Old building burns downtown
A hundred-year-old building had a bad fire Friday afternoon down Lucien-L’Allier. It had been standing empty. Historian Robert Wilkins wrote about the building for his blog in 2014.
Update: Arson is suspected.
A hundred-year-old building had a bad fire Friday afternoon down Lucien-L’Allier. It had been standing empty. Historian Robert Wilkins wrote about the building for his blog in 2014.
Update: Arson is suspected.
GC 12:48 on 2020-01-04 Permalink
Oh, I’ve walked by that building too many times to count. I’ve sort of idly wondered what it had been, but never enough to try and dig around online. It’s such a very central location, that it would be great to see it used for something. (Typhoid Condos? They might need to pick a different name…) That walk to the metro is kind of lonely, too, so it would be nice to see more life around there.
Blork 15:18 on 2020-01-04 Permalink
Aw crap. I walk by that building almost every day on my way to the LL Metro. It had been gutted recently and a lot of scaffolding put up to hold up the facade. The sidewalk had a “cave” of scaffolding to get past the building, which was a bit of a pain in the butt as that street has been under non-stop construction for a year or more, so walking down there was a ever-changing obstacle course. I guess it will be worse now, at least in the short term.
When I was at Concordia in the early 90s (fine arts) I’d walk by that building a few times a week. At the time it was being used as one of the sets for the Radio-Canada TV series “Scoop.”
nau 17:52 on 2020-01-04 Permalink
There’s quite a large space behind that building. There’s been some guys living in tarp structures there since this summer. Before the construction started, one structure was against the back of the building. Then they moved to the back corner behind where the gas station was (condos going in there as well). I don’t imagine they’ll be able to stay there much longer.
dwgs 08:54 on 2020-01-05 Permalink
That blog piece is great, thanks for the link.