Click on poster for higher resolution Next week, the Urban Planning Association at Concordia University will be hosting a seminar focusing on public art and public space with Sara Wookey and Karen Spencer. Sara Wookey is a performance artist based out of LA.  She will be speaking about her performance and media-based project BEING PEDESTRIAN where she created various interventions while walking the city (a pretty unusual act in itself for LA).  The second speaker, Karen Spencer is a Montreal-based artist and writer who focuses on the fleeting moments experienced in the city.  ...

Construction is underway on a new hotel and restaurant where Ben's deli once sat. Photo taken January 27, 2010.

The newly elected Projet-Montréal borough council in Le Plateau-Mont-Royal have indicated that they plan to phase out free parking spaces in favour of charging non-resident drivers for the privilege.  Facing a 4 million dollar deficit with few options to increase revenue, the borough council has been experimenting with new approaches to increase revenue to make up for the budgetary shortfall caused mostly by the current economic slowdown and the near-record snowfalls of last winter.  Public consultations will be held before any decisions are made. It is expected that 3 million dollars ...

Obligatory photo of the first snow of the winter. Ave de Chateaubriand at Rosemont.

Perhaps the recent launch of Google Street View for Canadian cities has made my trips to the many 1ière avenues of Montreal somewhat unnecessary.  A visit to any of these streets is now as simple as pulling up a map of Montreal and dragging the little yellow person onto whatever street you want to wish to see.  However, I am undeterred.  Despite my tendency to lapse on visiting and posting these 1ière avenues, my trips will continue.  Despite the 360° views every few metres and the ability to toggle between street View, aerial view, and map view, the street view photos are somewhat disconnected, having been taken automatically from the roof of a car without discretion from a photographer (as amateur as I may be, in the case of these photos).  Street View takes the photo from the centre of the street, moves on and takes the next photo and so on in perpetuity.  I (and other humans), however, can stop and inspect something that catches my attention more closely while ignoring what I deem to be more uninteresting and banal.  Street View does not possess this luxury.  If anything, at least I take my photos when the city is looking good rather than the right-before and right-after winter photos taken by Google, a time of year that most people can agree is when the city looks its worst. No matter, my journeys continue. This time through the central neighbourhoods of Rosemont and St-Michel.  This 1ière avenue is the only one that existed within the pre-merger borders of Montreal so when someone spoke of (or wrote on an envelope) "1ière avenue, Montreal", this is the street they meant.  Although not the longest numbered street in the city, it is the longest 1ière avenue with a length of 14 blocks.  It also starts off one of the longer continuous (more-or-less) series of numbered streets in the city which ends 44e avenue, right before boul de l'Assomption.