Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:52 on 2020-01-22 Permalink Reply  

• Ian 12:08 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  “Mile-Ex” is not a neighbourhood, it’s a made-up name by hipster restaurateurs & real estate developers. That’s Petite-Patrie, or, more specifically, Marconi-Alexandra.

• Blork 12:13 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  If the area has a distinct identity and the people who live there acknowledge that identity, and the name is in common usage and even appears on Google Maps, then it’s a neighbourhood. The name doesn’t need to be enshrined in ancient texts for it to be a neighbourhood FFS.

• DeWolf 12:42 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  All neighbourhood names are invented. Marconi-Alexandra is just the name of two adjacent streets – hardly anything remarkable. You might as well call the area Sector 1. Petite-Patrie was named after Claude Jasmin’s novel came out in 1972 so it was also a novelty in the fairly recent past.

  “Mile End” wasn’t even widely used until the first wave of gentrification came in the 1980s. It’s a historical name, of course, but for most of the 20th century it had fallen out of disuse. I remember looking for apartments in 2002 and most listings in the neighbourhood advertised it as “Outremont adjacent,” even for places as far east as Clark Street.

  Mile Ex became popular as a name after the restaurant of the same name opened in 2014. I don’t really see how seafood is hipster, but in any case, I don’t see why a restaurant’s perceived aesthetic makes its cultural influence invalid.

• Kate 13:41 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  When my father lived on Fullum opposite Baldwin Park in the 1940s, the area was not yet known generally as the Plateau. When he lived on Waverly just up the street from where Olimpico is now, in the early 1950s, it wasn’t yet called Mile End either. (He would have described his locations in terms of which English-speaking Catholic parish he was in, but if you read back in old newspapers you won’t find “Plateau” or “Mile End” used either.)

• Ian 13:42 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  “Mile Ex” only started up with the gentrifiers, it wasn’t an organic evolution. All the people I know who left their studio spaces in Mile End are now leaving “Mile Ex” because they are getting squeezed out by gentrifiers.

  I see the same thing in city after city, an existing neighbourhood suddenly becomes desirable real estate and it gets rebranded with a cool new name so it is more easily marketed. New York is really obvious with neighbourhoods like Dumbo, Nolita, etc. and you see it in Toronto with places like Christie Pits getting rebranded “Garrison Park” or the old warehouse district on Queen West as “Librety Village”. If you don’t think this is the exact same thing, you are sorely deceived. Just count the renovictions.

• DeWolf 14:49 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  The process you’re describing is literally an organic evolution. The artists came, along with some wealthier architecture firms and design offices, followed by cafés and restaurants. Many of those newcomers adopted the Mile Ex label all by themselves. Then came the media buzz and corporate real estate companies that are displacing the first-wave gentrifiers. (Hate to break it to you but artists are gentrifiers.)

  You’re absolutely right that the name Mile Ex is a symbol of gentrification. But that process is underway and I don’t see how denying the reality of it will stop it. Rejecting the aesthetics of gentrification does nothing to stop gentrification itself. It’s a social and economic process – things like names and “hipster” decor are just window dressing.

• ian 16:24 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  Oh I know artists are gentrifiers, they are basically the shock troops that first land in an inexpensive neighbourhood and hte next thing you know cafés and bookshops are springing up. I worked on de Gaspé as a designer at one of th ekniotting mills – when my old company moved out, the space was converted into artist studios. I know very few artists that can afford studios on de Gaspé anymore. The old diner serivng th factory workers is now an at gallery, it’s all become deliciously pretentious – any “neighbourhood charm” has been gone for well over a decade.

  Mile Ex, though, sprang up virtually overnight as the trend parasites fled Mile End’s quickly rising rents, and now with the railyard development “Mile Ex” has gone gone straight from funky studio spaces with some hip trendy restaurants & cafés to deadzone condoville. I remember when Beaumont was dyeing mills… that was within the last 15 years. Thy never even really got to be actually cool before the developers killed it dead.

• CE 16:56 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  I always kind of liked the Mile Ex name. It was an area that didn’t really have a name or much of an identity and now it does. It works too, it’s right between Mile End and Parc Ex.

  Where I find it to be more of a problem is when existing neighourhoods get rebranded with their more desirable neighbours’ names. I overheard a conversation just today in St-Henri where a couple people were discussing how the name Little Burgundy barely exists anymore, at least among newcomers and real estate agents. The whole area is being called Griffintown now (I’ve heard more than once people referring to Joe Beef and its ilk as being in Griffintown). Same in Point(e) Saint Charles where real estate agents and condo developers are apparently now calling some parts “Victoria Town” which is gross for a few reasons.

• Em 17:35 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  @CE “Victoriatown: an extension of Griffintown” is the full slogan. And yeah, gross. PSC bears little resemblance to what Griffintown has become and I hope it stays that way.

• Kate 20:21 on 2020-01-22 Permalink

  The irony is that Victoriatown was one of the names for Goose Village, which was the only part of town that people from the Point and Griffintown could feel superior to, back in the day. (According to my mother.)