Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:14 on 2020-01-30 Permalink Reply  

• Ian 13:24 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  I’m sure Projet Montreal will find a way to excuse when it inevitably becomes a restaurant catering to Mile End office folk, with an AirBnb hotel upstairs …despite Marie Plourde’s protestations otherwise.

  Unless Shiller-Lavy buys it in which case it will stand empty indefinitely until it gets rented by a chain store, and Projet Montreal will still be powerless to do anything about it.

  Why does PM even get quoted in these articles when it’s clear they have so little ability or interest in actually preserving what was ever nice about Mile End?

• Michael Black 13:34 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  Lux actually appears in the 1987 movie “Crazy Moon” with Keifer Sutherland and Vanessa Vaughn. They go there, but other places are very recognisable. Though, it’s the one film where I’ve noticed things, they turn onto a street that doesn’t intersect, and another street they go along becomes one way, the wrong way, and has a bus route that isn’t there in rea!ity.

• DeWolf 13:39 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  We get that you really, really, really don’t like PM, Ian. But I do wonder what, realistically, a municipal government could do about this kind of situation. The NYT recently had a story about a beloved neighbourhood grocery store in the Marais that is closing after 35 years because all the local businesses are being priced out by luxury brands and chain stores. The neighbours are outraged, the mayor of the local arrondissement is upset too. Paris presumably has a robust arsenal of tools it could use to protect neighbourhood businesses, and yet its hands are tied. What exactly can Montreal do, especially given the infamously limited powers afforded to city governments in Canada?

• Dhomas 14:35 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  Couldn’t the city itself buy the building? It’s listed at ~$3.5 million. They recently spent over $6 million for the parc de l’ouest.

• Kate 14:40 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  The city would need a reason, no? Admittedly, it would make a nice satellite library….

• Dhomas 14:43 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  I was just thinking it could be a library and the city rents out some space inside for a café. Would help recoup some of the costs.

• Kate 16:21 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  Ooh. I like it.

• Ian 17:12 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  Well that’s it, you see, they brought in Marie Plourde to say that she loved Lux and would go to a new resto that kept the look and feel and she even asked if the city could buy it, but they couldn’t.

  My point here, DeWolf, is there is no point having PM m make a cameo to once again whimper that their hands are tied.

  I am tired of PM getting trotted out over and over again so they can have the opportunity to say they would love to help and they agree this is a great cause but they spent all the money already, presumably on stuff like free terrasses for the walking tour rest stop at Fairmount or swampland in the west or redoing Clark Street twice because they measured it without considering firetrucks.

  Café/bookstore would be lovely, maybe we will see everyone happy if someone like Archambault moves in.

  Whatever it is, it won’t be because PM actually _did_ anything about it.

• Spi 17:38 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  I may not be as cynical as Ian, but I have to agree with the sentiment what purpose does it serve to have the borough city hall come out and say “we hope it comes back in the public domain”? If you really wanted to you’d put up the money yourself and buy it otherwise it’s just the political equivalent of virtue signaling.

  The last thing the mile end needs is another café. There’s very good coffee within 2 blocks of practically anywhere in the neighbourhood. I also question the pertinance of having an other bookstore, there’s already Renaud Bray, the Outremont outpost of Librairie du Square, Drawn & Quarterly and S.W.Welch although I suspect the laters days are numbered.

• Ian 17:46 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  …also the Children’s D&Q, also on Bernard. I hope you’re wrong about Welch’s, I Iove that guy & it’s my favourite used English-language bookstore in town.

• Spi 17:54 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  I also love the place, but the empty storefronts to his left and the right had at some point for rent signs by Shiller Lavy, so I think it’s safe to assume they own that entire building/block and they don’t strike me as the type to give the neighbourhood bookstore a sweetheart deal to keep a minimum of the original spirit of the place.

• Ian 19:23 on 2020-01-30 Permalink

  Sadly, the same thought crossed my mind. Shiller Lavy has really done a number on the St. Viateur strip, it’s a hockey player’s smile of empty storefronts.

• Meezly 11:13 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  The Lux’s heyday was way before I moved here. What was it like as a night spot way back when?

• Ian 11:44 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  Kind of impressive, a classic rich man’s folly tragically doomed to failure, very stylish especially for the time, and way out in the no-man’s land that was the Main north of St.Joe at the time so kind of a destination.

  http://coolopolis.blogspot.com/2015/08/lux-for-life-lament-for-lost-spot-on.html

• Michael Black 12:03 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  It sold magazines, kind of integrated with the eating. I maybe went there to eat something soon after Leslie Lutsky mentioned it, but only the once. However, I did go in to look over the magazines, not read, during the course of it being open when I was in the area

• CE 12:37 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  Here’s the scene in Crazy Moon: https://youtu.be/Ip08c5Rg6So?t=1210

  I’ve never seen this movie but skipping through it, it’s a treasure trove of mid 80s street scenes!

• Kate 13:38 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  CE, that’s a find. Thanks! (Plus, it has music by Rational Youth!)

  Meezly, it wasn’t a night spot in the classic sense. It was a 24-hour restaurant-café-sort of futuristic dépanneur with magazine racks around and various businesses upstairs too. There was a bar in back but Lux wasn’t only a bar. For awhile, my hairdresser at the time had a spot upstairs, so I had my hair cut there a few times too.

  I took these 2 photos from up one of the spiral staircases:
  
  

  At its best Lux had an ultimate urban cool, but it went downhill badly toward the end. My last visit there involved waiting half an hour to get lukewarm coffee from a waiter who was making it crystal clear that waiting tables was beneath him, and it closed not long after. I never heard the full story why it couldn’t stay open, because there was clearly a clientele ready to respond to it.

• Meezly 14:13 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  Thanks for sharing, all! I hope the city or some non-profit can buy it and turn it into a public space, like a library or museum, maybe one about the history of the garment district. Such a beautiful space.

• Blork 15:08 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  I lived up the street (St-Laurent and Bernard) for a couple of years (91-93) and I used to do the same as Michael Black; just go in to browse the magazines. I don’t recall ever spending a nickel (which makes me a pretty typical customer according to Gravy’s description in Coolopolis — Ian’s link).

  In my case it was because I was so poor at the time. The idea of spending $5 on a beer and fries when I had some mouldy bread and dollar-store peanut butter just up the street… unthinkable!

• Ian 16:02 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  All this nostalgia is making me almost miss my apartment by st. joe & the main in what is now pensione popolo. The woodworker shop (where casa is now) on the first floor owned the place and it was in such bad repair… our living room window fell right out of the frame one day and the landlord just but in a sheet of styrofoam and a few sheets of heavy window plastic, all held together with duct tape and wood staples. It was a real dump back then but super cheap (3 beds 2 floors 550 bucks/month), and there was a great dive bar across the street where the chain dep is now. It was definitely not a trendy neighbourhood yet, but it was a great place to be… at the time anyhow haha

• Janet 22:43 on 2020-01-31 Permalink

  Ah nostalgia. 1986-2001, I lived in a 1,000 sq ft loft on the corner of St-Laurent & Duluth (over the American Sample dress shop, which later became a friperie). Paid $250/month heated. Became ridiculously affordable when my boyfriend moved in and we split the rent. Wind blew through the walls, and the landlord wouldn’t even make duct tape repairs.