Michael Jackson and the Montreal bookstore
On the weekend I linked to one of the Gazette’s archive stories about Michael Jackson’s concert here in 1984 and it reminded me of an anecdote told me by a friend.
Back then, the best English-language bookstore in the city was Classic, on Ste-Catherine near Crescent, a couple of doors west of where the Apple store is now. I didn’t know J. then, but he worked in the store (where I was a regular customer). The store had a narrow unassuming frontage but once you got inside it ramified far back and up three floors. J. tells me he encountered many famous faces – politicians, movie stars and others – who shopped there while he was on the staff.
Michael Jackson blows into town, and the store gets a call from his entourage, saying Jackson feels like shopping for books but he can’t exactly step out along Ste-Catherine Street without causing a riot. Somehow, nobody but J. is into staying late to enable Jackson to visit the store after hours, so he stays. An unmarked white van draws up, but can’t quite park directly in front. As Jackson and handler cross the sidewalk into the store, somebody spots him.
J. hangs out discreetly while Jackson looks at books and talks very quietly to the handler. Meanwhile a crowd is gathering outside the store, people peering in through the windows. I don’t know how they coordinated it before cellphones, but the van went around back and picked the two men up from the loading dock to avoid the crowd. J. was invited to go up to Jackson’s hotel suite later, where he was given front-row tickets to the show the next day.
I guess this kind of thing happens from time to time in the retail world, but this story relates to the Gazette bit last week, so it seemed of relevance.
It was a great bookstore, and I still miss it.
Fab Franco 09:36 on 2019-09-25 Permalink
Classic? I think you got the name wrong or you’ve internalized made-in-Quebec apostrophobia. It was either Classics or Classic’s from my recollection.
I’ve heard similar stories from a retail clerk in one of those clothing stores near Peel. She said E. Iglesias was a jerk. Vanessa Williams had bad acne and one of those aging boy bands was given a bunch of free t-shirts that nobody wanted cuz they were orange and they all wore them on stage the next night.
Kate 11:49 on 2019-09-25 Permalink
According to this blog post from 2010 (I don’t personally know the author):
a Montreal retail bookshop on St. Catherine Street West called Classic Book Shop, or Classics as it was referred to by many people including myself.
The bookmark shown in the piece calls it Classic Books. The Lovell directory for 1984 lists it as Classic Bookshops.
People often fall into this, like calling the Italian grocery store on the Main “Milano’s” although it’s really just called Milano, and so on.
Michael Black 12:12 on 2019-09-25 Permalink
I remember it as “Classics” but just searched and found that blog posting. Since he includes photos of the famous bookmarks, you must be right. Though maybe they changed the name later. I have a stash of their bookmarks somewhere, but doubt any are than older than the ones in the blog photo.
Of course the store on the Apple Store side was the paperback store, at least originally. The first Classic I remember was across the street, where the police station is now. Certainly they had a children’s section there. Every time we had a doctor or dentist appointment downtown, we’d be taken afterwards to that store. I got my first science fiction there. And they had stores elsewhere, I’d buy How & Why Wonder books and Tom Swift books at the small store in Westmount Square.
But by the time I really started buying books, it was 1976, and I’d go to the paperback store. I think it expanded at some point, but I can’t remember. At some point, the store across the street became a clearance centre, but can’t remember exactly when. I think I bought my beat up hardcover dictionary there, it would have been 1977.
The employees went on strike, a long one, at least twice, and that was mostly the end. I think in 1979, but also about 1984. I forget when it finally closed down.
In mid-July 1974 someone immolated himself in front of the store. The news later said something about a book that he wrote but the store wouldn’t carry, or.maybe something else, it’s been too long. I was walking west about a block away and saw flames going into the sky. I knew there was construction there. But as I passed in front of the store, someone was on the ground and workers were putting the flames out. I could have joined in, but worried about doing the wrong thing. He died about two weeks later.
Michael
Kate 13:13 on 2019-09-25 Permalink
Michael, your memories tally with mine, especially buying science fiction. Lots of good SF (and a fair bit of crap fantasy) was coming out at that time and I doubt I ever walked along Ste-Catherine without stopping in that store and seeing what was new. Often enough I went downtown for no other reason.
And yes, a strike is what eventually ended it. The owner was happier closing it down than giving the workers a raise. The anglo community was so pole-axed by that time that nobody in the media noticed we were losing a valuable cultural resource.
I never heard about the self-immolation, though. Horrible stuff.