areas that were not serviced by adequate public ...
Photo du Jour – Skinny House
By Alanah Heffez // 15 Comments
Photo taken Sept 19th 2008, in St-Henri.
This skinny little clapboard house is squeezed between St-Augustin street and the train tracks, where they cross St-Ambroise. It makes me think of the house that they move into in "Bonheur d'Occasion" (which I recently bought here, and just finished reading), the one that Rose-Anna knows right the family will never be happy in.
September 20th, 2008
Suck It Up – Underground Trash-Vaccuuming to Replace Dump Trucks in QDS
By Alanah Heffez // 14 Comments
The automated waste collection system sucks away trash, recyclables and organic waste through underground pipes with a 90 km per hour sucking power. Image from Envac website.
There aren't going to be any dump trucks blocking up the streets in Montreal's new Quartier des Spectacles. Last Wednesday, the City approved a proposition to replace public trash cans with receptacles for garbage, recyclables and compostables, all hooked up to an vacuum-powered collection system. Waste placed in each receptacle would be sucked ...
September 21st, 2008
Lachine Canal, looking east
By Jacob Larsen // 4 Comments
Photo du Jour: Lachine Canal
Taken November, 2oo7.
Photo du jour: Canada Malt Plant dans St-Henri
By Spacing // 16 Comments
Photos et article by Jean-François Villeneuve
A massive, abandonned, tetris-like building, found near the Lachine Canal. This place is a perfect place for intrepid urban explorers but a scary one nonetheless. I would never go inside one of those buildings, just in case they decide to collapse and/or something alive in it wouldn't want me to be there. Alive.
For more info on this building, you can look here.
Un monstre sur le bord du canal Lachine, bordé de condos tous neufs dans un St-Henri qui essaie ...
Reminder: Monday is Car Free Day
By Jacob Larsen // 5 Comments
This Monday Montreal celebrates En ville sans ma voiture, the local manifestation of International Car Free Day. Although many of us will hear about the slight inconveniences caused by a few closed roads on the morning traffic report, there are events scheduled thoughout the day.
Map of car-free zone during the day
The car free zone will extend from de Maisonneuve to René Levesque and McGill College to St. Urbain. A full schedule of events is available here. In addition to official events, a "die-in" will be held by cyclists to draw attention to the persistant ...
September 22nd, 2008
Montage du jour : L’oratoire St-Joseph
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1937-2008
Le Conseil du patrimoine religieux du Québec se met à l’heure du podcast
By Mathieu Payette-Hamelin // No Comments
Récemment, le Conseil du patrimoine religieux du Québec décidait d'innover en matière de diffusion patrimoniale. À l'instar de l'église Saint-Roch de Québec et du Churches Conservation Trust de Grande-Bretagne, le conseil met maintenant à la disposition de tous et chacun une visite guidée de l'église Saint-Pierre-Apôtre de Montréal sous format mp3. Cette expérience de baladiffusion (podcast) est une première en ce qui a trait aux églises montréalaises.
Le fichier mp3 est disponible en anglais et en français sur le site web du Conseil du patrimoine religieux à l'adresse :
www.patrimoine-religieux.qc.ca/fr/activites/balado.php
Cette initiative subventionnée par l'Entente sur le ...
September 23rd, 2008
Montage du jour : L’immeuble d’appartements le colisée
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1965-2008
Montreal and Toronto Mayors Unite for Urban Funding
By Olivier Plessis // 4 Comments
Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay and Toronto mayor David Miller held a press conference at Montreal City Hall this morning to repeat their demands for greater federal support in the managing of Montreal, Toronto, and cities across Canada. In a federal election campaign with no dominant issue, the mayors hope to draw attention to the national parties' lack of engagement with issues facing Canadian cities. Unlike past demands from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) that have focused on specific proposals, such as devoting a portion of GST revenues to cities, Tremblay and Miller stressed that what is needed now is a willingness to engage in a real partnership rather than just more piecemeal action. In fact, the rhetoric of both mayors painted the lack of funding for cities as an urgent, non-partisan issue of national importance. The municipal model, they say, is broken.
Tree tuesday/Le mardi des arbres: Beware the Marge Simpson maple
By Bronwyn Chester // 4 Comments
Believe it or not, the trees in this photo are all Norway maples. You are likely familiar with the tree in its natural form which looks much like the sugar maple. Bred to grow in a columnar form, this Norway maple (Érable de Norvège, Acer platenoides) has been widely planted in areas of the city where the sidewalks are narrow and there is no or little garden space in front of houses and buildings. For obvious reasons, my children call this tree the Marge Simpson maple.
I remember when the trees in the photo were planted ...
Toronto Tuesday: Transit plans, OCAD’s architecture and sidewalk cycling
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Augusta Avenue's earthy car retrofitted by Streets are for People. Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities. ...
September 24th, 2008
Montage du jour : La banque Dominion
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1935-2008
Images of a Car-Free Future
By Jacob Larsen // 7 Comments
There has been much criticism of the City's and the AMT's half-hearted 'journée sans voiture' which took place Monday. Perhaps rightly so, given its toothless roads closures (timed not to interrupt rush-hour traffic) and the fact that the STM was not even willing to support the event by offer free rides for the day, as in past years. Those displeased with this lackluster showing should have come to the 'Die-In', an annual cycle advocacy event which draws attention to the handful of cyclists killed or injured in our city each year. According to one report, 1 522 pedestrians and ...
Photo du Jour – Fine European Cabinetry
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Photo taken today on De Maisonneuve Blvd near Marcil
Le faubourg à m’lasse
By Guillaume St-Jean // 8 Comments
Vers 1925
Surnommé le faubourg à m'lasse, le quartier où se situe maintenant la tour de Radio-Canada comptait vers 1880 plus de 16 000 habitants. Ce dernier avait été surnommé ainsi en raison de la forte odeur de mélasse qui flottait dans l'air en raison du déchargement sur les quais de tonneaux contenant cette substance sucré.
En 1930, quelques années seulement après la prise de cette photographie, le quartier fut sectionné en 2 suite à ...
September 25th, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison de F.W. Thompson
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
1908-2008
Cette maison située sur la rue Redpath fut possiblement démolie vers la fin des années 1960.
Mapping the Commute: Income and Driving to work
By KC Bolton // 9 Comments
In the spirit of Monday’s car-free day, this post asks the question: are those who earn higher incomes more likely to drive to work? Using 2006 Canadian Census tract data for the island of Montreal, I’ve created a map showing the city’s distribution of median personal income (after-tax), along with a map showing the percentage of workers who commute by walking, biking, or public transit. The third map merges the two...
Generally, higher income is significantly associated with higher percentages of car-commuters (no surprise there). However, there are areas within Montreal where both low median incomes and low percentages of non-car ...
Photo du Jour – Marché Maisonneuve
By Alanah Heffez // 5 Comments
Community garden behind the marché Maisonneuve. Photo taken on rue Rouen, Sept 20th 2008.
This market was built between 1912-1914 by Marius Dufresne, municipal engineer of Maisonneuve (then its own municipality). Many grandiose projects around that time, including purchasing the land for parc Maisonneuve, and construction of the impressive bain Maisonneuve, poste d'incendie, and Hotel-de-ville buildings, were followed by a sudden halt to local growth during the 1st world war. The municipality ended up in great debt and, in 1918, it was annexed to the city ...
Subway trains become office space
By Matthew Blackett // 3 Comments
If you find yourself in London, England anytime soon, you may want to check out the work of the Village Underground in the Shoreditch neighbourhood. They have taken discarded London subway cars, placed them on top of a renovated Victorian warehouse building and converted the trains into creative workspaces. All the cars have carbon-neutral heat and power and are ecologically outfitted. [ via Treehugger ]
images courtesy of Village Underground
bottom photo by Matt Cowley
Plenty of parking, no path to get there
By Michael Dunkelman // 6 Comments
The Mcgill University administration has of late come under criticism for their cycling restrictions in their downtown campus. Scenes of security guards enforcing the rules are now common. However, despite the on campus restrictions, Mcgill students are fortunate to have several cycling links from the city to their campus. The Mcgill Ghetto is crisscrossed with designated bands. The southern and eastern flanks of the campus are served by the Maisonneuve and Park ave bike paths respectively. Over on the other side of Mont Royal, the University of Montreal’s students are not so lucky. Although there are no restrictive measures in ...
September 26th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine depuis la rue St-Denis
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1961-2008
Photo du Jour – Mounted Police
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Coin Rachel & St-Laurent, le 25 Septembre 2008.
September 27th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Denis près de Sainte-catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1961-2008
The Lost Village of Fort George
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Many weeks ago, in this post about hydroelectricity's environmental footprint, I promised to write about the Cree community that was displaced by the LG hydro complex. I admit that I've had a lot of trouble pulling together my thoughts on this touchy subject, but its finally time to give it a go...
I had always thought that Fort George was underwater.
The massive LG hydroelectricity project has diverted 4 rivers into La Grande's watershed, nearly doubling its volume. Located downriver from the dam, near the mouth of La Grande, Fort George was vulnerable to being washed away if ever the dam were to break. With the dam in place, La Grande's flow became erratic and ice cover unreliable, transforming the ecosystem on which Cree hunters and fishers have relied for generations. Furthermore, the sandy banks on which the community once stood are rapidly eroding away. In 1980, the year that the LG-2 dam was completed, the Cree community voted to relocate their village to the river bank.
But on a recent trip up North I learned that, for the moment at least, the remains of the abandoned Fort George community are still standing.
September 28th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Denis au coin de René-Lévesque
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1960-2008
Creatively vandalized electoral signs (Part I)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Perhaps because a by-election was planned for September 8th in Westmount—Ville-Marie before it got canceled by the general election, "vandals" have had an extra month to get to work. For instance, it seems that the NDP's Anne Lagacé-Dowson was a fairly popular target, especially because one of her sign configuration goes at street level. Some markings seen around were somewhat less-flattering.
By comparison, the Liberals' Marc Garneau, their star candidate in Westmount—Ville-Marie (he was a former ...
Remants of the Ste-Catherine streetcar tracks
By Cédric Sam // 15 Comments
When walking or biking around town, I would regularly notice these tracks that periodically appear due to pavement degradation. This previous photo was taken on Ste-Catherine (near Stanley), where one of the major streetcar arteries in Montreal used to pass through. There are occasionally discussions about reviving Montreal's streetcar network, done for in 1956 for most of the downtown areas, but nothing new has emerged recently. Except perhaps nostalgia....
Photo du Jour – Sun Dial
By Alanah Heffez // 7 Comments
This solar clock was given to the city of Montreal by the city of Rotterdam as a 325th birthday present, and stands in front of the planetarium on Peel and St-Jacques.
This photo was taken Sept 10th, at around 11:30 am - which means that the sundial is about an hour off from the time on my cellphone...I'm not sure if daylight savings could be to blame? (The orange line is for the month of September.)
Event Space / Espace Événements 30 Sept – 7 Oct.
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
30 / 09 - 14 élus de Montréal au soirée Pecha Kucha
Pecha Kucha Montréal, Design Montréal et la Chaire UNESCO en paysage et environnement de l’Université de Montréal vous invitent à une rencontre inédite entre des élus de l’île de Montréal et le milieu du design. Lors de cette soirée, le maire de Montréal, douze maires d’arrondissements et de villes liées de l’agglomération de Montréal viendront présenter à un auditoire de créateurs impliqués dans le devenir de Montréal ainsi qu’au grand public leurs points de vue sur le caractère identitaire et les opportunités ...
September 29th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le boulevard René-Lévesque depuis la rue St-Denis
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
Vers 1960-2008
Photo du Jour – Wired
By Alanah Heffez // 8 Comments
Photo taken Sept 25th on the corner of Marie-Anne and Hotel-de-Ville.
Kristian Gravenor recently reported on his blog that that electrical poles have been illegal in Montreal since 1905. Facilitating snow removal was one of the main reasons for the passing the municipal bylaw over a century ago. But not only have wire tangles like this remained in many neighbourhoods, above-ground wires continue to be incorporated into new developments.
Also, check out the second 40-foot pole which appears to exist solely to prop up the no-parking and one-way street signs.
“As a second car, consider a duplex”
By Alanah Heffez // 16 Comments
Despite a whole lot of urban residential development projects lately, Montreal is still losing about 20,000 young people to the surrounding suburbs each year. The city recently released this ad campaign which targets young families.
The second ad immediately brought to mind some research that I did while working on Équiterre's ecological transportation project a few years ago. As as educator in alternative transportation, I regularly met people who claimed that they were "prisoners of their cars" (a direct quote) because their suburban neighbourhoods were not serviced by adequate public transit, and were to ...
September 30th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Denis depuis le boulevard René-Lévesque
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1960-2008
Photo du jour : Quartier des spectacles
By Cédric Sam // 7 Comments
Photo prise le 27 septembre 2008, à l'angle de Ste-Catherine et Jeanne-Mance.
Toronto Tuesday: Climate change, China’s Detroit, retrofitted subway cars
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.Climate Change With an election fast approaching, now is the time to consider taking reactive and precautionary measures to allay the effects of global warming. Citing Ronald Wright's message in his book A Short History of ...
Le mardi des arbres: les couleurs de La Fontaine
By Bronwyn Chester // 1 Comment
Arrivée au Parc La Fontaine, j'ai été éblouie par la beauté des arbres. En pensant à la photographie pour cette chronique, je cherchais l'arbre le plus exceptionnel parmi la centaine de bons candidats. Pas possible. Alors, au lieu d'écrire sur une seule espèce d'arbre j'ai décidé de vous parler de la palette de couleurs que nous offre ce grand parc central de Montréal. (D'ailleurs, il me semble qu'étant donné le nombre de nuances de rouge, de jaune et de ...
October 1st, 2008
Photo du jour : Warhol Live
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
Warhol Live est une exposition retraçant l'inspiration musicale et des arts de la danse chez le roi du pop-art Andy Warhol. Elle se tiendra jusqu'au 18 janvier 2009 au Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.
(Oui, c'est toujours à moitié prix sur le prix régulier les mercredis.)
Montage du jour : Vue aérienne près du pont Jacques-Cartier
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Vers 1927-2008
Les bâtiments de la Dominion Oil Cloth & Linoleum Co Ltd, situées au premier plan de cette photographie furent détruit lors d'un incendie, possiblement au cours des années 1990.
October 2nd, 2008
Montage du jour : Intersection des rues Sainte-Rose et Papineau
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1920-2008
L'îlot où se situait autrefois l'académie Sainte-Brigide, que nous voyons en arrière plan, est occupé depuis 1977 par une tour de 11 étages comportant 237 logements.
Photo du Jour – MadVac
By Alanah Heffez // 15 Comments
Parc des Amériques, coin Rachel et St-Laurent.
The only thing more ridiculous than cleaning a park with a polluting vehicle that has the capacity to suck up about 1 candy wrapper at a time is actually calling the thing a Madvac.
October 3rd, 2008
Montage du jour : Une vue du vieux port près de la rue McGill
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1960-2008
Photo du Jour – Mania
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
"Among many of the best stripclubs you’ll find in Montreal Canada is Bar Sexe Mania. Montreal is well renowned for its gorgeous and hottest strippers." --LapDanceCity.com
Election signs around town
By KC Bolton // 11 Comments
Sighted on a walk last weekend:
Seen above, the Bloc's Marcela Valdivia's no-nonsense visage has become a bit less no-nonsense with a slight modification on St. Viateur (and elsewhere).
Meanwhile, Conservative Lulzim Laloshi seems to have lost his visage altogether on Bernard in Outremont.
Toronto to Montreal: nice benches!
By Christopher DeWolf // No Comments
If you ignore the cliché in the lead (does every Toronto story about Montreal need to mention separatism?), it's worth checking out Christopher Hume's latest column in the Toronto Star, in which he lavishes praise on our benches:
Compared with Toronto, where finding a place to sit out on the streets is next to impossible, Montreal positively invites visitors to sit down and watch the passing parade. Benches are everywhere you turn.
In the new Quartier international, for example, the streets and squares are filled with literally dozens of benches.
In their own way, they are even more ...
October 4th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue St-Laurent près de la rue Sainte-Catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1900-2008
Photo du Jour – Cross Makeover
By Alanah Heffez // 6 Comments
Photo taken on Duluth and St-Urbain, Oct 2nd 2008.
For the last couple weeks, the cross atop Mount Royal has not illuminated the night skyline. The 80-year-old structure is being sand-blasted, repainted and refitted with new multi-coloured, energy-efficient lights. This million-dollar makeover is supposed to be finished in February 2009.
I wonder what colours - besides the traditional white and passed-pope-purple - the new cross will feature?
Election signs – “Could be worse”
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Defaced election sign on De Maisonneuve, near Bishop.
Jack: "I would like to be honest but I'm afraid"
Jack and Anne: "Could be worse!"
Anne (thinking): "Could be way worse!!"
October 5th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’intersection des rues St-Paul et Nazareth.
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1965-2008
La rue St-Paul ne se prolonge plus à l'est de la rue Nazareth. Celle-ci, tout comme les maisons de la photo ancienne furent remplacés au cours des années 60 par un tronçon d'autoroute.
Photo du Jour – Love Disco Style
By Spacing // 5 Comments
Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste. Taken on the corner of Rachel and Henri-Julien. An interesting juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane?
Photo by Anna Marutollo
Event Space / Espace évenements Oct 7 – 14
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
26/09 - 12/10 - Opération Patrimoine Architectural de Montréal
La Ville de Montréal et Héritage Montéal vous invite à découvrir l'architecture locale à travers d'expositions de photos, activités dans les musés et bibliothèques, conférences, circuits de découverte à pied et en autobus, et activités pour tout la famille. Visiter le site web pour la programmation complète.
Discover Montreal's architectural heritage through photography exhibitions, activities in museums and libraries, conferences, guided tours on foot or by bus, activities for the whole family. See the online program for all the details.
08/10 - Urban Connect: Art & Community Activism
Panel discussion with ...
October 6th, 2008
Photo du jour : Puces Pop
By Cédric Sam // 2 Comments
Pop Montreal's flea market DIY Festival and Arts & Crafts Fair Puces Pop, this past weekend at St. Michael's Church at St-Viateur and St-Urbain. If you missed it, I bet you will see at least some of the vendors at Expozine in late November.
The Big City Vote – The Issues
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Illustration by Cedric Sam
This might be the first time that traditionally municipal issues are being brought to the forefront of a federal election campaign. On Sept 23rd, Spacing reported that the mayors of Montreal and Toronto, along with the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), called on all the federal parties to commit to engage in a partnership with cities.
As of 2006, 80% of ...
October 7th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le couvent des soeurs de la Providence
By Guillaume St-Jean // 12 Comments
Vers 1890-2008
Imaginez un peu ce à quoi pourrait ressembler aujourd'hui le quadrilatère formé par les rues Berri, de Maisonneuve, St-Hubert et Sainte-Catherine si l'asile de la Providence n'avait pas été démoli.
Construit de 1841 à 1843 pour les soeurs de la Providence, cet édifice a abrité des vieillards et ses œuvres ont permis de servir des bols de soupes aux sans-abri pendant plus de 120 ans.
Près d'un demi-siècle plus tard, l'endroit est toujours fréquenté par les sans-abri. Le seul hic, c'est que le refuge, lui, ...
Photo du Jour – Schoolyard Cricket Game
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Saturday afternoon game of cricket in front of FACE school (Oct 4th).
The Big City Vote – The Greens
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
“Canada’s biggest fiscal imbalance is the imbalance between municipal governments and everyone else,” the Green Party claims in their Looking Forward Plan, and then go on to flirt with Canada's big cities by referencing Jane Jacobs.
In order to address this issue, the Greens propose doubling the amount of federal funding available to cities, using three mechanisms:
1. Increasing the federal Gas Tax Transfer to municipalities from 2.5 to 5 cents/litre (in the initial gas-tax transfer proposal, the federal gas tax transfer is supposed to increase to ...
Tree Tuesday: The Spindle Tree Leans On
By Bronwyn Chester // 1 Comment
This tree bewitches. You can get lost in the intricate and irregular weave of its bark. It invites one to climb, to get close to its silky green-now-turning-pink, lance-shaped leaves, paired symmetrically on its wandering branches, to get close to the remaining fruit on the bow, the oddly-shaped, pink, four-lobed capsules that give the tree its name in French: bonnet d'évesque, or bishop's bonnet. It's more common name in French is fusain d'Europe, the same fusain -- or charcoal -- used by artists. Logically enough, the extremely hard wood of this tree made -- and still makes -- ...
Putting the POP in Montreal
By Olivier Plessis // 4 Comments
The 7th Annual POP Montreal festival wrapped up on Sunday, and, as has been the habit over the past few years, the biggest star of the festival ended up being the city. POP Montreal is known for juxtaposing pop shows with unconventional urban spaces, and as a result it's a great way of discovering new parts of the city. As part of the effort to limit the ground festivalgoers need to cover to go from show to show, each year festival organizers dig deeper into unexpected locations to maximize venue use. In the past, places like the Ukrainian Federation and l'Eglise St. Jean Baptiste have been introduced to a whole new audience through POP. Here are my top spaces discovered this year at POP Montreal:
1) Cinema L'Amour
This gorgeous former Yiddish theater on St. Laurent and Duluth is now a Porn cinema, and two separate shows in this year's POP utilized the space, although only one used the...ahem...functionality of the space as it currently exists (I'll give you a hint: it was called PornPop). If you're not squeamish, this theatre is definitely worth a look.
Toronto Tuesday: City budget, Nuit Blanche, and bringing the TTC to our living rooms
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Toronto's 2009 budget
Mayor David Miller has announced his financial priorities for the upcoming year. Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler outlines some of the budget's details, which include increased service levels for the TTC, waterfront renewal and the redesign of Nathan Philips Square.
Nuit Blanche
Last Saturday Toronto witnessed a flock ...
October 8th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine depuis la rue St-Hubert
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1930-2008
Voici ce à quoi ressemblait cette intersection il y a de cela 78 ans, lors de la fête du travail. L'édifice situé sur le coin nord ouest était le couvent des soeurs de la Providence.
The Big City Vote – The Conservatives
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Image from the Conservative "True North Strong and Free" plan.
"Ottawa has stuck its nose into provincial and local matters. Into areas where they didn’t have much expertise. While at the same time neglecting what it had to do. Accordingly, our roles and responsibilities in our respective areas of jurisdiction have become muddled." - Harper's 2006 speech to the FCM.
At a time when cities are urgently calling for concrete Federal involvement, it seems the Conservative government wants to un-muddle themselves from the cities agenda.
1st anniversary PARTY du 1er anniversaire!
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Since Spacing Montreal was launched one year ago, our readership has grown quickly to nearly 2,000 visitors per day. To celebrate our first year anniversary, we’d like to invite our readers – and everyone who cares about the city – to join us on Sunday October 19th at Café L’Escalier for drinks and discussion, as well as birthday cake and party games. A special presentation of photography and adventure tales by Controleman, urban explorer extraordinaire, will provide a unique glimpse into the Montreal’s hidden and abandoned corners.
WHEN: Sunday October 19, starts at 7:30
WHERE: Café L'Escalier, 552 Sainte-Catherine E
HOW MUCH: ...
October 9th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine près de Mansfield
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1962-2008
Les éléments à surveiller :
1) Le magasin Woolworth, 2) Le cinéma Loew's, 3) Le cinéma Strand,
4) Le restaurant Dunn's
The Big City Vote- The Liberals
By Olivier Plessis // No Comments
This week, Spacing Montreal takes a look at what each federal party has in store for cities. For an overview of the issues, see Monday’s post.
The Liberals are a largely urban party. Their willingness to partner with cities is clear from their platform, and from the positive reaction this platform has received from city leaders. Jean Perrault, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), says: “The Liberal plan would provide critical tools for turning the tide on the municipal infrastructure deficit. It is the most significant, longest-term, national infrastructure funding plan released to date.” The Liberals can also pride themselves on introducing the Gas Tax transfer to cities back when Paul Martin was in power, a transfer they would maintain in addition to the following promises:
October 10th, 2008
Photo du jour : Changing colors
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo taken a few weeks ago, before the leaves started falling.
Montage du jour : La rue Crescent près de la rue Sainte-Catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1900-2008
Les 2 maisons situées dans le coin droit de la photographie d'époque sont désormais disparues. Toutefois, une partie de l'arche qui encerclait autrefois la porte de la maison de gauche subsiste toujours. Bien que celle-ci soit cachée derrière un arbre sur la photographie, elle peut être facilement observée depuis la rue. De plus, l'empreinte de la forme du toit sur le mur de la maison voisine qui elle, est maintenant dépourvu de son 3e étage est elle ...
The Big City Vote – The Bloc Québécois
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
This week, Spacing Montreal takes a look at what each federal party has in store for cities. For an overview of the issues, see Monday’s post.
Unsurprisingly, the Bloc’s response to questions about municipal infrastructure and services is "more money for Quebec" (and the other provinces).
It doesn’t matter where the money comes from: the Bloc would like the Canada to combine funding sources like the gas tax transfer and a portion of the GST, into a “single, unconditional, recurring transfer fund.” Once the provinces received this guaranteed this lump-sum, they could chose to share ...
October 11th, 2008
Montage du jour : Intersection des rues Peel et de la Gauchetière
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1948-2008
Big City Vote – The NDP
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
This week, Spacing Montreal takes a look at what each federal party has in store for cities. For an overview of the issues, see Monday’s post.
As one of our commentators recently pointed out, NDP leader Jack Layton has held the role of president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and began his political career as a city councillor in Toronto in 1982. Layton's position on municipal issues certainly caters to cities, although the deciphering the financial promises can feel a bit like unpacking Russian dolls...
In addition to existing programs, the NDP want to increase spending on cities by $7 billion per year over the next 4 years. The new funding would come from:
Increasing municipalies' share of the Gas Tax Transfer from 5 cents per litre to 6 cents per litre and
Making big polluters pay, by capping emissions and then auctioning emissions credits to polluting companies.
Note that, the NDP promise to invest the equivalent to 1 cent of the GST in urban and community priorities refers to proceeds from the increased gas-tax and carbon auctions.
Photo du Jour – Mordor Montreal
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
This wild meadow with an otherworldly backdrop is neither private property nor maintained parkland. One of my best friends grew up near here and spent a good chunck of his childhood imagining he was exploring the land of Lord of the Rings.
October 12th, 2008
Montage du jour : Intersection des rues Peel et de la Gauchetière
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1962-2008
October 13th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’école Aberdeen
By Guillaume St-Jean // 8 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Parmi les nombreuses erreurs commises au cours des années 1970, la démolition de l'école Aberdeen pour la remplacer par l'édifice de l'ITHQ en fut une monumentale. Un prix citron avait d'ailleurs été décerné au projet en 1974 par la société d'architecture de Montréal. Bien que l'édifice fut récemment rénové au coût de 20 millions de dollars, il ne s'intègre toujours pas à son environnement et malgré tout les efforts déployés, cette erreur ne pourra jamais être corrigée.
Source : Musée McCord...
Photo du jour : Bofinger
By Cédric Sam // 9 Comments
Photo taken on August 22nd, 2008. This is Bofinger, a restaurant located in the NDG section of Sherbrooke West. The area is so very anglo that it felt like being in Toronto!
Creatively vandalized electoral signs (Part II)
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
There were some "creatively" vandalized electoral signs seen around town - one of the Layton-Mulcair couple on Des Pins (with a pink heart drawn around them) and a few others of various parties on St-Joseph between St-Laurent and St-Denis - of which I can't blog about here, for not carrying my camera with me at the time.
The one you are seeing here is of the "not standing a chance" category. Caron, other than being a synonym to a more well-known hockey ...
October 14th, 2008
Montage du jour : La caserne d’incendie #7
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Cette station située sur la rue Notre-Dame fut en opération de 1899 à 1984.
Event Space / Espace Événements 15 – 21 Oct
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
16 / 10 - Tom Vanderbilt talk: Traffic
Tom Vanderbilt, New York City-based independant writer on architecture, design, technology, science, speaks as part of the CCA lecture series (in English).
WHEN: Wednesday, Oct 16, at 7:00
WHERE: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1920, rue Baile.
COSTS: Free
18 / 10 - The Trees of Clark Street: from Milton to Duluth.
Clark Street and its alleys are home to some of Montreal’s rarest and biggest trees. There is no match elsewhere in Montreal, for instance, for the size and number Kentucky coffee trees at Milton and Clark. In a little known green alley, birds have successfully seeded ...
Le mardi des arbres: les chicots qui remplissent le ciel
By Bronwyn Chester // No Comments
Tout le monde qui fait parti du flot de vélos qui vient de l'est vers le centreville via les rues Prince Arthur, Clark et Milton ne peut que remarquer l'énorme masse de verdure qui emplie le ciel au coin de ces deux dernières rues. Dans une de ces places oubliées où l'usage n'est pas encore déterminé, pousse un bosquet d'arbres peu commun et à Montréal et au Québec. Il s'agit des chicots féviers qu'on appelle également des chicots du Canada (Kentucky coffee tree, Gymnocladus diocus).
Dans ce terrain vague, qui auparavant faisait parti du terrain de la ...
Toronto Tuesday: Shenzhen, Babylon and Detroit
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Babylon: Myth and Truth
Dylan Reid provides a history of conceptions of cities as decadent and corrupt, stemming from the ...
October 15th, 2008
Montage du jour : La caserne d’incendie #26
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1910-2008
Cette caserne située sur l'avenue du Mont-Royal fut endommagée lors d'un violent incendie en 1999. Bien que l'édifice fut rénové, les fenêtres du 3e étage sont toutefois placardées depuis.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.829.3§ion=196
MP-0000.829.3
Photo du Jour – Birdhouse collection
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Photo prise le 11 octobre, coin Boyer et Rosemont.
Mayor’s launches 5 Shukos at Pecha Kucha night
By Alanah Heffez // 8 Comments
Shuko: Japanese...an idea, a project, a plan.
Gerald Tremblay opened the Pecha Kucha des Élus with a challenge. He invited the audience - a crowd of mostly architects, planners, designers and media folks - to devise design solutions to 5 local priorities.
The mayor's energetic 6-minute presentation prompted the Pecha Kucha night's host to exclaim: "Don't ask what your city can do for you, but what you can do for your city." This is my favourite attitude to urban living, and I'm so pleased that the mayor seems to feel the same. So go ahead and put your creativity to ...
October 16th, 2008
Montage du jour : Les apartements Linton et l’église du Messie
By Guillaume St-Jean // 11 Comments
1947-2008
Photo du Jour – Carte Mosaic
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Mosaic sur l'église Portuguais Santa Cruz sur Rachel et St-Urbain.
"Si vous visitez Montréal, passez par le quartier St-Louis. Vous y verrez des rangées enitères de maisons bariolées avec des jardinets volés à l'asphalte. Vous pouvez frapper sans crainte, ce sont des portugais."
October 17th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le boulevard René-Lévesque près de la rue Bishop
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Around 1965-2008
Photo du Jour – aligned
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
Photo taken on Guy, below Ste-Caterine, looking East.
Where does your garden grow?
By Spacing // No Comments
A recent post of a great stairway garden on Apartment Therapy.com made me wonder, in the last days before winter, where can one find urban, alternative garden spaces in Montreal.
Photos by Anna Marutollo.
The where of newly immigrated residents in Montreal
By KC Bolton // 4 Comments
Over 1 in 5 people (20.6%) residing in the Montreal metropolitan area immigrated from abroad according to the 2006 Census. This is up from 18.4% in 2001 and 17.8% in 1996. Within Montreal, there has been a significant shift in where new immigrants choose to settle.
This post describes where in the city new immigrants chose to settle during two periods: 1986 to 1991 and 2001 to 2006. The shift in settlement patterns occurred for various reasons, including cost-of-living factors, source countries, and changes in the social networks that ...
October 18th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Notre-Dame depuis l’hôtel de ville
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1870-2008
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.1452.46§ion=196
MP-0000.1452.46
La tour de Trafalgar
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
La tour en 1926. Source : BANQ, Pistard, P600,S6,D4,P61
Cette minuscule tour gothique dont l'emplacement ne semble pas figurer sur aucune carte ancienne devait vraisemblablement se trouver quelque part au fond des bois derrière le séminaire des sulpiciens, du côté ouest du boulevard de la côte-des-neiges.
Ce qui est particulier de ce lieu, mis à part le fait qu'il semble impossible de réussir à le localiser avec précision, est qu'il a été reconnu pendant de nombreuses années comme étant un endroit maudit. Plusieurs personnes ont d'ailleurs affirmés y avoir été témoins de ...
Photo du jour – Automne
By KC Bolton // No Comments
Photo prises sur le côté nord-est du Parc Mont Royal, Octobre 2008
Ville-Marie’s Mega Ads
By Alanah Heffez // 17 Comments
Sept 28th - Workers replace the gigantic ad on the corner of St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine.
Last year, the borough of Ville Marie joined the city of Calgary as the only places in Canada that allow large-scale advertising on construction sites. But he company that manages these ads is knocking on borough doors across the island, trying to convince them to follow suite. Vancouver allows construction sites to be "camouflaged" - covered in canvases that mimic the building's original architecture.
In an article headlined "payant pour ...
Richard Florida on Montreal’s Street-level Creative Energy
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and Who's Your City?, published an epic, upbeat editorial in the Gazette yesterday, putting Montreal ahead of the curve in terms of North American cities with the creative energy to overcome the pending financial crisis:
With credit tight and in some cases unavailable, the real economy, real people and real creativity replace finance capital as the new coin of the realm. Montreal has this in spades.
My research shows that more than a third of the region's workforce comes from the creative class - scientists, technology workers, entertainers, artists and designers, as well as managers and financial types - putting it in the top 10 per cent of all regions in North America, and a global leader as well. Nearly a fifth of the Montreal region's workforce forms a super-creative core made up of the techies plus cultural and entertainment types.
...Montreal also benefits from its dense, compact geography. Most experts agree that innovation and productivity are driven by density, and Montreal ranks third among all North American cities in average population density.
1ière avenue, part 1: Verdun
By Chris Erb // 16 Comments
Corner of Wellington and 1re Avenue in Verdun. These street signs are unique to Verdun's Wellington Street "Downtown" commercial strip.
Due to decades of annexes, mergers, and demergers of former municipalities, the City of Montreal has accumulated a number of duplicate street names, especially in the outer boroughs which were added later on in the city's existence. While not entirely unusual for a growing big city, it can create confusion for those unfamiliar with the existence of the duplicate street names for different parts of the city. One of the most unusual aspects of these duplicate ...
October 19th, 2008
Montage du jour : Intersection des rues Sainte-Catherine et Bleury
By Guillaume St-Jean // 16 Comments
2007-2008
Photo du jour: Under the overpass
By Chris Erb // 5 Comments
This part of Côte-St-Paul is one of the strangest parts of Montreal I've ever been to. Dilapidated houses, graffiti covered abandoned store fronts, auto repair shops, and new condo construction all sit in the shadow of an overpass connecting to the Turcot Interchange. The area has an unsettling post-apocalyptic feel to it.
Photo taken June 3, 2007
It’s TONIGHT! 1st anniversary PARTY du 1er anniversaire!
By Spacing // No Comments
Since Spacing Montreal was launched one year ago, our readership has grown quickly to nearly 2,000 visitors per day. To celebrate our first year anniversary, we’d like to invite our readers – and everyone who cares about the city – to join us on Sunday October 19th at Café L’Escalier for drinks and discussion, as well as birthday cake and party games. A special presentation of photography and adventure tales by Controleman, urban explorer extraordinaire, will provide a unique glimpse into the Montreal’s hidden and abandoned corners.
WHEN: Sunday October 19, starts at 7:30
WHERE: Café L'Escalier, 552 Sainte-Catherine E
HOW MUCH: ...
October 20th, 2008
Spacing Montreal celebrates its first anniversary
By Spacing // 1 Comment
Merci d'être sortis en grand nombre pour célébrer avec nous le premier anniversaire de Spacing Montréal ! / Thank you for turning out in large numbers to celebrate Spacing Montreal's first anniversary!
Montage du jour : Le boulevard St-Laurent près de Crémazie
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
1951-2008
October 21st, 2008
Montage du jour : La caserne d’incendie #23
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Around 1900-2008
Construit en 1883, l'ancien édifice de hôtel de ville de St-Henri qui contenait aussi une caserne de pompier fut remplacé en 1930 par la caserne #23.
Photo du jour – A familiar vista
By KC Bolton // No Comments
Taken from the Mount Royal lookout. October 2008.
Toronto Tuesday: Bus technology, Adelaide walk, and tree pit designs
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
A tried and true alternate bus technology
Sean Marshall provides a history of transportation methods in Toronto, and looks at the benefits of electric trolley bus networks....
Seen in Montreal
By Shawn Micallef // 5 Comments
In the washroom of the cafe where we held our Spacing Montreal anniversary party on Sunday, I found this statement scrawled on the chalkboard wall. We could make out the part about Toronto not understanding the concept as it's too democratic, but couldn't decipher what that concept was. The CMSWW above would appear to be part of the statement, but googling doesn't bring anything up. Any ideas? Will crosspost this to Spacing Toronto for further input.
In an effort to promote pan-Canadian understanding and fellowship, we may have left our own chalk ...
Tree tuesday: Caramel hearts fall from the Katsura
By Bronwyn Chester // 4 Comments
In the succession of trees whose leaves turn yellow in the fall, the red ash are pretty much denuded of their lance-shaped leaflets. Other yellow-leafers, like the black walnut are taking their place while the ginkgo, the last to go yellow, patiently waits her turn.
One little-known member of the autumn yellow-leafers is the katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum). Like the longtime favourite, now-gone Montreal restaurant of the same name, the katsura is Japanese. If you know any teenage ginkgo trees, you will notice the similarity in shape: the straight central trunk and low-parting branches. While the young ginkgo's branches grow ...
Event Space / Espace Événements 22 – 31 Oct
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
24/10 - La mémoire des anges - presentation by the director
Ce film, produit par l'ONF et réalisé par Luc Bourdon, décrit la vie Montréalaise des années '50 et '60. Selon la bande-annonce ce film se sert des images originales pour nous donner un regard fascinant sur une ville qui est maintenant entièrement tranformée. Le film jouera au Cinéma Excentris jusqu'au 30 octobre (horaire).
This NFB film by Luc Bourdon about life in 1950s and 60s Montreal, created by stitching together footage from the NFB’s vast archives. When the trailer was ...
October 22nd, 2008
Montage du jour : L’église baptiste Olivet
By Guillaume St-Jean // 12 Comments
Vers 1905-2008
L'église baptiste Olivet fut construite en 1903 au coin nord-est des rues René-Lévesque et Guy. La congrégation qui la fit construire l'occupa jusqu'en 1954 et déménagea par la suite dans une nouvelle église à Côte-St-Luc.
October 23rd, 2008
Montage du jour : L’église Chalmers
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1910-2008
Cette église construite en 1872 sur la rue St-Laurent près de Prince-Arthur fut possiblement démolie au cours des années 1940.
Photo du jour: Wall of leaves
By Matthew Blackett // 3 Comments
Wall of leaves at Clark and Prince Arthur
Garbage week in Quebec
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Oh boy! Not only is it garbage day on my street, it is garbage reduction week all across Quebec from October 19-26th! Lets celebrate with some exciting trash statistics:
In 2006 (the most recent available data), the average Montrealer produced about half a tonne - or to be precise 541 kg - of waste.
78% of this ended up in off-island dumps - with the greatest amount going to the Lachenaie landfill. The other 22% was diverted to recycling plants, composting plants, or eco-centres.
In 2006, 37% of ...
Pedestrian Ste-Catherine may extend to QDS and beyond
By Alanah Heffez // 5 Comments
This morning, Ville-Marie borough mayor Benoit Labonté announced that the experimental pedestrianization of Ste-Catherine street between Berri and Papineau this summer was an overwhelming success.
The numbers weren't hard to crunch: 95% of the residents of the Village neighbourhood were pleased with the project and a full 86% of the business were also happy (Commercial associations have protested against pedestrianization of other streets such as Mount Royal avenue). Furthermore, 100% of terrace owners felt the benefits of the vibrant street-life that pedestrianization created.
While the number of people who flowed through the neighbourhood increased last summer, complaints from local residents went ...
Un tramway rue Sainte-Catherine ?
By Cédric Sam // 6 Comments
Comme en font foi ces photos prises sur la rue Sainte-Catherine, les rails de l'ancien tramway de Montréal n'ont pas tout à fait été rayés de la carte (voir article). Voilà qu'on rapporte aujourd'hui dans Le Devoir que l'artère pourrait devenir piétonnière en permanence, entre Jeanne-Mance et Papineau. On ...
October 24th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’église Chalmers
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1942-2008
Comme le démontre les enseignes, cette église fut à une certaine époque transformée en garage
Photo du Jour – Autumn lofts
By Alanah Heffez // 9 Comments
Residential loft building that would may be expropriated and demolished to make way for the construction of the new Turcot interchange.
October 25th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le boulevard René-Lévesque près de la rue Peel
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1962-2008
Photo du Jour – Breadcrumbs
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
Women feeding pigeons and gulls in Cabot Square, October 23rd 2008.
Montreal – the cutting edge of recorded music since 1900
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Park Emile-Berliner (1851-?). Inventeur du gramophone et du disque.
How did a tiny corner park in St-Henri end up dedicated to the inventor of the recording disk?
Afterall, German-born inventor Émile Berliner was living in Washington DC in 1888 when he figured out a revolutionary way of recording sound onto a flat disk. In 1893, Berliner's company commercialized the Gramophone, entering into direct competition with the Phonograph, a cylindrical sound-recording device invented by Thomas Edison.
But in the early 1900ds, the firm that oversaw marketing for the Gramophone teamed up with Columbia ...
October 26th, 2008
Creatively vandalized electoral signs (Part III)
By Cédric Sam // 1 Comment
This one was sent in by one of our readers, Damian M Gryski.
Montage du jour : Le centre canadien d’architecture
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1986-2008
Photo du Jour – Book Case
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Bargain bins outside Pages Bookstore, on St-Jacques, across from Lionel Groulx metro. The cozy neighbourhood second-hand bookstore also features comfy - if scruffy - armchairs, wireless Internet, a coffee bar, a back-alley terrace of sorts, and performances by local musicians in the evenings.
October 27th, 2008
Montage du jour : Une vue du vieux Port
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1915-2008
À remarquer :
1) Les installations du marché St-Jacques 2) Le hangar #2
3) Le pont Jacques-cartier alors inexistant sur la photo ancienne
Mind the Gap – What the Tropical Jungle can Teach the Concrete Jungle about Diversity
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
I've been running around this week, interviewing some people about the creative ways that they use public - or not so public - space for an article to appear in Spacing magazine. Biking between the Turcot yards, a Mile-End Meadow, and an East-end quarry, I began to have flashbacks to a tropical ecology course in Panama, back when I was doing my bachelor's in Environmental Science.
For one lab report, we sought out a clearing where a massive, 40-m tropical trees had toppled over, leaving behind a gap in the dense rainforest canopy. Then we set about cataloging the environmental conditions and biological diversity within the gap.
When an old tree falls down, sunlight hits the forest floor for the first time in decades and conditions suddenly become ideal for smaller grasses and leafy plants. These "pioneer species" take root and flourish for a while, but eventually become overwhelmed by taller bushes, palms and trees that cast the forest floor into shadow once again. A few decades later, one tree will manage to out-compete its fellows - taking up most of the soil nutrients and blanketing the gap with its canopy. (This massive tree will also provide homes for thousands of other living things like vines, orchids, insects and birds). By that time the pioneer species will be long gone and spot will once again reach it's "climax growth." Its a very micro-scale version of ecological succession.
One the reasons that tropical rainforests are so famous for their biodiversity is that gaps are always being created and filled in somewhere or other. Climax communities and pioneer species exist side by side.
Growing Pains in Suburbia
By Michael Dunkelman // 22 Comments
The main entrance into Cote-Saint-Luc, a city of 30 000 inhabitants surrounded on all sides by train-tracks is through the Cavendish underpass. This underpass was constructed in the 1960s. Since then its capacity has long been reached due to several factors. Firstly, there has been much construction of new Condo buildings along and beside Cavendish, and secondly there has been increase car usage since that time period. Most of the traffic that goes through the underpass ends up in the left turning lane, which heads towards fleet and eventually Decarie. In the morning rush hour, the left lane is clogged ...
Photo du jour: smiling at green light
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
Cute graffiti at stop light, Ste. Catherine and Sanguinet
Toronto Tuesday: Toronto Flaneur, TTC improvements, renaming the Toronto Reference Library
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities
Toronto’s corridor of power
Shawn Micallef shares a photo essay of ...
October 29th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Cartier près de René-Lévesque
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1937-2008
71 ans se sont écoulées depuis la prise de la première photo. Cette rue qui semblait autrefois vivante et remplies d'enfants n'est désormais plus agitée du tout. En fait, la présence d'enfants dans ce secteur est presque inexistante.
Cela s'explique notamment par sa situation soit, entre les rues Sainte-Catherine et René-Lévesque, à la limite du quartier gay et à quelques rues à peine du pont Jacques-Cartier.
Le mardi des arbres: l’arbre aux abricots argentés, le ginkgo
By Bronwyn Chester // No Comments
La langue française est géniale pour sa capacité de donner un seul nom pour décrire un collectivité d'arbres, une capacité que l'anglais n'a pas. Lachenaie, par exemple -- même si on pense plus à la municipalité qu'au chêne, d'où vient le mot -- indique une chênaie, l'endroit où pousse une concentration de chênes. Même chose pour une prûcherie ou une érablière. En anglais, par contre, on est obligé d'utiliser deux mots ou plus pour parler d'une oak forest, a grove of tamarack or a sugar bush.
Mais, lorsqu'il s'agit d'une arbre qui n'est pas indigène dans un ...
Photo du Jour: graffiti blends in
By Matthew Blackett // No Comments
In parking lot southeast of St. Laurent and Sherbrooke
Public Online Forum to Inspire Bellechasse PPU
By Alanah Heffez // 13 Comments
Rosemont-Petite-Patrie is creating a Plan Particulier d'Urbanisme (PPU) for the Bellechasse sector, bordered by St-Laurent, St-Denis, Bellechasse and the train tracks to the south. Its an area that desperately needs some cohesive planning, but it's sure to be touchy as residents of Mile End and Little Italy tend to get emotional about this place. From the much-hated pedestrian under-pass at St-Laurent, to the adored green corridor along the train tracks, and the love-it or hate-it Van-Horne Viaduct.
Last month, the borough put out an open call for multi-disciplinary ...
“Room to make it real”
By Chris Erb // 15 Comments
After spending $487 000, with another $200 000 to go, Greater Montreal (not to be confused with the slightly smaller Montreal Metropolitian Community) finally has a "brand". The colourful "M" with the slogan "Room to make it real" in English and "Le Grand Montréal: L'espace pour se réaliser" in French was developed with the hope of giving the greater Montreal area (an area encompassing 78 municipalities with a total population of approximately 3 635 571 people) an identity as well a way to promote itself internationally. Yesterday, The Gazette spoke to Laurent Pepin, a partner and senior vice-president at National Public ...
Calling all Montrealophiles: Free tickets to Memoires des Anges @ Cinema Ex-centris
By Olivier Plessis // 13 Comments
Remember how annoyed you would get when your Mom would take pictures at family events? That is, until you grew up and realized how lucky you were to have someone documenting your experiences. In "Memoires des Anges", the NFB is like your Mom, and your childhood is like Montreal of 50 years ago. Watching this film, a loving re-mix of dozens of documentary and live-action films from Montreal in the 50's and 60's, one realizes how lucky we are to have an institution like the NFB contibute to ...
October 30th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’hôpital Sainte-Justine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1952-2008
L'hôpital Sainte-Justine ouvrit ses portes en 1907 dans une maison de la rue St-Denis. Cet immeuble qui ne pouvait accueillir que 12 patients s'avéra rapidement trop étroit. L'hôpital déménagea donc l'année suivante dans une résidence sur la rue de Lorimier mais celle-ci était aussi de taille trop modeste pour répondre à la forte demande.
La construction d'un nouvel hôpital moderne commença alors en 1912 au coin des rues St-Denis et Bellechasse. L'hôpital ouvrit donc ses ...
Photo du Jour – Football Fans
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
The roar of the Molson Stadium crowd (bottom left-hand corner) was clearly audible from the Belvedere lookout point at last Sunday. A little further East, you could even catch a glimpse of the action on gigantic screens, through the remaining autumn leaves. The Als lost 24 - 23 to, uh, the W-team. Football not being my forte.
October 31st, 2008
Montage du jour : L’hôpital Sainte-Justine lors de sa démolition
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1963-2008
Photo du Jour – Neon Warning
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
With many downtown churches abandoned or recycled, its can be easy to forget how Catholicism once reigned the landscape in Quebec and Montreal. This church on Papineau near Logan street flashes a neon reminder.
On that note, have a great Halloween everyone!
November 1st, 2008
Montage du jour : intersection des rues St-Laurent et Sainte-Catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1900-2007-2007-2008
Photo du Jour – No Fear
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
I love this graffiti message by the bike path on de Maisonneuve in NDG.
November 2nd, 2008
Montage du jour : L’hôtel Couillard
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Vers 1890-2008
Construit en 1877, cet édifice situé dans le quartier St-Henri, fut connu comme étant l'hôtel Couillard de 1879 à 1896.
Photo du jour : Dunkin’ Donuts sur la Transcanadienne/Métropolitaine
By Cédric Sam // 13 Comments
We at Spacing Montréal are mostly residents of Montreal's urban centre, but some of us do occasionally venture out to the suburbs. This picture was snapped from a car passing on the Trans-Canada highway, where the 15 joins with the 40 for the 4km in the former Ville St-Laurent, Ville Mont-Royal and Ahuntsic neighborhood of Montreal.
It's constantly jammed, and I remember that a decade ago, they even went to propose building a parallel highway linking both north-south segments of the ...
Photo du Jour – Plateau Distroboto
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
The city of Montreal has recently adopted four distrobotos, the indie art distributors made of retired cigarette vending machines. Brain child of local author Louis Rastelli, the innovative distrobotos scored a mention in New York Times' 2001 Year in Ideas article. But up until last September, they were located exclusively in artsy venues like Caigibi, Zoobizarre and Salla Rossa.
Now they hold up prominant spots in the maisons de la culture of the Plateau, Cote-des-Neiges, Mercier, and the salle de diffusion Park-ex. Which means the two-dollar mini-cds, Montreal magnets, ...
Welcome Back America — November 4th Celebration
By Shawn Micallef // 29 Comments
Oct 29 Update: There are 557 people signed up on the Facebook page, many from Toronto, but there are growing Montreal numbers. If you're on board with the idea, please help us spread the word by inviting your friends (especially those in other cities) and posting on your blogs. There will likely be a small piece about this in the Montreal Gazette on Monday -- my question to our readers is this: do we know where Montrealers gather in public for spontaneous celebration?
If the event below appeals to you, go to the Facebook event page and join, and then invite all your people to join -- especially if they're in a different city. This is not an "organized" event -- but we've been overhearing people asking "where will you be election night" so why not encourage a giant civic celebration?
If the rest of the planet could vote, Barack Obama would win the American 2008 election in an unprecedented landslide. It's safe to say that much of the world is waiting anxiously for the Obama victory -- think of the 200,000 people that saw Obama speak in Berlin last July.
The United States has lost moral support and sympathy around the world over the last eight years. The Obama win is a chance for a new start and to patch up both its reputation and its international relationships. We need to send a big fun signal of good faith that we're ready to have them back. Let's do that by gathering together in our public squares to celebrate this new era and show our American friends they are not alone in the world.
Here's how it will work: When CNN declares victory (since it's the news organization most internationally available) head to your city or town's main square where public celebrations usually take place. If it's a square with a big video screen maybe they'll broadcast results so you can go early, or watch the victory speech after. Like when your sports team wins, it's better to celebrate in public with everybody else.
In Toronto, the natural place to head is Dundas Square. It's got the space, those big TVs, and after every hockey championship, it is naturally filled with people. Where is Montreal's natural gathering spot?
Though planning this before results are in risks a "Dewey Defeats Truman" scenario (let's all knock wood) it's worth the risk. We may not agree with everything the United States does or even with all of Obama's platform, but let's put all that aside and, for once, celebrate America's new start. Welcome back America!
November 4th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le cinéma Séville
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1952-2008
Ce cinéma de 1148 sièges fut en opération sur la rue Sainte-Catherine de 1929 à 1985. L'intérieur fut par la suite démoli et le mur est s'effondra de lui-même en 2001.
Tree Tuesday: the good service tree
By Bronwyn Chester // 3 Comments
I was too young at the time to recall the discussion regarding the design of the Canadian flag but I've often wondered how the sugar maple leaf was decided upon as national symbol. Look on any tree distribution map and it's clear that this cherished tree of Ontario, Quebec and the maritime provinces -- minus Newfoundland -- is hardly representative of the entire nation state. Among the prairie provinces, for instance, only Manitoba shows any presence of sugar maples and they grow only along the Canada-United States border.
Had the powers that be in the early 1960s been ...
Know Hope: Tesseract
By Kimberley Mok // 1 Comment
By Kimberley Mok
The ubiquitous mansard roofs* of Montréal have always fascinated me. From the monumental to the ordinary vernacular, these distinctive roofs inspired by the once-popular Second Empire** style give the built surface a tactile depth to the multi-layered character of the city. Some stand rotting on dilapidated corners, now only silent witnesses to better times. On other streets they are painted in proud colours, basking in the rosy light of another setting sun, somehow opening onto other dimensions of imaginations about the city.
*A ...
Toronto Tuesday: Unbuilt Toronto, Transit City, and the Regent Park Film Fest
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Unbuilt Toronto
Shawn Micallef announces the opening of the Royal Ontario Museum’s new exhibit, “Unbuilt Toronto: The City That Could Have Been.” Featured projects include entries for the 2005 Regent Park Housing Competition, plans for Metro Center, and Buckminster Fuller’s futuristic plan ...
November 5th, 2008
Montage du jour : Maisons sur la rue Crescent
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1969-2008
In absentia maps Mile End stories
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
in absentia, a web-based art project presented by Dare-Dare, reads as a cross between a map and a novel. When you have lived in a place for long enough, every street corner is inhabited with memories and meaning, and a tour through in absentia feels like exploring a much-loved place with a long-time local.
The artist behind the work, JR Carpenter, is also releasing her first novel, Words the Dog Knows, this Friday November 7th. The novel and web-project co-evolved and draw on many of the same stories.
Over café au laits at Club Social on Saint-Viateur, JR Carpenter says she vowed to move to Montreal and study art as a 12-year-old growing up in rural Nova Scotia. In preparation, she read books set in the city. By 1992, she found herself living on St-Urbain street, in the exact neighbourhood she had discovered through Mordecai Richler's stories as a child...and writing about her old life on the farm.
It wasn’t until nearly 15 years later that Carpenter felt able to write about this city with the familiarity of home rather than the wide-eyes of a beguiled visitor. Many of her texts began as oral stories – scenes spied in neighbours' windows or overheard in back alleyways: a cursing Greek matriarch, kids splashing in a back-yard pool, an upstairs neighbour’s urgent love-making. An earlier web-based work, Entre Ville captures the inevitable voyeurism of the neighbourhood's close quarters.
Doubling the downtown population, with the private-sector
By KC Bolton // 3 Comments
Of the 864 census tracts in the Montreal Metropolitan Area, only three doubled their populations between 2001 and 2006. Two of the three cover areas in the Ville-Marie borough, as seen in the map below. Such rapid growth in population is in large part due to public-private programs designed to bring residents downtown, albeit with somewhat different outcomes in each tract. In this post I want to show a difference in how private-sector influence in urban development can affect changes taking place within a city.
View ...
November 6th, 2008
Montage du jour : Intersection des rues de la montagne et Sherbrooke
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1969-2008
Les éléments à noter : le nom W. Sherbrooke street sur l'enseigne ainsi que la maison Van Horne que l'on aperçoit dans le reflet de la vitrine.
Photo du jour – Painted paint plant
By KC Bolton // 2 Comments
Paint plant door at rue Marmier and rue Henri-Julien in Rosemont
Société Radio Canada plans to re-create dense urban neighbourhood
By Alanah Heffez // 24 Comments
The Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal is holding and information session and three workshops this month on the Radio Canada's site.
This post by Guillaume St-Jean describes how the site was once a bustling neighbourhood that counted 778 homes, 12 groceries, 13 restaurants, 8 garages, 4 print-shops and 20 factories. Once known as the Fauboug M'lasse (molasses town) because of the smell that permeated the dense, working class neighbourhood, this area was home to 16,000 people in 1880. The construction of Jacques Cartier bridge in 1930 sliced the area in half and demolished several ...
Photo du jour – Les mégots et les gommes, c’est assez!
By KC Bolton // 7 Comments
Part of a city campaign against litter. Photo of stencil (and gum) taken at de la Gauchetière O and de la Cathédrale.
Event Space / Espace Événements 7 – 18 Nov.
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
7/18 - Launch party for Words the Dog Knows
J.R. Carpenter's new novel Words the Dog Knows (conundrum press) captures the details of daily life in Mile End and the effects of gentrification that has taken place over the last decade. The novel draws on the authors' previous web-based works, Entre Ville and in absentia (which was presented by artist collective Dare-Dare). Read Spacing Montreal's interview with the author here.
WHEN: Friday November 7th, 7pm
WHERE: skybluedoor (5403B boul. Saint-Laurent)
COST: Free to attend; $15 for a copy of the book
8/11 - Colloque sur le statut de métropole ...
Hunting season in Montreal
By Alanah Heffez // 6 Comments
Police and wildlife agents spent hours tracking a wild deer through Parc-ex this morning, before managing to corner it in a fenced in area near a train yard in Outremont. It was tranqued and released near Farnham in the Eastern Townships. Wildlife officers speculated that the deer, a young male in heat, swam across the river from Laval in search of a mate. La Presse comments that the cops camo pants, worn a union pressure tactic, were unusually a propos.
In other news, a dog was mortally wounded by a beaver trap on Ile-des soeurs last week. The borough of ...
November 8th, 2008
Montage du jour : Intersection des rue Peel et Notre-Dame
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1978-2008
Photo du Jour – Tis the season
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
The illuminated Christmas tree at the base of McGill College street is a great spot for some romantic stargazing.
November 9th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’édifice d’Hydro-Québec
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
195?-2008
Photo du jour: Little boxes
By Chris Erb // 12 Comments
One of a bunch of housing tracts that have sprung up around the Quartier Dix30 mall in Brossard.
Photo taken July 12, 2007.
Modest Rebel: Roadsworth @ Montreal Documentary Fest
By Olivier Plessis // 7 Comments
Every morning, as I walk to the metro, I pass by a garage door next to my apartment. Like much of this section of the Plateau, this door is covered in graffiti, but one lyrical expression seems to stick out, written in giant letters: “Nique ta mere, par l’avant comme par l’arriere”. Poetry, to be sure, but one gets the sense that the neighbourhood is not exactly better off for it.
Yet how do we decide what is good graffiti? Why does some graffiti cause anger in the general, non-tagging public, while other graffiti is tolerated and even appreciated? And why, sometimes, does a street artist like Montreal’s Roadsworth have such a groundswell of public support that municipal authorities are swayed to overlook the law? I sat down this week with Roadsworth and Alan Kohl, the director of the new NFB documentary, “Roadsworth: Crossing the Line”, to talk about public art in Montreal.
November 10th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’édifice du ministère de la santé
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1946-2008
Cet édifice situé au coin des rues St-Hubert et de Maisonneuve fut détruit lors d'un incendie en 1966.
Place-Based Election Posters
By Alanah Heffez // 6 Comments
Despite the general feelings of aggravation at being faced with yet another election this fall, this poster for Green Party candidate Peter McQueen deserves a mention for the way it makes local issues so tangible. Located on the corner of De Maisonneuve blvd and Addington in NDG, the arrow to the left points at the bike path, and the arrow to the right points to a new exit of the Décarie expressway that remains closed....
November 11th, 2008
Montage du jour : Intersection des rues de Maisonneuve et Berri
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1961-2008
Photo du Jour – Wooden window sill
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Photo taken Nov 10th at 480 de la Gauchetière West.
By-law passed against cat owners in Rosemont – La Petite Patrie
By KC Bolton // 24 Comments
Be advised: according to this morning's CBC Radio broadcast, the Rosemont - La Petite Patrie borough has passed a by-law that limits each household to three cats. A filed complaint will result in a home inspection by borough officials, and a fine if the owner refuses to give away any cats over the limit.
Anyone seen feeding stray cats will also be fined. The borough reasons that these measures will reduce the number of strays living in its area.
Meanwhile, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Montreal (SPCA) announced recently ...
Devimco Griffintown project on ice
By Jacob Larsen // 11 Comments
In our current economic climate where even hundreds of billions of dollars don't make problems go away, it has been increasingly difficult to secure financing for new building projects. With suspicion regarding the solubility of major financial institutions abounding, it seems that financial uncertainty has made it to Montreal. As reported in the Gazette, Devimco announced today that it would suspend the beginning of construction in Griffintown until June 2010 rather than the projected September 2009 start date. Assuming the project does begin according to its revised schedule (and isn't affected by the decade-long recession that is increasingly being ...
Toronto Tuesday: AGO Revamped, 1914-1918 Vigil, bike sharing
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.AGO RevampedThe long-awaited reopening of the Art Gallery of Ontario is happening this month. Shawn Micallef shares some of his posts from the ...
November 12th, 2008
Montage du jour : Une vue du square Victoria
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1960-2008
Photo du jour : L’église St-Sauveur
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
Au contraire du Spectrum et du Bens, l'annonce de la démolition du théâtre de Quat'sous fut annoncé en grande pompe dans tous les médias. L'église St-Sauveur sera t'elle démolie de façon discrète ou auront nous la chance de connaître en avance la date où cette page d'histoire sera effacée ?
Le mardi des arbres: le chêne des marais, le dernier rouge
By Bronwyn Chester // 1 Comment
D'abord, je m'excuse du retard de cette chronique -- pas à cause d'un manque d'arbre mais d'un surplus du travail. Alors, cette semaine: short and sweet. Et il est sweet ce chêne des marais. En fait, cet individu est le plus rouge des trois rangées de ce chêne qui se trouve au Parc La Fontaine le long du côté ouest du terrain de tennis. Son rouge varie d'un écarlate foncé à un rose cuivré.
On ne voit que rarement le chêne des marais à Montréal. En fait, c'est le seul endroit que je connais, à part le ...
Hopeful about Les bassins du nouveau havre
By Alanah Heffez // 28 Comments
"Actually, they are the basins of the ancien havre but that 's what happens when the branding guys get hold of this," commented Mark Poddubiuk, an architect who has worked on the project, in his email inviting me to the Canada Post site open house today.
A detail perhaps, but the historical significance of this area has profoundly shaped the project. Located between rue Ottawa and the Lachine Canal, and bordered by Richmond street and Rue du Séminaire, this site was once the cradle of Montreal's industrial revolution. The Bassins du nouveau havre project would excavate the four St-Gabriel Basins, which were built between 1848 and 1885 and later filled in with earth from the metro system.
Two of the basins would be completely excavated, maximizing water-front homes (and even lending some extra waterfront to the adjacent Griffintown project). Another two basins would be partially excavated to reveal their historic structure and then used as recreational green space.
The proposal would also reconnect the local street grid by re-opening rue Basin as the neighbourhood's main street. The North-South links would all be pedestrian and the canal-side bike path would bridge the reconstituted piers.
A panorama of the bassins in 1896 (from the Bassins du nouveau havre press package).
Sustainability
The Canada Lands corporation is once again working with local architecture firm L'OEUF, as they did for the international award-winning Benny Farm housing development. Mark Poddubiuk, an architect with L'OEUF, says that the proposal meets the criteria for LEED neighbourhood development certification.
Neighbourhood commerces and a focus on pedestrian and cycling infrastructure mean that car-ownership will be far from a necessity. One innovative system would divert all the rainwater runoff from the site into a filtration pond located in the 2nd basin, rather than into city's storm sewers. A central waste processing system for garbage, compost and recyclables has also been proposed.
Furthremore, and site will be decontaminated during the excavation of the basins and the Canada Post building will be dismantled so that the component materials can be re-used and recycled as much as possible.
November 13th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’annexe de l’hôtel de ville
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
1937-2008
Photo du Jour : St-Antoine reflection
By Alanah Heffez // 6 Comments
Saint-Antoine West and the Bonaventure expressway. Photo taken Nov 10th from the elevator of the Delta Hotel.
November 14th, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison sir George Étienne Cartier
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Vers 1973-2008
Source : Lieux et Monument historiques de l'île de Montréal (livre)
Photo du jour : Une vue depuis le clocher de l’église St-Pierre apôtre
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
November 15th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’église Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes
By Guillaume St-Jean // 7 Comments
1961-2008
Photo du jour: Bellechasse sous la pluie
By Catherine Vandermeulen // 5 Comments
Rosemont Viaduct & Capitol Industries Inc. at 5795 Avenue de Gaspé (Zinc die casting specialists).
Photo taken November 13th from the 12th floor of 5800 Saint-Denis.
November 16th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’édifice de la chambre de la jeunesse
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1975-2008
A Street With a View in Pittsburgh
By Shawn Micallef // 1 Comment
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIDGyRO6w2o[/youtube]
As Google Street View spreads from city to city, it's inevitable that people will try to do some fun things when the Googlemobile drives by. Two artists in Pittsburgh recently did just that, starting A Street With a View, along with a cast of dozens. Though Street View has captured some odd and funny moments, it doesn't give a sense of who lives in the neighbourhood. This project attempts to add a bit of community into the images.
Street With A View introduces fiction, both subtle and spectacular, into the doppelganger world of Google Street View.
On May 3rd ...
November 17th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke au coin de Bleury
By Guillaume St-Jean // 8 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
November 18th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’hôtel Laurentian
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1947-2008
L'hôtel Laurentian qui ouvrit ses portes en 1948 au coin des rues René-Lévesque et Peel fut démoli en 1978.
An interview with Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable on their 10th Anniversary
By Spacing // 16 Comments
ED: Spacing is pleased to publish this guest post & interview by Montreal writer Alexandra Redgrave.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of interventionist art collective Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable (ATSA), the brainchild of dancer Annie Roy and visual artist Pierre Allard. Over the past decade, they have been redefining Canadians’ understanding of the urban landscape, changing the way we interact with our cities through public art. ATSA’s work is equal parts cheeky (Warhol’s iconic Brillo boxes are taken out of the museum and put back into a laundromat for free public use), and radical (“civilian tickets” have been handed out to the owners of gas-guzzling SUVs across the country). Torontonians will remember their bombed-out SUV parked in Dundas Square in 2005. Last month, the collective opened Change, a temporary store that will serve as retrospective and “marketing guinea pig” until it closes on December 20th. For those who can’t make it to the physical location (4351 Saint-Laurent Blvd in Montreal), Change has a permanent home on the web.
Alexandra Redgrave: Coming from your backgrounds in dance and cinema, how did you and Pierre start ATSA?
Annie Roy: When we first met there was an energy between us that sort of exploded into a series of ideas and gave us the courage to go further, bigger, and more spectacular. ATSA didn’t take off right away, though. For our first meeting, we made labyrinths out of dead leaves on the mountain and watched to see if people would walk through the sculpture, around it, or jump right into it. Even though our resources were limited, there was already the idea of putting something in the urban environment and having fun with it. Later, as a couple, we started talking about the future and having children. We wanted to take ten or so years of aesthetic baggage and turn it into something useful for our society.
What really pushed us to start ATSA was while we were watching the news one night. A report stated that the Maison du Père [a refuge for the homeless] needed 107 pairs of socks, and right after, the announcer said that Canadian banks were making millions of dollars in profit. As artists—and citizens—it was a great indignation. The symbolism was very strong for us. So we put our heads together and made a debit machine that dispensed warm socks, calling it a “Banque à Bas” or “Sock Bank.” We illegally put it in front of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and that’s when our whole “terrorist” strategy came about. The media didn’t know who we were, and the name was very shocking and provocative at the time. It was an artistic form of terrorism, in the sense that it was a work of art that exploded in the urban environment. Of course, it’s not real terrorism at all, but rather, a sublimation of violence, an aesthetic and civilized gesture.
Event Space / Espace Événements 17 – 30 Nov.
By Alanah Heffez // 6 Comments
Beaucoup d'événements ce mois-ci: le documentaire sur l'artiste Roadsworth, une nouvelle édition de la soirée Pecha Kucha, la présentation des plans pour le secteur Bellechasse, et DJ Kid Koala au CCA!
Tons of exciting stuff going on for the rest of the month: the Roadsworth Documentary opens, a new edition of Pecha Kucha night, selected designs for the Bellechasse Sector will be unveiled, and Kid Koala spins at the CCA!
Toronto Tuesday: Artscape Wychwood Barns, Transformation AGO and CANstruction
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Artscape Wychwood Barns
Once used as streetcar repair barns, the Wychwood Barns have been out of use for some time. In parnership with Artscape, architect ...
November 19th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’école normale Jacques-Cartier
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1927-2008
L'école normale Jacques-cartier qui fut construite en 1879 sur le terrain du parc Lafontaine fut détruite par un incendie en 1948. Une nouvelle école d'allure beaucoup plus moderne fut par la suite reconstruite sur le même emplacement en 1952.
Tree tuesday: À l’aise with the mélèze
By Bronwyn Chester // 1 Comment
Driving home from east side of Vermont a week ago, it was all I could do not to stop the car to photograph the stunning ocres, yellows and oranges of the tamaracks that were by far the dominant colour in the forest alongside highway 10 and the interstate 91. I can't promise you that the colour is still there. It may well have pooled in rusty puddles of needles at the foot of these unusual conifers, unusual because they are one of only two conifers (trees with cones), native to North American, that lose their leaves.
Yes, these conifers ...
Photo du Jour – Griffintown Sculptures
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
For a few days, I passed by these curious carved heads on my way to work, and then on Monday I had a chance to meet the artist, Tuto. Between my basic Spanish and his patchy English, I gathered that the owner of the lot on Ottawa street is letting Tuto use it as a workspace and gallery until January. Another neighbour who was checking on the sculptor's progress explained to me that the wood he is using comes from two old trees (poplars, I believe) that ...
November 20th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’école normale Jacques-Cartier
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1898-2008
Construite en 1879, cette école fut malheureusement ravagée par un incendie en 1948.
Photo du Jour – Tangled Bike Path
By Alanah Heffez // 15 Comments
Only in Montreal do art projects like this get permanently integrated into the urban landscape ;)
The silver lining of recession
By Jacob Larsen // 5 Comments
A completely unrelated picture, from Luc at Montreal Daily Photo
The likelihood of this worldwide recession simply blowing over Canada appears to be a increasingly ridiculous possibility. But perhaps this is the ideal time to invest in overdue infrastructure for Canada's major cities, a tried-and-tested strategy for stimulating the economy in tough times. A "New New Deal", one might call it.
In fact, that's exactly what Jean Perrault, president of the Canadian Federation of Municipalities, is telling Stephen Harper and provincial leaders. As the CBC reports:
Many economists agree it’s a tried and true way ...
November 21st, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke depuis la rue Mackay
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1947-2008
Les 5 premières maisons situées au coin de la rue Mackay furent construites en 1885. Elles sont aujourd'hui occupé par des galeries d'art.
La tour à bureaux construite en 1960 au coin de la rue Bishop remplace quant à elle 2 maisons d'un ensemble de 4 qui furent érigées en 1893.
Photo du Jour – November Canal
By Alanah Heffez // 5 Comments
I'm not sure why, but the Lachine canal is looking a little empty these days.
Monuments (a poem)
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Last Thursday, I took part in a panel discussion about art and community action, along with Emily Rose Michaud, the artist behind the Roerich Garden in the abandoned CP rail lot in Mile End and Felix Rebolledo a member of the Committee for the Sustianable Redevelopment of Griffintown.
For this artsy occasion, I dug out a poem that I wrote a few years back, one of my first attempts to put my thoughts about the city into words. This was right around the time when Warsaw's was replaced by Pharmaprix, and everyone was freaking out that Montreal was forsaking its history, and forgetting that the city - especially vibrant parts like the Main - has always been in a state of constant flux. (I think the City and many of its citizens are still trying hard to strike a balance between preserving our sense of Place without wallowing in the past.)
Anyways, if you are into a bit of poetic musing, read on...
Photo: graffiti along the Lachine canal presents a different point of view: "There is no use looking back."
November 22nd, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison Dandurand
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1903-2008
Cette maison autrefois occupé par Ucal-Henri Dandurand fut construite en 1903 pour Adam Rutherford Bell. Située au coin des rues René-Lévesque et St-Mathieu, elle fut détruite en 1981 et remplacée par un hôtel de 8 étages.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.1750.18.3§ion=196
MP-0000.1750.18.3
Roerich Garden highlights abandoned site’s value in the face of St-Viateur expansion
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Sprout Out Loud! gardening collective in the Mile End meadow on November 2nd 2008. Photo by Melissa Campbell.
In an abandoned CP Rail lot in the Mile End, a pack of gardeners till the earth and sip Hot Toddy in the November chill. Next spring they will plant red clover and bee balm in the shape of a 20-foot wide Roerich symbol -the symbol of cultural preservation which was placed on the roofs of schools, museums, and historical monuments during WWII to deter aerial bombers.
Emily Rose Michaud, the artist behind the Roerich Garden - which has grown from art project, to gardening collective, to political statement - says her work is a message to the community and city officials that this meadow is culturally meaningful.
The meadow is both a green space and a creative place where people walk dogs, meditate, hold bonfires, play music, and build snow sculptures. Bronwyn Chester visisted the site during one of her tree tours, and over the months, Michaud has also seen ground hogs, skunks, monarch butterflies, as well as walnut and apple trees, which she believes were brought over by squirrels from the Carmelite nunnery next door. It is also a creative space where public art can be made accessible and implicate the community at large: besides the Roerich Garden, the meadow hosted the 2007 edition of Festival Artivistic.
"It's becoming a heavily gentrified area, which makes the space more relevant, more precious," Michaud says.
November 23rd, 2008
Montage du jour : La confiserie de A. Joyce
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1900-2008
Cet immeuble qui servait à la fois de résidence et de commerce pour A. Joyce fut remplacé en 1927 par l'édifice Canada Cement.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/VIEW-3275.A§ion=196
VIEW-3275.A
Photo du Jour – Redpath Albertasaurus
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
With the weather getting colder and miserable-er, I've been seeking more indoor adventures around town. The Redpath Museum at McGill University is cozy and curious, and its natural history exhibits are free to the public. This albertasaurus skeleton dominates the main exhibition hall, and they also recently acquired a triceratops (which was not yet on display when I visited in early November). The second floor features an Egyptian Mummy which has been MRI-ed.
Built in 1882, the Redpath was the first building constructed to house a museum collection ...
Elevator in subway
By Michael Dunkelman // 13 Comments
The Program to equip Montreal's metro stations with elevators is now underway. What originally started in the new stations in Laval is being brought over to the island of Montreal. Firstly the major stations such as Lionel-Groulx will be addressed. I remember a couple years back when the Laval stations just opened, there were many who criticized the fact that the three stations had elevators. Where will people with reduced mobility go once they enter the station they asked. Well here is the answer, it only took a few more years but now people with ...
November 24th, 2008
Montage du jour : La caserne d’incendie #2
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1910-2008
Cette caserne construite en 1909 dans l'ancienne ville de Maisonneuve fut en opération jusqu'en 1994.
Photo du Jour – Derrière la Facade
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Photo prise le 12 novembre, sur la rue Clark entre Ste-Catherine et Réné-Levesque. (La façade préservée donne sur le Blvd Saint-Laurent)
Montreal to province: rethink the Turcot
By Jacob Larsen // 6 Comments
This was the news that emerged from Montreal's Executive committee today, regarding the $1.5 billion redevelopment of the Turcot Interchange. Almost 18 months after the project was announced, Montreal's executive committee has finally stood up for the ideas expressed in its 2007 Transportation Plan, namely reducing car dependency. As reported by the Gazette yesterday:
The city wants the provincial government to pay more attention to how public transit and carpooling will figure in the final version of the plan, as well as what steps will be taken for homeowners who will be displaced by the ...
November 25th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’avenue de l’hôtel de ville près de la rue Sherbrooke
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Photo du Jour: Dear Gary Biscuits
By Chris Erb // 4 Comments
Photo taken July 6, 2008 somewhere on boul St-Laurent in the Plateau.
Toronto Tuesday: How Toronto’s cycling population fares, inside the GM headquarters, what can be learnt from recent cyclist accident
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
A cross-cultural look at cycling
Many European country’s boast a population of which 20-30% cycle, while a mere 1% of Torontonians are reported to ...
Le mardi des arbres: Deux arbres et un écureuil
By Bronwyn Chester // 1 Comment
En ce moment-ci de l'année, j'apprécie beaucoup les pommiers et pommetiers. Pendant les dernières trois semaines, j'ai pu observer de près le changement dans les feuilles du pommier de ma court. Jusqu'à il y a 10 jours, ses feuilles dorées ensoleillaient ma cuisine, même les journées grises. Le pommier et son confrère au plus petits fruits, le pommetier, sont parmi les derniers arbres à Montréal à perdre leur feuilles. En fait, les arbres de la famille des rosiers: pommiers, cérisiers, poiriers, pruniers, etc., gardent leur feuillage tard dans la saison.
Et même après la chute inévitable des feuilles, le ...
November 26th, 2008
Montage du jour : Maison sur la rue de la Gauchetière
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1935-2008
Photo du Jour – Port de Montréal
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
Vue de la rive du fleuve, près de l'avenue Broadway à Montréal Est. Photo prise le 26 novembre.
November 27th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine depuis la rue Union
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1935-2008
Photo du Jour – Shell Empire
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
This Shell building at 10501 Sherbrooke East caught my eye, although I suppose any kind of architecture stands out amid the sea of smokestacks and petroleum tanks that make up most of Montréal-Est. This Shell Refinery is celebrating its 75th anniversary.
Bike Path Reverts to Parking in Westmount
By Alanah Heffez // 18 Comments
While the City of Montreal will attempt to clear the bike path on de Maisonneuve for year-round cycling, Westmount has no such intentions. The section of the bike path between Green and Atwater reverts to on-street parking between mid-November and April.
Although the measure provides extra parking for clients of Westmount Square and Place Alexis Nihon, it makes these destinations - as well as Dawson College - more difficult and dangerous to access by bike. East-bound cyclists find themselves heading into oncoming, ...
EXCLUSIVE: STM Shuts Down Municipal Shuttle to Metro
By Alanah Heffez // 24 Comments
Shuttle bus owned and operated by the town of Montréal-Est. Photo courtesy of Montréal-Est Town Hall.
Backed by a law that grants them a public transit monopoly in Montreal, the STM has halted one municipality's initiative to shuttle residents to the nearest metro station.
Citizens of Montréal-Est were often left waiting at bus stops in the cold as 3 or 4 overflowing buses coming from the Eastern tip of the island passed them by. So beginning on November 17th, the municipality of Montreal-Est began a pilot program to shuttle local residents to the Honoré-Beaugrand metro terminus free ...
November 28th, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison de Sheldon Stephens
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1885-2008
Cette résidence fut construite dans la seconde moitié du 19e siècle sur la rue Drummond .
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-1979.92.2§ion=196
MP-1979.92.2
Une ville sans trous
By Joel Thibert // 13 Comments
J'ai toujours été fasciné par ces trous et ces interstices dans la trame urbaine qui surgissent un peu partout dans la ville et qu'on délimite souvent par quelques blocs de béton (comme dans le cas présent), ou qu'on transforme en petits parcs (comme fréquemment dans le Village) ou alors qui deviennent partie intégrante du paysage urbain (comme ces stations-services qui ont fermées au début des années 90 et qui ont laissé derrière elles des terrains couverts de gravier qui sont restés vagues pendant une décennie) .
Celui-ci est particulièrement intriguant parce qu'il se situe à ...
November 29th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le château Viger
By Guillaume St-Jean // 8 Comments
Vers 1895-2008
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/VIEW-3220.1§ion=196
VIEW-3220.1
Spacing @ Expozine, ce samedi et dimanche!
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Venez nous rencontrer cette fin de semaine à la septième édition d'Expozine, la foire des petites publications, zines, et artisans. Ça se passe dans le sous-sol de l'Église Saint-Enfant Jésus, au coin de St-Joseph et St-Laurent, à quelques pas du métro Laurier.
Come meet us this weekend at the seventh annual edition of Expozine, the small press, zine and art fair. It's happening in the basement of Église Saint-Enfant Jésus at the corner of St-Joseph and St-Laurent, a few steps away from Laurier Metro.
Photo du Jour – Magasin de Mannequins
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Photo prise le 22 octobre sur blvd Saint-Laurent dans la Petite Italie.
December 1st, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine depuis Mansfield
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1973-2008
Photos du Jour – Carrière Lafarge
By Alanah Heffez // 8 Comments
This quarry in Montreal-Est is the last active quarry on the Island. They've got about 20 more years to go before the remaining gravel is scraped out of the pit. Then we're going to have a rather big hole to fill.
Any creative ideas for the space?
Photos taken october 4th and november 26th
Roadsworth’s Street Art To Help Revitalize Saint-Pierre
By Alanah Heffez // 9 Comments
Most people don't venture into Saint-Pierre unless they live there, work there, or are truly lost. The neighbourhood is islated between two railway lines and a highway; its main street, a segment of Saint-Jacques, doubles as a trucking route.
But despite these challenges, this part of the Lachine borough is close to the city centre and is currently experiencing a boom in housing.
A committee of citizens and municipal employees recently took on the daunting task of revitalizing Saint-Pierre's main street and came to the conclusion that the neighbourhood lacked a distinctive monument or signature with ...
Montage du jour : Immeuble au coin des rues Logan et Champlain
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1975-2008
December 2nd, 2008
Toronto Tuesday: Toronto book review, Spacing’s face-lift, Metrolinx plan approved
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities. There Was Never a Better TimeDylan Reid reviews “There Was Never a Better Time;” the story of two men living in Toronto during the 1920s. The book’s anecdotes and archival photographs paint a picture of what the city ...
Photo du Jour: de Maisonneuve from the 12th floor of the Hall Building
By Chris Erb // 8 Comments
From the urban planning lab in Concordia University's Hall Building. Click for a larger view.
Photo taken October 31, 2007 (the bike path is just having its lines painted, the trees along the new sitewalk haven't been planeted yet, and Ben's is still there).
December 3rd, 2008
Montage du jour : Intersection des rues St-Denis et Christin
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1944-2008
Photo du jour: Take that, Panda!
By Chris Erb // 1 Comment
Chalk graffiti in an alley somewhere in the Plateau.
Photo taken July 6, 2008
Event Space / Espace Événements 3 – 10 dec.
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Head to the South-West this Friday for an exhibit of Turcot Interchange art, followed by a holiday bash organized by Dare-Dare and 3 other artist collectives. And get your alternative transportation fix through a talk on walkable cities at the Mile End Library and a UQAM conference on the new culture of mobility.
Pointez-vous vers le sud-ouest ce vendredi pour une exhibition de l'art de l'échangeur Turcot, suivi par le party des fêtes organisé par Dare-Dare et 3 autres centres d'artistes. Et les amateurs du transport alternatif peuvent se gâter avec une discussion avec l'autrice du livre Walkable Cities et une conférence sur la Culture de la mobilité urbaine à UQAM.
Tree Tuesday: The Old Ash That Was and Why
By Bronwyn Chester // 8 Comments
Despite 17 years of crossing regularly Square St-Louis, it was only last summer when I noticed a glorious old ash among the predominant silver maples. Growing along the north side of the square, in between Laval and Henri-Julien streets, its buff coloured bark, deeply crevaced in the diamond shapes that are typical of the northern red ash species (frêne rouge, Fraxinus pensylvanica), the tree suddenly stood out. I followed the great girth of its trunk skyward and locked eyes with a squirrel that had paused to negotiate its next leap.
Ash trees that size are rare in the city. ...
December 4th, 2008
Montage du jour : Campagne de sécurité routière au square Philips
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
1957-2008
Photo du jour: rue Demers in full bloom
By Chris Erb // 8 Comments
Last summer, I discovered this tiny house-lined, flora-filled alley in the Plateau. I ventured back to take photos to write a post about it until I discovered that former contributor Christopher DeWolf had written about it and its history last winter.
Photo taken August 20, 2008.
December 5th, 2008
Montage du jour : Une vue du vieux Montréal depuis l’édifice de La Sauvegarde
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1947-2008
Photo du Jour – Old School
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
The pair of towers on Sherbrooke street are among the oldest structures in the city, according to the Centre d'histoire de Montréal. However, sources conflict as to whether they date from the construction of Fort de la Montagne in 1685, or whether they were erected when the wooden fortress was rebuilt out of stone after a fire in 1694.
Fort de la Montagne originally housed a Sulpician mission to convert and school Native Americans. In 1685, ...
Affiches électorales créativement vandalisées (édition provinciale)
By Cédric Sam // 14 Comments
Les élections provinciales sont ce lundi, et il est temps de faire notre récolte d'affiches vandalisées. Aujourd'hui, je suis passé devant cette affiche de Pauline Marois, chef du PQ, "modifiée" par ce qui a l'air d'être plus qu'un simple passant.
Tout près de la maison de Radio-Canada, quelqu'un muni d'autocollants de couleur pourpre s'est amusé à coller des répliques à saveur étudiante aux slogans des trois ...
December 6th, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison du juge Pike
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1880-2008
Cette maison qui fut occupé par le juge Pike et par la suite par les soeurs de la Providence était située au coin nord ouest des rues de Maisonneuve et St-Hubert. Elle fut démolie au début du 20e siècle afin d'être remplacée par l'édifice du ministère de la santé, qui fut lui même remplacé par le terminus d'autobus actuel.
December 8th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Peel près de Maisonneuve
By Guillaume St-Jean // 7 Comments
1947-2008
La fonction résidentielle sur la rue Peel est aujourd'hui presque totalement disparue au sud de la rue Sherbrooke.
Vous pourrez voir au cours des 2 prochains jours, 2 autres angles de vue de ce même endroit.
December 9th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Peel près de Maisonneuve
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
1947-2008
Toronto Tuesday: sidewalk space, sidewalk canopies and Georgian Toronto
By Chloe Ellingson // 1 Comment
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Three's a crowd
After observing diminishing sidewalk space around the city with the implementation of new bus shelters, Dylan Reid set out to get some evidence of this change, tape measure in hand. His findings demonstrate that some of these shelters leave less than the standard 2.1 meters of sidewalk space.
By George
Stemming from the Palladian architecture of the Italian Renaissance, Georgian architecture took shape during King ...
Photo du Jour – ArchitectChair
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Chair artfully suspended above the Ville-Maire Expressway at rue du Fort. According to the Canadian Centre for Architecture, who created and maintain the public garden in which this sculpture stands, "The CCA Garden restores the urban fabric of an area deeply scarred by mid-20th-century highway engineering."
Le mardi des arbres: Le févier qui frise et pique
By Bronwyn Chester // 2 Comments
C'est dur à croire que cet arbre, si distingué en hiver par ses longues gousses frisées qui crépitent dans le vent, soit le même arbre si délicat au printemps et en été avec ses maintes petites folioles ovales qui tournent en or à l'automne et couvre les trottoirs d'une poussière dorée. Mais le févier épineux (honey locust, Gleditsia triacanthos) est un arbre trompeur. Arbre fétiche de ville, bien aimé pour son ombre légère, sa rapidité de croissance, et sa tolérance au sel et au sol compacté, il compte parmi les "top 10" des arbres plantés par la Ville ...
L’histoire banale d’un trou exceptionnel
By Joel Thibert // 8 Comments
Montréal n'ayant pas été planifiée au milieu du 19ème siècle, les percées visuelles qui aboutissent sur quelque chose d'intéressant sont assez rares. Il y a, bien entendu, la rue McGill College, qui s'ouvre sur le campus de McGill, le pavillon des arts, le réservoir McTavish et le Mont-Royal. Il ...
Photo du Jour – Rue Tupper
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Corner of Tupper and Saint-Marc streets, looking east, December 5th, 2008
Mordecai Richler's fictional character Duddy Kravitz rented an apartment on this street during his quest for upward mobility.
December 11th, 2008
Montage du jour : Maisons sur la rue Sherbrooke au coin de Bishop
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1945-2008
Seulement 2 résidences de cet ensemble de 4 maisons en rangées construites en 1893 au coin des rues Sherbrooke et Bishop subsistent encore aujourd'hui. Les 2 maisons de gauche furent remplacées par un immeuble à bureaux en 1960.
Photo du Jour – Bassin du Grand Séminaire
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Just to the west of the du Grand Séminaire building on Sherbrooke and du Fort, this shallow pool was built some time between 1731 and 1801 (the exact date seems to be unknown). An 1846 map of the site shows the basin in its current form. The picture above was taken on December 3rd 2008, just as the first crust of ice was forming on the surface of the water.
Measuring 158.5 by 7.6 m the basin initially ran through Fort de ...
Twin Jacques Cartiers
By Alanah Heffez // 7 Comments
Monuments to Jacques Cartier in Saint-Henri park (above) and Saint-Henri metro station (below) are more than a little alike. So which is the 1893 original?
Event Space / Espace Événements 11 – 18 dec.
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
11/12 - Screening / Projection : You Never Bike Alone
The Canadian Centre for Architecture presents a film by Bob Alstead on the history of Vancouver cyclists' demonstrations over the past ten years and the political and social consequences of their mobilization, including changes to the urban landscape
Le Centre Canadien d’architecture présente le film de Bob Alstead sur l'histoire des manifestations des 10 dernières années réunissant des cyclistes à Vancouver et des conséquences politiques et sociales de leur mobilisation, telle la modification du tissu urbain. (Film en anglais).
WHEN: Thursday, December 11th at 19h.
WHERE: Canadian ...
December 12th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke depuis la rue Redpath
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
1945-2008
Photo du Jour – ‘y neige!
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Snow encrusted rooftop of a home facing Carré Saint-Louis.
December 13th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’orphelinat Notre-Dame-de-Liesse
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
1979-2008
Photo du Jour – R.I.P. Blue Bike
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Handwritten sign on Guy just below Ste-Catherine: "I loved you blue bike. R.I.P."
Our deepest sympathies.
Sounds of the City
By Alanah Heffez // 6 Comments
Perhaps even more than the rich visual details that the city has to offer, sound invades our experience of public space, yet this blog has rarely explored this city's soundscape.
Fortunately someone else - in fact a whole bunch of folks - has done exactly this and have recently released the Montreal Sound Map.
From wailing sirens sirens and hollering frat-boys, to stomping neighbours and the incessant drone of tires on concrete, the sounds of the city tend to get a bad rep. After all, how often are the urban wanderer's ears piqued by beautiful or ...
December 14th, 2008
Montage du jour : La crèche d’Youville
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1979-2008
Photo du jour: Icy branches almost damaged the Dow Planetarium
By Jacob Larsen // 1 Comment
Luckily, it wasn't worse. Maybe you can't tell, but someone's waving gaily in the window.
December 15th, 2008
Montage du jour : La bijouterie de Gabriel L. Lucas
By Guillaume St-Jean // 9 Comments
1946-2008
Situé sur la rue Sherbrooke près de la rue Simpson, cet immeuble est aujourd'hui occupé par une galerie d'art.
Photo du jour: St. Henri on fire
By Jacob Larsen // 4 Comments
There are some parts of this city that tend to catch fire more than others. I'm thinking of the Plateau and St. Henri, especially, but that includes anywhere where land values are rising fast enough for unscrupulous landlords to make a buck from fire insurance and a quick sale to a condo developer.
This was taken in the summer of 2007 and the fire was on rue Ste. Marguerite, I believe.
December 16th, 2008
Montage du jour : La maison de M.C.E. Smith
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1907-2008
Cette résidence de la rue University fut remplacée en 1911 par le Pavillion Strathcona de l'université McGill.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/II-166643§ion=196
II-166643
Toronto Tuesday: urban theory match, bus arrival technology and waterfront signs
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Photo by Shawn Micallef
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Kingwell vs. Florida
Both Richard Florida and Mark Kingwell have a lot to say about Toronto, and use very different analytical methods to do so. In this post Dylan Reid compares the methods and writings of these two thinkers.
TTC launches vehicle arrival program
The days of seemingly endless waits for the bus are almost over. Yesterday the Toronto Transit Commision launched a new vehicle ...
Shopping in St. Henri
By Jacob Larsen // 1 Comment
Shopping season is upon us, but all was quiet along the CN tracks in St. Henri. With all the snow we've been getting, this shopping cart isn't likely going anywhere soon.
Ottawa transit strike brings city to a standstill
By Spacing // 6 Comments
EDITOR'S NOTE: Spacing asked Ottawa resident and University of Ottawa geography student David McClelland to give Spacing Montreal readers a big-picture look at the public transit strike currently crippling Ottawa.
- - - - - - - - - - -
At 12:01 AM on December 10th, buses stopped moving in Ottawa as the over 2,200 members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 279 officially went on strike, while at the same time over 30 centimetres of snow was falling and one of the four bridges linking Ottawa and neighboring Gatineau was only open to limited vehicular traffic due to structural concerns. If you didn't know better, you might think Ottawans are masochists.
While the snow has since been cleared and the Chaudière Bridge remains open to cars, the drivers, dispatchers and maintenance workers of OC Transpo are still on strike. OC Transpo has a daily ridership of 350,000, which represents about 20% of the commuter traffic in the city. The Société de transport de l'Outaouais, which operates in Gatineau and downtown Ottawa, meanwhile, is still operating normally.
The ATU voted to strike on December 3rd, with 98% of members in favour of taking job action. It isn't about money, either—the union went on strike for three main reasons:
1. To maintain their shift-booking system in some form, which allows drivers to select routes and shifts themselves with preference given to the most senior drivers. The City claims drivers are abusing this system and wasting Ottawa's money.
2. Ending the City's ability to contract out work, such as maintenance and body work on buses. If this issue can be resolved along with the scheduling issue, the strike will likely end.
3. Parity with other City employees on sick days. OC Transpo drivers receive just six unpaid sick days annually, while other City of Ottawa employees receive between 12 and 15 paid sick days annually.
Both sides have dug in their heels, neither budging on the key issues, meaning that the strike could become quite protracted.
December 17th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’avenue McGill college
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1938-2008
Ouverte en 1856, l'avenue McGill college était autrefois une rue à vocation résidentielle. Sur la photo ci-haut, on peut déjà constater que les résidences avaient dès lors été transformées en commerce dans les années 1930. Ces immeubles disparaîtrons ensuite graduellement entre les années 1960 et 1980 afin de permettre l'élargissement de la rue.
Photo du Jour – Canada Malting from above
By Jacob Larsen // 7 Comments
This building was very dangerous to access and I strongly recommend against anyone going there. That said, the view from the roof over the southwest and downtown was spectacular.
December 18th, 2008
Tree Tuesday: Back to Yggdrasill: sacred tree of the solstice
By Bronwyn Chester // 4 Comments
As chance would have it, the tree I return to today is Yggdrasill, winter Solstice tree of Norse mythology, known here as the ash, a tree I wrote about two weeks ago when a senior of its clan was felled in Carré St-Louis. Given that the Solstice falls this Sunday, it's time to get to know this humble city tree, long venerated by many peoples of the Earth. In fact, had the city workers that had the sad task of cutting down the fragile old ash (as we call Yggdrasill, pronounced eeg-dra-zil) been aware of its magic ...
Photo du Jour – Public Transit Plaque
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Plaque at Berri-UQAM metro station commemorating the inauguration of Montreal's public transit system in 1861 and the metro in 1966.
According to an STM timeline, the 1861 Montreal City Passenger Railway Company operated 6 miles of railway along Notre-Dame street and owned one stable, one shed, 8 vehicles and 14 horses. By 1894, the last horse-drawn cars were replaced with electric streetcars affectionately known as Rockets.
The plaque, which is about a meter in diameter, sits face-up in the centre ...
December 19th, 2008
Montage du jour : L’académie commerciale catholique
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1899-2008
Cet édifice qui fut démoli dans les années 1960 pour faire place à un vulgaire terrain de stationnement fut décrit comme suit dans le livre sur le diocèse de Montréal publié en 1900 :
« L'académie commerciale a été fondée en 1853, rue Cotté, et a été transférée au Plateau en 1871. L'établissement, largement ouvert à l'air et à la lumière, occupe un site admirable et parfaitement dégagé, entre les rues Sainte-Catherine, Saint-Urbain et Ontario ; le sol est élevé de 25 pieds au-dessus de la rue Sainte-Catherine, sur laquelle donne l'entrée principale, et d'où l'on a accès au Plateau par une large et magnifique avenue en pente douce.
Le bâtiment principal, élevé parallèlement à la rue Sainte-Catherine, et comprenant un sous-sol et trois étages, a 165 pieds de longueur sur 45 de largeur ; l'architecture est du style ogival du XVI siècle, avec pavillon central en saillie sur les façades d'avant et d'arrière, et d'autres pavillons aux extrémités. Le pavillon central porte un cadran de grande dimension, qui donne l'heure au loin du côté de la rue Sainte-Catherine ; au-dessus de la porte d'entrée, on voit en relief, l'écusson spécial de l'Académie avec la devise : Suaviter et fortiter (avec douceur et fermeté).
Notre gravure offre une vue d'ensemble de la façade du bâtiment ; c'est du côté de la rue Ontario que se trouve la cour de récréation. La maison qui se détache du bâtiment principal sur la droite de cette cour, et que l'on retrouve sur la gauche de la façade d'entrée est le logement du directeur général, M. U.-E. Archambault, qui dirige les écoles soumises au contrôle des commissaires catholiques de Montréal. M. Leblond de Brumath est le principal de l'académie ; l'enseignement y est donné par des professeurs laïques.
Photo du jour : Le cinéma Loew’s
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
L'ancien cinéma Loew's situé à l'intersection des rues Sainte-Catherine et Mansfield est utilisé en tant que salle de gym depuis 2005.
December 20th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke depuis la rue McGill college
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1910-2008
Source Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.872.10§ion=196
MP-0000.872.10
Photo du Jour – Tunnel Melrose
By Alanah Heffez // 5 Comments
Ce tunnel piétonnier relie le quartier de Saint-Raymond avec la rue de Maisonneuve et la reste de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, passant en dessous de la voie ferrée.
Photo prise le 13 décembre 2008.
The inevitable failure of the 515
By Chris Erb // 13 Comments
Last summer, the STM introduced the 515 bus route to little fanfare. The route, which is supposed to be a precursor to a promised tramway, makes a loop through downtown to Old Montreal then returns to Downtown from the Cité Multimédia and Griffintown. According to a recent story in the Journal de Montréal, the line hasn't been particularly popular, carrying only 1200 passengers a day, about five times less than the STM's projected 6000 passengers forcing the STM to lower the number of departures for the winter.
The STM shouldn't be at all surprised with ...
EventSpace / Espace Évenements : 21 décembre
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
21/12 - Lancée de la publication Dis/Location 1: projet d'articulation urbaine
Dare-Dare, centre de diffusion d'art multidisciplinaire de Montréal, lance ce livre avec une conversation publique dans la librairie du Centre Canadienne d'architecture. Cet ouvrage poursuit la réflexion amorcée par les membres et collaborateurs de DARE-DARE avec le premier volet de Dis/location: projet d’articulation urbaine, qui a amené le centre à déménager ses bureaux en 2004 dans un abri installé provisoirement au square Viger jusqu’en 2006. Le square Viger, lieu névralgique dans la géographie urbaine de Montréal, représente pour les auteurs de la publication – ...
December 21st, 2008
Montage du jour : Le Ouimetoscope
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Vers 1974-2008
Source : Lieux et monuments historiques de l'île de Montréal (livre)
If you think the Metro is crowded…
By Chris Erb // 11 Comments
...be glad you don't live here!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKOEQVgONh0[/youtube]
The comments section on the YouTube page say this is in Japan. If the Metro today feels packed to the rims with Christmas shoppers carrying oversized bags, now you know how much worse it could be.
A walk in the snow
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
The snow was strong and heavy, but did nothing to stop Christmas shoppers from getting their gifts (we bet that the economic crisis did a far better job a that). I took a walk with my camera and brought back a couple of shots....
December 22nd, 2008
Montage du jour : Le salon funéraire de Joseph C. Wray & bro
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1932-2008
Cet édifice situé au 1234 rue de la montagne fut construit en 1859 pour David R. Wood. D'abord utilisé comme résidence unifamiliale, il fut par la suite acheté en 1902 par la compagnie Joseph C. Wray & bro qui transforma alors l'immeuble en salon funéraire.
Depuis 1978, ce même endroit est utilisé comme boîte de nuit et selon les dires de certains, l'endroit serait reconnu comme ayant été le théâtre de plusieurs manifestations surnaturelles...
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/VIEW-25235§ion=196
VIEW-25235
Photo du Jour : Square Phillips sous la neige
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Photo prise le 18 décembre 2008
December 23rd, 2008
Montage du jour : Immeuble au coin des rues Sherbrooke et Aylmer
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1938-2008
Cette ancienne demeure bourgeoise qui fut utilisée par l'association zioniste au cours des années 1930 et 1940 fut démolie vers 1949 afin d'être remplacée par la piscine Garfield-Weston. Un pavillon du collège Royal Victoria Le pavillon de musique de l'université McGill occupe aujourd'hui cet emplacement.
Photo du Jour : Ogilvy’s Window
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
In the crush of holiday shopping, Ogilvy's department store traditionally dedicates a window to spreading a little non-commercial seasonal spirit. It's a pleasure to linger on the corner of Sainte-Catherine street and de la Montagne to watch people of all ages pause, momentarily enraptured by dozens of animated stuffed animals moving in unison.
Since 1947, the window has featured two different Christmassy scenes which alternate from year to year (The "Enchanged Village" is on display this year). Strangely, close scrutiny of this scene reveals ...
Toronto Tuesday: Road trip, the Distellery District and Spacing’s birthday party
By Chloe Ellingson // 1 Comment
Photo by Sean Marshall
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Road Trip: Morgantown, West Virginia
En route to Pittsburgh Sean Marshall decided to visit the world's only operating personal rapid transit system. Here he recounts this and other Morgantown discoveries.
Toronto’s Distillery District — History by the Lake
Shawn Micallef draws light to a review of a new book by Toronto archivist and historian Sally Gibson. In "Toronto Distillery District - History by the Lake," Gibson ...
December 24th, 2008
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke au coin de la rue Peel
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
195?-2008
The ghosts of Steinberg’s
By Christopher DeWolf // 22 Comments
There's something particularly iconic about supermarkets, especially in North America, where they first emerged in the 1940s and have a good half-century of history behind them. While supermarkets today are an entrenched part of the urban landscape, there was something particularly fresh and innovative about them in the 1950s, which you can see in those that have survived from that era without too many alterations.
But even those that have been altered significantly have left a big imprint on the shape of our streets and neighbourhoods. I never realized just how big of an ...
Nice bollards
By Christopher DeWolf // 2 Comments
TAIWAN -- Taipei is a surprising city. There's a fine line between ugly haphazardness and charming idiosyncrasy; for the most part, the Taiwanese capital seems to land on the latter side. Its broad boulevards would be bland and overwhelming if it weren't for the arcaded sidewalks filled with parked scooters. The rambling lanes that run between those boulevards are lined for the most part with architecturally uninspiring apartment buildings, but the abundance of potted plants, hidden café terraces and dilapidated wooden bungalows more than make up for that. In theory, Taipei has ...
Photo du jour : Stationnement sous la neige
By Christopher DeWolf // 1 Comment
Même les innombrables stationnements du centre-ville deviennent assez jolies sous la neige de décembre, surtout ceux qui se dotent d'un petit chalet cute comme celui de la rue Notre-Dame.
December 25th, 2008
Montage du jour : La résidence de A. F. Gault
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1885-2008
Cette résidence construite dans les années 1870 fut démolie en 1924 et remplacée par les appartements Le Château.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/VIEW-2463§ion=196
VIEW-2463
Photo du Jour : Panier de Noel
By Alanah Heffez // 4 Comments
Photo prise le 24 décembre au métro Peel.
December 26th, 2008
Montage du jour : La résidence de Georges Washington Stephen
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1908-2008
Tout comme la résidence de A. F. Gault, cette demeure fut démoli elle aussi en 1924 pour permettre la construction des appartements Le Château.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/II-170708§ion=196
II-170708
Photo du Jour : Cathedral Gargoyles
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Gargoyles on the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral (built 1859) looking a little chilly on December 18th. The space under the church's stone arches on Ste-Catherine street is out of the wind, well-light at night, and almost always inhabited by a few homeless people.
Event Space / Espace Événements – 27 décembre
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
27/12 - Village des Tanneries holiday gathering
The Citizens' Committee of the Village des Tanneries is hosting an informal holiday gathering to celebrate the many accomplishments and friendships over the past year. We will be using the cozy exhibit space Les Neuf Soeurs so that anyone who has not yet had a chance to see the Henry Buszard/ARPi exhibit can do so. Feel free to bring friends or family, and any holiday fare leftovers to add to the table.
Le CCVT vous invite à fêter ses multiples réalisations de la dernère année. Apportez ce que vous pouvez (alcool ou ...
December 27th, 2008
Montage du jour : Édifice au coin des rues Maisonneuve et St-André
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1928-2008
Photo du Jour : Boxing Day Madness
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Photo taken December 26th at the Eaton Centre, facing Ste-Catherine street entrance.
Indoor Places
By Alanah Heffez // 12 Comments
Montreal seems to contract in the wintertime. The snow, we can handle, but when the bitter cold sets in, and every minute outside is feels like a slap in the face, our experience of the city is reduced almost entirely to its indoor spaces.What public spaces exist for a city in hibernation mode?
Many visitors to the city seem to be impressed (or perhaps only expect to be) by the "Underground City". But I've never met a resident who is particularly enamoured with the sprawling malls and dull hallways connecting downtown office towers with transit. Although I suppose it will save ...
December 28th, 2008
Montage du jour : La résidence de George Wait
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1946-2008
Photo du Jour : Sherbrooke Street Sunset
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Photo taken December 22nd, Corner Sherbrooke and Marcil, looking West.
December 29th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le presbytère St-Patrick
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1896-2008
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/VIEW-2965§ion=196
VIEW-2965
Photographies d’époque recherchées
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1964
Spacing Montreal sollicite les lecteurs ayant en leur possession des photographies anciennes prise dans la ville de Montréal. Ceux qui désireraient voir figurer celles-ci dans un montage avant-après peuvent faire parvenir leurs photos à l'adresse suivante :
spacingmontreal@spacing.ca
December 30th, 2008
Montage du jour : Le marché Sainte-Anne
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
Vers 1870-2008
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.1828.82§ion=196
MP-0000.1828.82
Des télécabines entre le quai Jacques Cartier et le parc Jean Drapeau
By Guillaume St-Jean // 13 Comments
source de la photo : http://www.telecabinemontreal.com
Afin de contrer les pertes de revenus causés par la disparition du grand prix à Montréal, Skylink, une compagnie montréalaise a récemment présenté un projet de télécabines reliant le vieux Montréal au parc Jean Drapeau.
Ce projet d'une valeur de plus de 100 millions de dollars aurait par la suite des retombées économiques qui seraient supérieures à celle du grand prix et du festival de jazz réunis.
Bien que cette installation permettrait de résoudre de nombreux problèmes d'embouteillage et de transport, de ...
Photo du Jour : Metro Memories
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
The Tree of Life by Joseph Rifesser was originally located in front of the UN pavilion during expo '67 before it was moved to Lionel Groulx metro station in 1977. It is made from a walnut tree trunk.
This sculpture is one of my earliest childhood memories of the metro, along with the brightly colored circles at Peel station where my parents and I got off each morning on the way to the McGill daycare. (I also distinctly remember my shock when, a couple ...
Toronto Tuesday: TTC’s year of success and Brampton bike shelters
By Chloe Ellingson // 1 Comment
Photo by Sean Marshall
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
2008 success story: the TTC
In the spirit of New Year's reflections, Sean Marshall gives evidence for the unexpected fact that TTC improvements have been one of Toronto's greatest success stories of 2008.
GO Transit’s new bike shelters
GO Transit's highly trafficked Brampton station is undergoing substantial remodeling. Sean Marshall looks at one example of this change: glass-enclosed bike shelters for commuters who need ...
December 31st, 2008
Photo du jour : Radio-Canada depuis l’église St-Pierre apôtre
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Montage du jour : Maisons au coin des rues Sherbrooke et St-André
By Guillaume St-Jean // 4 Comments
1943-2008
A Montreal Milestone
By Alanah Heffez // 7 Comments
Montreal's oldest milestone, erected in 1684, now nearly blends in with a rock wall that was built centuries later. It would be easy to miss but for the dirty sheet of Plexiglas that protects it from the elements.
The stone marks 1 mile from the gates of Fort de la Montagne along Cote-Saint-Antoine road, and once signaled to farmers that they were approaching the market place. Cote-Saint-Antoine follows a trail originally used by Native Americans and was one of the first streets to be developed outside ...
January 1st, 2009
Montage du jour : La rue Notre-Dame près de l’hôtel de ville
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1870-2008
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-1980.47.34§ion=196
MP-1980.47.34
Photo du jour : Le cinéma Papineau
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
Cette salle de cinéma qui ouvrit ses portes en 1921 sur l'avenue Papineau est aujourd'hui transformé en salle de bingo.
January 2nd, 2009
Photo du jour : Maisons victoriennes sur l’avenue du Parc
By Guillaume St-Jean // 8 Comments
Montage du jour : L’institut familial Sainte-Marie Euphrasie.
By Guillaume St-Jean // 5 Comments
195?-2008
Le terrain situé au # 333 de la rue Sherbrooke est, aujourd'hui occupé par des immeubles à condos, appartenait autrefois aux soeurs du Bon Pasteur. L'édifice qui s'y trouvait fut d'abord connu au début du 20e siècle sous le nom de l'académie St-Louis de Gonsague. Quelques décennies plus tard, l'immeuble devint alors l'institut familial Sainte-Marie Euphrasie, une école formant les jeunes filles à devenir des ménagères modèles.
Les religieuses vendirent le vieil édifice à des investisseurs inconnus vers les années 1960 tandis que M. Charles Dowlansky versa un dépôt ...
Getting Over the Snow
By Alanah Heffez // 29 Comments
The Montreal Gazette's number 1 news story of 2008: It snowed. The city was treated to 3.7 meters of the stuff between November 2007 and April '08 and, according to journalist Anne Sutherland, Montrealers spent the winter "hip deep in misery."
I suppose I should be used to this by now, but it still surprises me every time snow makes the front page. In a city that is blanketed with the stuff for nearly half of the year, every year, why do snow storms - and the subsequent snow-plowing debacle - consistently generate a flurry of media attention?
It wouldn't be so bad if we just wanted to talk about the weather - after all, for many city-dwellers the weather is our only daily reminder that we belong to a wider natural environment that is beyond our immediate control. The intense climatic ups and down that all Montrealers live with are one of the few experiences that we share with our neighbours, our co-workers, and even strangers on the bus. But the media has an unhelpful habit of seeking out and broadcasting the most unpleasant snow-related experiences (usually extra hours tacked onto already lengthy car commutes) and then eagerly blaming the city for botching the snow-clearing before the last flakes have even had a chance to settle.
After receiving 20 cm of snow earlier this month, Marcel Tremblay, the city's committee member responsible for public services, pointed out that the free parking lots which are designed to get cars off the street and facilitate snow clearing remained underused, towing illegally parked cars was slowing down the clearing operations, and despite tough driving conditions, there hadn't been any increase in public transit usage.
It seems many of us assume that City workers should make winter conditions effectively disappear while we go on behaving exactly as we do the rest of the year. And this expectation is more than unrealistic, it's a symptom that Montrealers have become disconnected from their sense of physical place.
January 3rd, 2009
Montage du jour : L’avenue Lorne
By Guillaume St-Jean // 7 Comments
Vers 1870-2008
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.1828.61§ion=196
MP-0000.1828.61
Photo du Jour : La vraie vie…
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
"Les hivers de mon enfance étaient des saisons longues, longues. Nous vivions en trois lieux: l'école, l'église et la patinoire; mais la vraie vie était sur la patinoire." - Roch Carrier, Le Chandail de hockey
Photo prise le 2 janvier au parc Girouard, quartier Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
January 4th, 2009
Montage du jour : La rue Peel près du boulevard Maisonneuve
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
Vers 1900-2008
Photo du Jour : Westmount Row
By Alanah Heffez // 6 Comments
Photo taken Dec 31st at the corner of Lansdowne Avenue and Côte St-Antoine.
January 5th, 2009
Montage du jour : Le terrain de la Place-des-arts
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1948-2009
De gauche à droite :
L'institut ophthalmique, l'institut Nazareth et l'édifice Kellert.
Photo du Jour : Park Ex Athena
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Statue in Parc Athena, at Jean-Talon and Avenue de l'Épée, Jan 3rd.
Fun outdoor activities prohibited
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
A sign bans tobogganing and skiing at Murry Hill (formally known as King George park). Westmount City Public Works clarifies that tobogganing is still allowed on the "bunny hill" pictured above, a gentle incline on the eastern side of the park, where the city has set up mattresses to keep people from sliding into the street below. The steeper western slope is criss-crossed with wooden barriers as a precaution against tobogganing accidents.
Tobogganing and skiing have their risks and that's why precautions like warning signs and bales of ...
January 6th, 2009
Montage du jour : Les 3 résidences démolies illégalement sur la rue Drummond
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
1970-2009
De gauche à droite : La maison George Smithers, la maison A. A. Wilson et la maison Hope.
Ces 3 résidences tombèrent sous le pic des démolisseurs en 1974 bien que la demande de permis de démolition à cet effet avait été refusé par la ville. Les promoteurs démolirent d'abord les façades des 2 maisons de droite le 21 décembre et celle de la maison de gauche le 8 janvier 1974. Bien que les travaux de démolition furent maîtrisés, les dégâts étaient alors considérable. L'affaire fut donc ...
Photo du Jour : Waiting for the 105
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Lineup for the 105 bus on Dec 10th, the first snowy day of the season. As of this month, these riders will receive a 26% service increase during rush hour.
Waiting for the 105 is also the theme a tune by local bluegrass collective, Lake of Stew.
Montage du jour : …
By Guillaume St-Jean // 36 Comments
Pour diverses raisons légales, cette chronique fera relâche pour une durée indéterminée.
Heritage gas station needs a new vocation
By Alanah Heffez // 12 Comments
Photo by Kate McDonnell
Yesterday the ever-vigilant Montreal City Weblog noted that a unique gas station on Nun's Island, designed by Mies van der Rohe, is now boarded up. Mies van der Rohe is the architect behind the Seagram Building in NYC, among other monuments of modernist architecture. He was also a design consultant on Toronto's TD Centre.
Built in 1968, the gas station in question was operated by Esso until last December. Today's edition of Le Devoir reports that the Conseil du Patrimoine is beginning an official process to recognize the building, ...
Toronto Tuesday: 2008′s transportation articles, 1940s travelogue, losing a sense of place
By Chloe Ellingson // 1 Comment
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Top transportation articles
Dylan Reid has posted links to some of the most relevant public space articles of 2008, ranging from Japanese demotorization to pedlock.
Ontario Travelogue from 1942
Shawn Micallef provides a link to a video clip from days past, which presents a view of Toronto before highrise offices and the CN Tower came to define it.
Losing a sense of place
Dylan Reid questions the sense ...
CCA’s call for Actions – le CCA appelle à l’Action
By KC Bolton // 1 Comment
Photo courtesy of www.cca-actions.org
The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) is seeking online submissions that complement its current exhibition, Actions: What you can do with the city. The exhibition features 99 actions by individuals and collectives that have positively impacted urban spaces around the world.
The CCA is encouraging a participatory approach in which ideas of small-scale urban change can be shared by anyone on its website. Submitted actions can be documented in photo or video format, and while all entries will be displayed on the website, a few that stand out in originality will ...
Montage du jour : Explication
By Guillaume St-Jean // 18 Comments
1964-2007
La rue City Councillors depuis Sherbrooke
Ayant créé plus de 500 montages photographiques avant-après sur une période de plus de 2 ans, j'essai tant bien que mal depuis plusieurs mois de faire connaître mon projet à plus grande échelle.
Après avoir présenté mon projet à la BANQ, dont proviennent plusieurs centaines de photographies, on m'a fait savoir que je n'avais pas l'autorisation d'utiliser ces photographies sans ...
January 8th, 2009
Montage du jour : Maison jumelée sur la rue de Bullion
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1985-2007
Source de la photo : John Allison
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photocat62/86467313/
Photo du jour : Montréal psychédélique
By Cédric Sam // 3 Comments
This is a map of dissemination areas of the Greater Montreal, randomly coloured in Google Earth.
Source: Census of Canada
Des légumes chinois comme au marché public
By Cédric Sam // 4 Comments
Comptoir des légumes verts, Marché Hawaï, arrondissement Saint-Laurent
Comme j'avais du temps libre samedi dernier, je suis allé faire les courses de la semaine et faire le touriste au Marché Hawaï.
Situé dans l'arrondissement Saint-Laurent, le Hawaï a ouvert ses portes en 2001 et est peut-être le premier grand supermarché asiatique du Grand Montréal (précédant le grand Kim Phat sur Jarry).
Depuis que je connais ce supermarché, c'est-à-dire depuis au moins 2006, une pratique que je trouvais alors plutôt exotique au Canada a ...
January 9th, 2009
Montage du jour : La résidence de F.L. Wanklyn, rue Drummond
By Guillaume St-Jean // 9 Comments
Vers 1900-2009
Bonne nouvelle : La reproduction de photographies du musée McCord est autorisée.
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.27.37§ion=196
MP-0000.27.37
Photo du Jour : Pique-nique trottoir
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
Photo prise le 27 septembre, rue Ontario E. près de De Lormier.
Le mardi des arbres: L’arborvitae, l’arbre de la vie
By Bronwyn Chester // No Comments
En lisant Spacing Montreal pendant les vacances j'ai été fort inspiré par le mot d'Alanah Heffez par rapport à la sculpture L'arbre de vie de Joseph Rifesser qui se trouve au métro Lionel-Groulx. La sculpture consiste en cinq têtes humaines représentant les cinq continents et elle était un symbole de la paix au pavillon de l'Italie pendant l'Expo '67. Son nom est le même nom donné a notre cèdre commun, le cèdre que nous connaissons surtout parce qu'il est utilisé pour créer les haies. Arborvitae, c'est ainsi que les premiers Européens ont appelé Thuja occidentalis qui se ...
Photo du jour : A familiar sign
By Cédric Sam // No Comments
Photo prise lors de l'autre grosse tempête de la saison, le 21 décembre 2008.
January 11th, 2009
Montage du jour : une vue du vieux port depuis la chapelle Bonsecours
By Guillaume St-Jean // 6 Comments
2002-2008
Source de la photo : Rich McGervay
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgervey/241753596/
Photo du Jour : Old Port Skating Rink
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Skating near Quai Jacques Cartier, January 10th, 2009.
Shed 16 (in the background) has housed a Labyrinth obstacle course for the past 10 years or so and before that was a flea market.
January 12th, 2009
Montage du jour : Maisons sur la rue Drummond
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1900-2009
De gauche à droite : La maison de F. L. Wanklyn, la maison de H. Wallis et la maison de Sheldon Stephens
Source : McCord Museum
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.27.35§ion=196
MP-0000.27.35
GeoMontreal Wants Destination Ideas for Ethical Tourism Map.
By Alanah Heffez // 1 Comment
Got a Montreal secret that you're bursting to let out? Now is your chance to get it onto an international tourism map. GeoMontréal is soliciting destinations and experiences that represent authentic Montreal culture and environment to be included in the city's upcoming Geotourism MapGuide.
Geotourism, an idea developped by the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations, aims to promote "tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place—its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents."
The Geotourism Charter (PDF) charter outlines 13 principles to promote tourism that is ethical, ecologically sustainable, culturally sensitive, and ...
Et le trou est devenu… un stationnement
By Joel Thibert // 2 Comments
En passant devant ce terrain "vague" à quelques pas de l'Hôtel de ville ce matin, ce "trou" blotti aux abords de la rue de la Gauchetière que j'avais décrit sur ce blog le 28 novembre dernier alors qu'il était encore plein de débris de toutes sortes et qu'il semblait exister hors de la trame urbaine et hors du temps, il m'est venu un refrain: "Nous n'irons plus au bois... les débris sont enlevés... le p'tit trou que voilà ... a été tranformé... entrez avec votre char, voyez c'que ça donne, sautez, dansez, stationnez où vous voulez".
Et oui, le petit ...
January 13th, 2009
Montage du jour : La rue Crescent au Sud de Sainte-Catherine
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1973-2007
Source de la photo : Coolopolis
http://coolopolis.blogspot.com/2006/12/crescent-street-1972.html
Photo du jour – Frozen mobile
By KC Bolton // 3 Comments
One of many winter-mobiles found at Casgrain and Maguire. Photo taken January 11th 2009.
Entrevue avec Spacing Montréal sur Radio CIBL
By Alanah Heffez // 2 Comments
Jeudi dernier, j'ai passé à l'émission Midi-Libre sur CIBL Radio-Montréal, un poste de radio communautaire en place depuis 1978. Le programme portait sur l'urbanisme sur le web, et j'ai partagé l'heure avec Max Stein, un des créateurs de la Carte sonore de Montréal, et les gens de chez Kollectif.net, un site qui recueille tous les activités publiques et professionnelles se déroulant dans la communauté architecturale du Québec. Vous êtes bienvenues à m'écouter décrire un peu la communauté de collaborateurs et lecteurs qui s'est rassemblé autour de Spacing Montréal dans la dernière année ...
Event Space / Espace événements 12 – 25 jan.
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
"Habiter les squelettes" un projet de la collective francaise Coloco, sera présenté au CCA le 22 janvier. Il y aura aussi des conférences offertes à UdeM et à UQAM dans les semaines à venir.
Things are getting rolling at the Universities once again. In the next two weeks, check out conferences at UQAM and UdeM, as well as a presentation about 'living in urban skeletons' at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
“Mile End en chantier”: cafés rencontres sur la revitalisation du secteur Saint-Viateur Est
By Mathieu Payette-Hamelin // 2 Comments
Avis à tous les intéressés, le Comité des citoyens du Mile End, en collaboration avec plusieurs autres partenaires dont Mémoire du Mile End et Les Amis du boulevard Saint-Laurent lancent une série de cafés rencontres intitulés "Mile End en chantier" où les citoyens sont invités à venir proposer leur vision du développement du secteur Saint-Viateur Est.
Ce secteur, bordée de la voie du CP au nord, du boulevard Saint-Laurent à l'ouest, de l'avenue Laurier au sud, et de la rue Saint-Denis à l'est, fait actuellement l'objet d'un projet de revitalisation initié par l'administration municipale.
Les Cafés ...
Psychogeography Society to explore Ahuntsic this Saturday
By Chris Erb // 1 Comment
This Saturday, the Montreal Psychogeography Society (Facebook group) will come out of hibernation to host its first walk of the year. This walk will take place in the northern neighbourhood of Ahuntsic, meeting at the Sauvé Metro station at 13:00.
For those not familiar with the Psychogeography Society, it's basically just a fancy way of describing a group of people going for a walk together. Psychogographers get together at a set place and time and try to take the road less travelled to destinations unknown. There is no route and nobody leads, the group simply ...
Tree Tuesday: Sumac, the flamboyant lifesaver
By Bronwyn Chester // 4 Comments
Colour, in winter, is precious. Wandering in the woods on a sun-hidden day, it's easy to see the world the way the old black and white television sets presented it: black, white and numerous shades of grey. It's an experience I rather love for it makes all the subtle nuances of winter colour and texture that much more noticeable. And when the rare reds, oranges or yellows burst on the scene, they seem positively exotic.
I had that experience last Saturday while cross-country skiing on Mount Royal. Alerted by the excited chirping of a chickadee, I paused to have ...
Toronto Tuesday: Toronto’s sewers, Public Realm Office, and ThinkTORONTO
By Chloe Ellingson // No Comments
Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Toronto's sewers: love them or... ignore them
According to Shawn Micallef, our extensive and mysterious sewer system just doesn't get enough credit. Admittedly, we only seem to pay attention to them when something down there goes wrong. Read his case for taking a closer look at what lies below.
New Toronto Public Realm Office
Toronto's new Public Realm Office is up and running. Part of the Transportation Services Division, ...
January 14th, 2009
Montage du jour : La rue St-Antoine près de la rue Bonsecours
By Guillaume St-Jean // 2 Comments
1983-2008
Source de la photo : John Allison
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photocat62/2212874475/
Photo du jour – the Vandura
By KC Bolton // No Comments
Hibernating summer traveler. Photo taken January 11th 2009.
Spacing Montreal and the Psychogeography Society invite you to visit the Sauvé area on Saturday
By Jacob Larsen // 8 Comments
Photo from the Chabanel district taken by ACRiley on Flickr.
If you're looking to stretch your legs a bit this Saturday and expand your knowledge of one of Montreal's lesser known quarters, why not join us for a stroll around the Sauvé/Chabanel area. I know relatively little about this area: its bordered by the massive, modernist hulks of the failed 'Cité de la Mode' fashion district and the northern limit of Montreal's plex-scape, and dotted with other anomalies and curios typical of pretty much anywhere in Montreal.
In typical psychogeography style, no one will be guiding this ...
January 15th, 2009
Montage du jour : L’église St-James
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1900-2009
L'édifice située dans le coin inférieur gauche était la First Baptist church.
Voyez ce montage avec FLASH : http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/clefs/jeux/36&duoid=296
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.27.60§ion=196
MP-0000.27.60
Photo du Jour : City Hall under cover
By Alanah Heffez // 11 Comments
The facade of city hall is getting touched up and, in order to hide the scaffolding, the 1878 building is draped in canvas bearing a life-size image of... city hall.
...Could be worse.
Photo taken January 10th, 2009
Mes Aieux Spin Local Legends
By Alanah Heffez // No Comments
More profoundly than municipal policy and to a greater degree than million-dollar developments, a city's identity is forged in its fictions.
Authors like Mordecai Richler and Michel Tremblay have defined entire neighbourhoods within our collective imaginations. Songwriters, from Leonard Cohen to Les colocs can conjure with a few words the kind of placemaking power that planners are lucky to see in a decade.
So I was excited when Mes Aieux released a city-themed album, La Ligne Orange, at the end of 2008. In an interview in le Journal de Montreal, band member Éric Desranleau described how, unlike their previous repertoire ...
January 16th, 2009
Montage du jour : La résidence de Horace Joseph, rue Sherbrooke
By Guillaume St-Jean // 3 Comments
1911-2009
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/II-184480§ion=196
II-184480
MTQ Plans to Cover one Trench Highway while Digging Another
By Alanah Heffez // 6 Comments
According to an article in today's La Presse, the Société Radio-Canada is pressuring the province to patch up the ugly gash created by the Ville Marie trench highway alongside its upcoming development. The Palais de Congrès, which straddles the highway just west of Saint-Urbain, is also itching to expand. The ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ) has agreed to put out a call for quotes on the feasibility of such a massive cover-up job.
Previous studies have found that the cost of covering the highway are in the range of $100 million for ...
January 17th, 2009
Montage du jour : Terrain sur la rue St-Dominique
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
2007-2007
Cette minuscule maison qui était située sur la rue St-Dominique près de l'avenue des Pins est aujourd'hui remplacée par un terrain de stationnement.
A New Opportunity
By Michael Dunkelman // 23 Comments
After decades of operation, the Hippodrome, once known as Blue Bonnets, has closed its doors for good. Although this will have negative ramifications for Quebec's horse-breeding industry, it presents a great opportunity for urban development. The site is centrally located, just off the Décarie expressway and within walking distance of the Namur metro station. If developed properly, the site could be home to thousands of families who would likely use public transportation. The site as it stands now, is relatively isolated from neighboring residential areas. This isolation could be resolved by connecting the ...
The renter’s city mapped
By KC Bolton // 3 Comments
Note Feb 27th, 2009: In the course of creating a similar map for Toronto for comparison purposes, I found that there may be a problem in the way I formulated this analysis. It appears that the following map shows correct proportional rent increases, however the overall magnitude of rent increases is higher. Basically, there should not be as much blue as I originally thought. So when I finally have enough time to correct this, I'll put up a new, and accurate, version alongside Toronto and Vancouver maps. I apologize for the mistake and hope that nobody ...
January 18th, 2009
Montage du jour : Les condos du marché
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
2007-2007-2008
Voici donc le résultat final en complément de l'article Encore des condos, publié en octobre 2007.
Photo du Jour : Sunrise on de la Commune
By Spacing // 3 Comments
This photo was sent in by a Spacing Montreal reader, Tracey Smith, who snapped it January 15th on Rue de la Commune, looking out across the port.
January 19th, 2009
Montage du jour : La rue Sherbrooke vers l’ouest depuis l’avenue Union
By Guillaume St-Jean // 1 Comment
Vers 1870-2009
Source : Musée McCord
http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/MP-0000.1452.8§ion=196
MP-0000.1452.8
Photo du Jour : Le fleuve l’hiver
By Alanah Heffez // 3 Comments
La Biosphère et "L'Homme", vus du Quai Jacques Cartier, le 10 janvier 2008.
Upcoming Consultation for Place L’Acadie Redevelopment
By Alanah Heffez // 15 Comments
The Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal (OPCM) is holding sessions starting on January 28th for a residential development in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, which would replace some of the city's worst slums with 7 affoardable apartment and condo blocks, and a neighourhood park.
The proposed development is a LeCorbusier-inspired towers-in-the-park ideal, a model which has been criticized for creating impersonal housing blocks, isolated within an unpopulated or even dangerous greenspace, which ultimately fail to integrate into the wider neighbourhood. However, in this case the site is already isolated by a highway, two major traffic trough-fares and a parkinglot, so perhaps creating a dynamic internal space is the best case scenario.
And, for the tenants of Place l'Acadie and Place Henri-Bourassa, anything will be a better than the decrepit, unsanitary buildings currently located on the site.
January 20th, 2009
Montage du jour : La maison Hodgeson
By Guillaume St-Jean // No Comments
Vers 1960-2009
Cette mais