Updates from November, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 20:48 on 2019-11-06 Permalink | Reply  

    St George’s, that pretty little Anglican church near the Bell Centre, will be hosting two free meals a day, taking advantage of unsold food from grocery stores and with corporate contributions, and with care taken over the food and the setting. Not clear when it will start up.

     
    • Kate 20:27 on 2019-11-06 Permalink | Reply  

      Contracts have been awarded for the design of three of the new blue line stations.

      I still haven’t heard how the STM plans to name the new stations at Viau and Pie-IX, given there are already stations with those names on the green line. But so long as none of them is named for Bernard Landry, I’ll be happy.

       
      • Tim F 07:25 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        I feel like the elegant solution is to rename the existing stations to Stade Olympique and Biodôme or something to that effect.

      • Kate 09:04 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        That’s not bad. But contrarily to what I said below about naming stations after people, maybe the existing Viau station should be renamed Maurice-Richard after the arena at that corner?

      • Filp 09:33 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        Pierre de Coubertin works too for either

      • qatzelok 09:51 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        The new (transfer?) station at Pie IX could be named “Le Petit Maghreb,” which might also inspire both its architecture, as well as give a boost to the restaurant/tlourism potential of that unvisited area.

      • Spi 12:15 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        It might be a bit inelegant, but just name the Pie-IX station on the blue line, Pie-IX-Nord and the Viau one can easily just be named Saint-Leonard.

      • Kate 13:20 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        I suspect they’ll do something like that, Spi. Viau Nord, Pie-IX Nord.

        I looked at the map and realized they won’t easily be able to do a Papineau/Fabre thing with these stations. The nearby streets to Pie-IX along the route are numbers – 22e and 23e avenue, not very effective. And where Viau passes near Jean-Talon is a suburban jungle of malls and no other street names of note.

    • Kate 13:44 on 2019-11-06 Permalink | Reply  

      It still jars me to call that street Robert-Bourassa (see item below), but now the mayor wants to name a Griffintown REM station after Bernard Landry. She says that the Cité Multimédia was created partly via his support.

      As an old-skool Anglo, I had an immediate reaction: is the Griff the right place to honour one of the pillars of the Parti québécois?

       
      • Clément 14:08 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        Yeah, let’s honour him in Brossard or in the West Island. Perhaps at the Pierre-Elliot Trudeau airport station? /s

      • Francesco 14:22 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        Kate and Clément both made me guffaw just now. Well done!

      • david100 14:38 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        I’ve come around on Landry, but Griffintown seems like an odd place to honor him. Traditionally working class Anglophone neighborhood and a white glove separatist? I guess you could argue that it’s no longer a recognizable Anglo neighborhood (though just barely) or even working class in the classic sense of the term, and that it’s good a place as any to recognize him, given that’s where the new infrastructure and parks and the rest are, and that it’s relatively cheaper to name stuff there (don’t have to replace things). But if it were up to me, and if I had to honor him for whatever reason (it’s a pretty long tradition), I’d take an appropriate saint-named street or square somewhere in Ville Marie, where the guy lived most of his non-Quebec City professional life. Saint Marc, maybe – you have the 720 ramp there, so it’s quite visible and well known.

      • ant6n 14:45 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        Transit stations should be named after the neighborhoods they’re in. Then they help reinforce a sense of place, and you know, help people understand the local geography. I’m always super confused in Paris with all the totally random metro station names.

      • Blork 14:46 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        Totally agree with ant6n.

      • Francesco 14:47 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        The thing is, Landry — finance minister at the time — was roundly criticized by influential members of the financial, real estate and tech sectors for essentially bribing tech employers to move to the Cité area. The government subsequently had no choice but to create CDITs in every city and major town in Quebec. It took the Charest government a decade to clean up the mess, notwithstanding the fact that there are less well-paying jobs in the Cité than at an average hospital. Val Plante should study History, and let the operator name stations for the neighbourhoods and/or streets they serve; stations named after prominent people do nothing for riders.

      • Francesco 14:56 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        You mean “historic Anglo.”

      • Francesco 15:09 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        If we’re going to name it nondescriptly, how about Richard-Szalwinski, founder of Discreet Logic — which took advantage of Landry’s offer and located to 10 Duke and other addresses nearby — and one-time majority stakeholder of Vice Magazine.

      • meezly 15:58 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        Great idea, Francesco. Better Szalwinski than Landry, as he was without doubt the more colourful figure. And add a statue at Place d’Youville which captures Szalwinski streaking naked through the building the day he sold Discreet Logic to Autodesk (I worked with colleagues who can attest to have witnessed this). Perhaps the Charest gov’t did an outstanding job as according to Wikipedia, the Cité Multimedia now “has 6,000 workers, and an average salary of $73,000 per year. This figure is almost 25% above Montréal’s average.”

      • SMD 16:30 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        meezly: That difference might be mostly made up by the provincial tax contribution, which is costing us almost $700 million this year. Divide that by the 69,700 employees who receive it and the subsidy comes to about $10K per employee per year.

      • Blork 16:39 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        Not usually mentioned is that those salary subsidies were pretty much matched on the other side by skyrocketing corporate rent in the area. (At least that’s what I’ve been told.)

      • Ephraim 17:00 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        How about we rename Lionel Groulx… for Landry? Or maybe the hotel where he verbally abused the housekeeper? (To me, this was his biggest shame, you treat those who work hard for a living with respect, you don’t berate or belittle them… )

      • Kate 18:06 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        If L-G is to be renamed, it’s got to be for Oscar Peterson.

      • thomas 19:08 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        20 years ago, Bernard Landry and Pierre Bourque started a debate to rename the streets of Cité Multimedia. If I remember correctly, replacing Duke, Prince etc. with Pixel, Internet and similar techy terms. After an outcry from the Irish community and historical preservation stakeholders plus lack of enthusiasm from tech companies as it sounded silly the idea was dropped.

      • Kate 20:30 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        thomas, I’d be surprised if the Irish were keen on King, Queen, Prince and Duke. In fact, the only explicitly Irish street name in the whole area is Shannon.

      • Blork 21:48 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        AFAIK, some people are already informally referring to LG Metro as “Oscar Peterson.”

      • Filp 22:41 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        That sounds like a nice idea, but I’ve honestly never heard a single person refer to LG as Oscar Peterson in my whole life. No one would know where that is if I said it

        I’m okay with Landry for Griffintown station only if a relevant outside thing is named the same. Like a street or park. Every metro station seems to be named in this fashion, so it would make sense to keep up with the formula. Except for Montmorency seemingly? Or am I just missing the street with that name

      • ant6n 23:34 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

        For example, rue Lucien l’Allier is not relevant. Also, naming some tiny random street or creating some other irrelevant landmark just so a metro station name isn’t complete disconnected from it’s area is putting the cart before the horse.

      • EmilyG 00:31 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        Montmorency is the name of the college near the metro station.

      • Filp 00:32 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        I mean, it is a street though. I know exactly where Lucien l’allier street is, and therefore where the exit of the station is. Landry station wouldn’t say much. Some stations are less relevant, for sure. Like Fabre, which is really Papineau. But then what would you call the station? Naming it someones name with no above ground reference doesn’t make much sense. But the main above ground street already belongs to a station

        Anyway, if they’re really insistant on naming a station after him, I’d prefer it had some reference point. Even just the street in front of the station

      • Faiz Imam 00:51 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        Everyone is talking like this is under discussion, but if you go back to the Mayor’s original tweet, it’s clear to me that the exact name is finalized. It’ll be “Griffintown Bernard-Landry’

        Not the sexiest name, but utilitarian enough and doesn’t get in the way too much, whatever else we might think of the symbolism

      • Francesco 04:10 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        I don’t get it. As simple as that. The stations should be named after streets or prominent landmarks, just like the 1966 Métro: Atwater, Peel, Place-des-Arts, Even the name “Griffintown” is vague. It’s an area many blocks long and wide with no definable centre. Ask a native Montrealer where it is and they probably answer something like, “Oh, you know, it’s south of downtown.”

        The fact that the station likely won’t even be “next to” the Cité Multimédia for which this otherwise forgettable provincial politician is only partly responsible makes the choice even more dumb.

      • Kate 09:02 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        ant6n, I’m curious how you’d rename Lucien-l’Allier – what else is around there? Anyway, the street was renamed years ago for Mr. L’Allier, who was key in the creation of the metro, so I think they set this up so he’d have a station named after him.

        I agree in general about naming stations rationally for the existing geography, though.

      • Chris 10:46 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        Also, Landry has only been dead a year and a day, it’s too soon to be renaming things after him.

      • Ant6n 15:20 on 2019-11-07 Permalink

        @Kate the issue is perhaps different in downtown, where there is a high density of stations relative to neighborhoods. But REM will have low station density, and the Ottawa street station actually serves multiple neighborhoods: Griffintown, old Port (‘multimedia City’), so maybe use that.

    • Kate 13:40 on 2019-11-06 Permalink | Reply  

      A man died Wednesday morning when his SUV crashed into the wall along Robert-Bourassa between Notre-Dame and St-Jacques. Witnesses said he was going at top speed – it’s lucky nobody else was in his way.

       
      • Kate 08:56 on 2019-11-06 Permalink | Reply  

        Park Ex residents held a protest Tuesday against the construction of condos on Beaumont. The borough had originally promised to buy the lot for social housing but eventually gave in and approved the sale to a developer.

         
        • Cadichon 10:13 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

          Just to clarify: boroughs don’t approve sales.

        • SMD 10:46 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

          The borough approved the demolition of the bakery for the construction of high-end apartments. Park Ex tenants also spoke out on CBC Radio yesterday morning, and in Concordia’s The Link newspaper.

        • walkerp 11:28 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

          Yes, I had heard on the radio that it was UdeM who had made and reneged on the promise.

      • Kate 08:49 on 2019-11-06 Permalink | Reply  

        CTV puts up a clickbait top photo of cars buried in snow over a piece about how we may get some snow tonight or over the next few days.

         
        • Bill Binns 09:19 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

          I caught myself clicking on the same thing from MTL Blog and wanted to throw my phone across the room.

      • Kate 08:42 on 2019-11-06 Permalink | Reply  

        The English Montreal School Board will be put under trusteeship by the Quebec government following a report that the board has been grossly mismanaged.

         
        • Jack 10:33 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

          What a shock.

        • Mark Côté 14:23 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

          The EMSB responded: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/were-not-going-to-just-sit-there-and-take-it-emsb-says

          Whatever happens to the EMSB it had better not impact the performance of its schools. The average scores of the schools in the EMSB consistently ranks as the best compared against any other board in Quebec.

        • Jack 17:15 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

          The guy who is not going “to sit there and take it” is the embodiment of why the entire school board structure is coming down.
          Who is Michael Cohen and what does he do?
          I know he writes for “The Suburban” “Mike Cohen blogs on breaking news, rumours, celebrity sightings and up to date reports on Montreal media news.” Celebrity sightings indeed…
          He is also a Cote St Luc City councillor and hates bikes.“The annual Tour de l’Île de Montréal has been a thorn in my side for decades, I am not a cyclist and I resent the fact that this event paralyzes the city one Sunday each year…”
          More importantly he works with this group of six people whose job it is is to shine shinola for the EMSB.
          https://www.emsb.qc.ca/emsb/community/media/press
          Here is there mandate:
          “The EMSB Communications and Marketing Division falls under the Secretary General’s Office and oversees all aspects of media relations, publications, marketing, promotions, advertising, special events, social media, web design and content. Please read about all of the services & resources we provide and feel free to access relevant information and material.”
          No thanks.

        • Tim S. 18:21 on 2019-11-06 Permalink

          Does anyone know if a copy of the report has been made public? I’m curious to know if there’s anything about hiring practices.

      • Kate 08:29 on 2019-11-06 Permalink | Reply  

        City executive council has made a move to put up $464 million for the blue line extension, mostly to cover the expropriations and professional fees to proceed with the project.

         
        c
        Compose new post
        j
        Next post/Next comment
        k
        Previous post/Previous comment
        r
        Reply
        e
        Edit
        o
        Show/Hide comments
        t
        Go to top
        l
        Go to login
        h
        Show/Hide help
        shift + esc
        Cancel