I saw the plume of dark smoke on my way to do my groceries at the P.A. on du Parc - it looked like one huge fire, I'm glad nobody was hurt!

I know one of the people in that building (the one now open on the side, not the rubble); he's out of the country at the moment. (He knows about it and his family has retrieved his damaged stuff.) His wall had already been breached by bolts or something similar poking through the plaster from work being done on the (now destroyed) building next door. I saw the holes myself a few weeks ago. Unbelievably sloppy - it looked like they didn't care that they'd poked through not only their own wall but the one next door.

I strongly suspect arson, as I hear there was a shopkeeper in the building who was being pressured to vacate and wouldn't. Perhaps they wanted to just raze everything and put up new construction and not hassle with the reno, the the detriment of everyone in the building next door. There should be a criminal investigation. Whether there will be, I don't know.

Je suis d'accord avec Chuck. Ce secteur de Montréal, rîche en patrimoine bâti, fut cet été comme un vrai "théatre" d'incendies...c'est très étrange.
J'ai aussi pris plusieurs photos de ce site incendié en novembre dernier. J'ai bien hâte de voir qu'est ce qui va remplacer l'espace laissé vacant. À suivre...