[caption id="attachment_11032" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Former residents of Goose Village describe fond memories of their neighborhood in a video projected on a sheet-laden clothesline (Natascia Lypny photo)."][/caption] The Red Light District, Goose Village, Faubourg m’lasse. These neighborhoods have disappeared from Montreal maps. Between 1950 and 1970, they were erased during the city’s modernization era. Hundreds of dwellings reduced to rubble; tens of thousands of people displaced across the island. In a new exhibit, the Centre d’histoire de Montréal rebuilds these areas the only way possible: not brick by brick but memory by memory. Lost Neighborhoods is an innovative, documentary-style exhibit that reintroduces or, in most cases, introduces visitors to these three demolished neighborhoods thanks to the accounts of their former residents. “It’s like you actually step into one of those photographs of demolition and have people talk about the impact it had in their life to lose their home, to lose their neighborhood, to lose their life in some sort of way,” says Catherine Charlebois, the Centre’s Project manager for oral history and memory projects.

[caption id="attachment_10763" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Talked About Town, Place Ville Marie's new exhibit, is part of the Montreal landmark itself (Natascia Lypny photo)."][/caption] You wake up and pour yourself a glass of Ovopur filtered water. Then, you don your new Philippe Dubuc shirt and trousers. An Aribus STM shelter protects your designer outfit as you wait for the bus that will transport to your office in the Quebecor Building. After a late lunch meeting in the Square des Frères-Charon, you dash to Place des Arts to catch Opéra de Montréal’s newest production. Like many Montrealers, you are mostly unaware local designers have defined your day. “Design is everywhere,” says Jean-Philippe Tardif. “Design is in park benches; it’s in how the sidewalk is built and the lampposts.” Tardif is the vice-president of branding and design at Bleublancrouge, the marketing firm behind Place Ville Marie’s public exhibits. Their newest, The Talked About Town, or Une ville si souvent citée, celebrates Montreal’s fifth anniversary as a UNESCO City of Design. Montreal was awarded this title in June 2006, making it the first North American city to receive this designation. Ten cities around the world now share this title. “What this designation gave us was it helped Montreal make a big leap forward in its support in showcasing of local design talent,” says Helen Fotopulos, the city’s executive committee member responsible for culture, heritage, design and the status of women. That talent, she notes, stems from some 40,000 Quebec designers. Fifty two per cent of them are based in Montreal. The exhibit presents three contest-winners from seven design disciplines (see insert). “Nous, c’était les sept (disciplines) qui étaient le plus près de nos activités à nous, à la Place Ville Marie; les activités de nos locataires,” explains Place Ville Marie’s senior adviser for communications, public affairs and marketing Marie Caron. The exhibit is incorporated into the infrastructure of Place Ville Marie itself: a staircase, two food courts, and pillars along a shopping corridor display photographs of the chosen projects and blurbs describing Montreal’s progress as a City of Design.

[caption id="attachment_10560" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Coalition members rally in front of the Centre 7400 on March 16 for a press conference (Daryl Hubert photo)."][/caption] Twenty-nine community groups are facing eviction from a public institution this month that has served Villeray-Saint Michel-Parc Extension for nearly 100 years. The Centre 7400 on Saint-Laurent Boulevard will be converted into luxury condominiums come June 30 after a long battle to preserve its public function. “Nous croyons qu’une bonne partie de la population aurait aimer que ce centre demeure avec une utilisation publique: c’est-à-dire, sous la forme de centre communautaire,” says Andres Fontecilla. In February 2010, Fontecilla helped form the Coalition des amis du 7400 Saint-Laurent after a newspaper article reported on the Centre’s redevelopment plans. The coalition brought together the building’s current occupants; members of the deaf and mute community; merchant and tenant rights organizations; and Villeray inhabitants fearing the neighborhood’s gentrification. The Centre 7400 is owned by the clerics of Saint-Viateur. It was built in the 1920s to house the Institut des Sourds-Muets. Since the 1970s, it has been occupied by religious and secular community organizations, as well as providing inexpensive short-term lodging and conference space. The clerics of Saint-Viateur offered the building to the deaf and mute community—but for a price its members could not afford. The coalition then asked the municipal government to place a two year moratorium on the rezoning of the building to allow time to negotiate with the clerics. The moratorium was refused. The building should remain in the public interest, as everyone had contributed to—and benefited from—the Centre, argues Fontecilla. But privatizing the space will change that: “Ces bâtiments sont construits grâce à l’argent de la communauté et aujourd’hui on privatise un bien qui était construit grâce à l’argent de nos parents et nos grans-parents…On ne voit pas pourquoi aujourd’hui seulement les plus riches peuvent en profiter alors que tout le monde à contribuer à la construction de ces bâtiments.”