Historical / Historique
February 1st, 2010
On Saturday I wrote about Café Cleopatra’s last stand on the lower Main. After refusing to sell his property to the Société de Développement Angus, the owner, John Zoumboulakis, is being threatened with expropriation to make way for the Quadrilatère Saint-Laurent.
I was finally able to reach the showbusiness-man past midnight on Sunday in order to get his perspective of the story.
For Zoumboulakis, Café Cleopatra is the last vestige of a long tradition of wild nights on the Main. ”This is a historic part of our city. It should be restored, revitalized, not just bulldozed. History, once you break it down, you don’t bring it back with an office tower. What we have now is the real thing. Its our heritage, it’s part of our history,” he says. “I hope there is a way to preserve it.”
Over the phone, he spoke nostalgically of a time when the lower Main was lively and diverse. “It was the first entertainment centre of our city. It was the nightlife and the downtown of Montreal,” he says “…every building, it was owned by a different people with different ideas. And each operator or owner, they used to have their own types.”
“The objective is to continue to offer what I’ve been offering and what this location has been offering to Montreal for a hundred or so years,” Zoumboulakis says.
When I mentioned the possibility of relocating, he only said that he hadn’t put any energy into thinking about that but he did quote that old adage, the show must go on.
Zoumboulakis says that he never got involved in negotiations with the SDA. “No offer was put on the table. The reality is that they never put anything on paper. Maybe because they are of the opinion that if the city can throw you out, why make you an offer,” he says.
In this case, is legal for the city to expropriate because the property is within the Quartier des Spectacles, defined by a Plan Particulier d’Urbanisme.
Yet Zoumboulakis is skeptical of the QDS, an entertainment district, putting office towers and retail space – all owned by a single developer – where independent venues once stood.
“What the city’s doing, what they’re trying to do, it’s not the right thing for the Main,” he says.
“This is a historic part of our city. It should be restored, revitalized, not just bulldozed. History, once you break it down, you don’t bring it back with an office tower. What we have now is the real thing. Its our heritage, it’s part of our history… I hope there is a way to preserve it.”
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Permalink for Addendum: Café Cleo’s John Zoumboulakis
Posted by Alanah Heffez
Categories Development / Développement, Historical / Historique, Quartier des spectacles, The Main
January 28th, 2010
“I don’t know” I said aloud as I perused the fast food menu. “Orange drink is usually gross, and it’s kind of expensive too…”
“Oh its worth it,” the counter-girl piped up immediately. “Our Julep is made from fresh-squeezed oranges and our secret ingredient. It’s a family recipe that goes back to 1932.”
As much as “secret ingredient” fails to inspire confidence, the counter girl’s enthusiasm was itself refreshing. There was no doubt that she had complete faith in her product, and so I consented to a glass of Gibeau Orange Julep.
She filled a waxed paper cup from a pipe that hung down from the ceiling, and I couldn’t help thinking, as I did when I was a kid, that the 40-foot sphere above us was a massive julep reservoir.
And it was worth it. The fresh-squeezedness of the oranges was unmistakable, the “secret ingredient” reminiscent of creamsicle (although apparently it’s fat-free), the texture foamy down to the last drop. It was really, truly good.
Turns out I had a lot of misconceptions about Orange Julep. Not only does it taste good, its legacy goes back almost 80 years.
I’d always assumed that the massive roadside Orange was a pure 1960s kitch. Indeed, the 40-foot orange was constructed in 1966. Its shell was made with fiberglass segments ordered specially from a local pool manufacturer.
But my counter girl – and the paper julep cup – had claimed that Orange Julep has been kicking since 1932. Turns out that our massive orange monument is in it’s second incarnation. The original building, which was was in nearly the same location, dates back to 1945. It was a smaller, concrete orange with windows on the second story. (I can only assume that it took the first 13 years of julep sales to raise the money for this jewel).
The original Orange Julep building, in the 1950s. Photo taken by M. Connolly, Hydro-Québec. From the BANQ, Cote: E6,S7,SS1,D58727
But Montreal’s most iconic (well, perhaps only) road-side attraction was hoppin’ long before the metro and the Décarie expressway opened up this neighbourhood to residential and commercial development. In fact, the original Orange was a victim of the widening of Décarie for the autoroute.
There was a tramway along Décarie in the 1940s, linking NDG to Ville-Saint-Laurent, but the area around Namur was largely undeveloped. Picturing the quirky casse-croûte on the open road somehow captures my imagination in a way that its current position on the edge of the Décarie expressway, kitty corner to outlet malls, has never managed to do.
It also helps explain why the big Orange has retained a tradition of summer-time car shows, à la 1950s Hot-Rod nights. For those of our readers who don’t have a car to pimp on site, it’s also right across the street from Namur metro.
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Permalink for Orange Julep an Oldie and a Goodie
Posted by Alanah Heffez
Categories Architecture, Historical / Historique
January 14th, 2010
A monument to Nicolaus Copernicus, inaugurated as part of Exo ‘67 and installed at its present location in Chaboillez Square in 1975.
The plaque reads:
NICOLAS COPERNIC 1473 – 1543
FONDATEUR DE L’ASTRONOMIE MODERNE
* * *
ERIGE PAR LA COMMUNAUTE CANADIENNE-POLONAISE EN HONNEUR DU CENTENAIRE DE LA CONFEDERATION CANADIENNE ET DU MILLENAIRE DE LA POLOGNE CHRETIENNE
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Permalink for Photo du jour – Copernicus
Posted by Devin Alfaro
Categories Downtown, Historical / Historique, Photo du jour, Public Art / Art public, Spacing Montréal
January 2nd, 2010
The funeral service for Nick Rizzuto Jr., son of mob boss Vito Rizzuto, at Madonna Della Difesa Church in Montreal’s Little Italy this afternoon. The 42-year-old Rizzuto was shot and killed last Monday in NDG.
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Permalink for Rizzuto funeral
Posted by Adam Bemma
Categories Headlines / À la une, Historical / Historique, Little Italy / Petite Italie, Spacing Montréal
December 29th, 2009
Summer 1970: Montreal’s first mall. Not the suburban kind of mall we’ve grown to dread, but a pedestrian shopping area in the heart of the city, on Mount Royal avenue between Chambord and Marquette.
“A substantial body of public opinion in this city firmly believes that it is urgent to relieve downtown areas of the congestion and confusion of excessively heavy motor traffic…Only radical measures can head off a paralyzing stagnation of city life brought on by an uncontrolled proliferation of cars and trucks,” the Gazette editorialized in July 1970.
But no sooner had the pedestrian mall opened in October 1970, the Gazette declared it to be flawed. They criticized that buses running along Mount Royal and traffic on the cross-streets compromised the ideal of the all-pedestrian shopping experience (although the plan included public transit from the start).
The sidewalks had been widened to 25 feet on either side of the street and a single lane remained open for buses. However, cars were always trying to sneak down the bus lane and when police cracked down by handing out hundreds of tickets, it only added to the public frustration that was beginning to surround the mall. …continue reading Mont Royal Ave’s first flirtation with pedestrianization
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Permalink for Mont Royal Ave’s first flirtation with pedestrianization
Posted by Alanah Heffez
Categories Historical / Historique, Pedestrian / Piétonnier, Plateau Mont-Royal, Social Trends / Tendances sociales, Streetscape
