Verdun will be closing a contentious bike path along Verdun Avenue at the end of the month. It had many merchants annoyed about loss of parking spaces, and there will be discussions before it’s ever reinstated.
Meanwhile, REM construction is making a hash of TMR, demolishing overpasses and messing with traffic.
The unnamed owner of a disused lot of land in Rosemont Petite-Patrie, at Bellechasse and Casgrain, razed it this week despite gardens and other improvements brought to the place by nearby residents. Although the borough had been considering buying it out, the land was still the property of the unnamed landlord.
C’est pas dans Rosemont mais bien dans la Petite Patrie.
As you say. I was using “Rosemont” as shorthand for the borough, but of course that’s inaccurate. Thanks.
C’est comme dire Parc Extension lorsqu’on se réfère à Saint-Michel ou à Villeray. Dire Rosemont comme shorthand pour décrire la Petite Patrie relève de l’hérésie. Les origines du nom “Rosemont” sont bien à l’est de Papineau. Le segment à l’ouest du parc Père Marquette (une ancienne carrière) s’appelait jadis Fleurimont.
OK OK, c’est corrigé dans le texte, trop tard pour le rattraper dans le titre (qui est invisible sur le blogue, mais qui apparaît dans le feed pour Twitter).
I have a friend who lives around the corner from that little park and have hung out there a few times. It was nice but I’m sure nobody could have thought that it would be there forever.
No. It’s like Parc Oxygène in the McGill ghetto – after a piece of land is empty for awhile there’s a collective urge to see it become something other than a dump or a dirtpile, but then people get invested in it.
Gazette history spots this week included the chaos of the 1969 police strike. Not mentioned in the item is that the incident led to the creation of the Essential Services law that binds police never to walk out en masse again (and also holds back the labour actions of other public employees like bus drivers and nurses).
The Gazette also shows us a photo of the Queen’s Hotel when it had already been abandoned for ten years. Item doesn’t tell us who the owner was or why they saw fit to let it fall down.
The Centre d’histoire piece this weekend is about Hôtel-Dieu, its long history and the uncertain future of the old building on Pine Avenue.
Radio-Canada looks at a new French magazine (a new magazine, in this day and age?) called Nouvelle-France (text and audio). They’re also launching a new podcast called L’Histoire ne s’arrête pas là which discusses historical incidents and their consequences.
I mustn’t forget to mention the city’s own history site, which this week presents the origins of Ste-Justine hospital.
I think a kid at school lived at the Queen’s Hotel, his father having some important role at the hotel. But I’m not certain which one it was now. I do remember him taking us in thefe after it had closed down.
So the Gazette piece sounded odd, since I knew it had closed down a decade or so earlier.
I thought they were going to demolish it for some other purpose. So maybe there wa a challenge, or a money issue, so it was long abandoned.
Michael
My only connection with the Queen’s Hotel is that I recall being told my parents’ wedding reception was held there. I believe they’d got engaged over dinner at Mother Martin’s, which is also mentioned in the Gazette article, so they were thoroughly typical anglo Montrealers of their era.
Is that really the actual origin of that Essential Service law? It was just pretty recently successfully challenged in Saskatchewan (http://lawofwork.ca/?p=4759)
Shots were fired in Old Montreal after bar-closing time Sunday morning, but although suspects have been arrested, no victims have turned up.
QMI is also reporting on a victimless shooting earlier in the week in which a St-Léonard resto-bar was shot up on Tuesday evening but nobody got hurt even though it was evening and there were customers inside. The writer links it with earlier instances of gang violence.
I was wondering, do we have a running tally of murders this year? I feel like I’m seeing more shootings in 2019 than in 2018…
On the sidebar of this very site, you’ll find a link to a semi-official homicide map and tally. We seem to be at 11 so far this year, where we were at about 22 at the same time last year.
I do agree that violence seems to be getting reported more often lately, though possibly non-fatal violence.
My sidebar also includes links to the Google homicide maps made by regular commenter Kevin, although he’s only got 11 so far this year on-island. This was the 12th, I believe, and all told it’s a very low number.
There have been a lot of nonfatal shootings, stabbings too. I’ve seen theories about the decline in homicides being partly attibutable to better trauma care – not just here but everywhere. But I think in years with more killings the journalists who cover those beats might not have taken the trouble to report some teenage kid cutting another in a semi suburb.
I also suspect that some of the attacks are deliberately nonfatal and more in the nature of warnings.
Kate, Tim may be on mobile, I don’t think the sidebar is visible there.
I can see the sidebar on mobile. There isn’t really a mobile site. It looks the same whether I’m on mobile or desktop.
dhomas, there’s supposed to be a stripped-down mobile site, but it’s erratic. To be honest, I need to do some serious WordPress housecleaning and updating on this site, but it may have to wait for the Christmas break, because it’ll need a time when news is slow and I have some concentrated time off.
There have been fewer murders than other years. Nationwide they were on a long, downward trend, hitting a low point in 2013, while Quebec had its lowest number ever in 2016.
Since 2013 the number of murders went up across the country, but it’s still below the number of killings from the ’70s to about 2000.
Because of that drop in murders, reporters are writing about non-fatal crimes that they would never have covered previously.
Chris 19:45 on 2019-10-13 Permalink
The article says it *will* be back.
Kate 09:06 on 2019-10-14 Permalink
It also says “the borough will hold a meeting to solicit feedback from residents and business owners” so if it’s back it will probably be in some modified form, or bumped onto a less commercial street, wanna bet?
steph 10:29 on 2019-10-14 Permalink
Part of the bigger plan is to make Wellington, Verdun and Bannantyne streets all one way. They may end up with one way bike paths as well.
Kate 12:23 on 2019-10-14 Permalink
That sounds promising. I haven’t lived in Verdun since I was a little kid, but even then the traffic could get kind of snarly.
Faiz Imam 02:38 on 2019-10-15 Permalink
Huh. I didn’t realize Jean-talon was technically an overpass where the tunnel emerges.
That’s gonna suck. the detour for drivers will probably be south via Van horne,
But I’d hope they keep a walkway for pedestrians open north of the Rail tracks. Because there isn’t another crossing till Cote des neige.