History pieces for a Labour Day weekend
World War II started 80 years ago (the president of Germany has just apologized to Poland) and Radio-Canada looks at earlier commemorations including a Téléjournal from 1989 and René Lévesque, in his days as a journalist, explaining the war in 1959 (starting around 2:33 in that clip). Interesting footage.
The Gazette’s history series has a notably tragic incident this weekend: the 1972 Blue Bird arson, which killed 37 people out on the eve of Labour Day weekend at two bars, one upstairs of the other, on Phillips Square. The space has been a parking lot since then, and a small memorial plaque was placed at the square in 2012.
The Gazette also looked at the last streetcar run, in Rosemont in 1959, while the Journal this weekend shows us the open golden tram that was conceived for tourism purposes in the 1930s. (I think the design was later adapted to a bus, because I have a faint memory of seeing an open-topped bus in that style when I was small, but I may be confabulating that.)
Michael Black 09:31 on 2019-09-01 Permalink
This weekend in 1972 was also when the Museum of Fine Arts was robbed, some paintings stolen and never seen since.
The reason I always remember it is a few years earlier I got a copy of “Montreal Adventure” by Clarke Wallace, from about 1967. I don’t think it sold well, there was a pile of them being cleared out. Two kids ride their bikes all over town, it mentions specific locations, and build shortwave radios. They hear secret code, and stumble on a robbery, at the Museum.
All of it actually happened, just not connected in the same way as the book.
Michael
Kate 09:34 on 2019-09-01 Permalink
The art heist happened on September 4, 1972.
Looking at my historical calendar, another incident that happened around this time of year was on September 3, 1984: a bomb hidden in a locker at Central Station killed several travellers. The station has never had lockers since that time.
Uatu 09:39 on 2019-09-01 Permalink
I remember that because they found the key to the locker, but some idiot cop ruined it as evidence because he picked it up with his bare hands so it had no fingerprints except his.
Michael Black 10:03 on 2019-09-01 Permalink
Wasn’t the Central Station bombing by someone found incompetent? I know he had some conspiracy theory about the Pope, and the bombing happened shorly before the pope visited Montreal.
Yes, Wikipedia has an entry 1984 Montreal bombing. He got 25 years at the Pinel Institute, but died in 1993. A new trial was pending, so apparently he technically was found not guilty because he died before the retrial. He was American.
Michael
Kate 10:42 on 2019-09-01 Permalink
Michael, I’m not prone to conspiracy theories, but I always found the accusation and conviction of Thomas Brigham sounded shaky. But the SQ had to lock somebody up and Brigham had enough weirdness on record that he would do.