Archives /// February, 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 // 4 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 // 3 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 newspap