Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:15 on 2020-02-27 Permalink Reply  

• Ian 15:13 on 2020-02-28 Permalink

  I’ve been, it’s a bit cliché nowadays but it is what it is. To be fair 281 hasn’t been considered “the best” male strip club for a long, long time, but it did have cachet as a classic.

• Filp 17:00 on 2020-02-28 Permalink

  I’m not sure how condos are always the villain. We want people to live in the city, but we don’t want condos? Or is this very central close to transit location not the right one? What other project would be acceptable at this location? To me, most projects today have to include housing units on top of them, it’s just logic. condos are another form of housing.

• Meezly 17:52 on 2020-02-28 Permalink

  Perhaps because condos tend to come with gentrification – people of a lower or mixed socio-economic status replaced by the more affluent & homogenous. Buildings that once provided a service, or offered mixed housing, or simply had a history, getting replaced with a generic tower that can house 20x more people, yes, but at what cost? The condo that’s going to replace 281 is going to be directly across from Foufounes. Sounds more like money talking rather than thoughtful urban planning to me. Also, what will this mean for the little entertainment strip in that area? Does this spell the beginning of the end for those venues and institutions?

• Dhomas 18:38 on 2020-02-28 Permalink

  I can see it now. Foufs will close a couple of years after those condos get built because they are too loud for the neighbourhood.

• Filp 20:10 on 2020-02-28 Permalink

  Maybe I struggle to see the alternative. Areas with effective public transit should be dense with housing. Aside from building only social housing, which will never happen, condos will mean people moving into an area. Where should they live instead? You can mandate that condos have a social mix of units as well as business and venues beneath, which this building certainly will given that it’s on st Catherine. It will probably mean the entertainment strip will change, but no neighborhood has ever stayed the same in history. I’m obviously not advocating for wholesale destruction of the city to build condos (which I’m sure someone will accuse me of), but new projects from here on should incorporate housing, and most of the time it will be condos.

• Ian 20:44 on 2020-02-28 Permalink

  Well they already tore down the red light district to build highrise social housing just behind where Foufs is so I guess this won’t make that much difference to the area… and let’s be honest, the “entertainment district” has been getting whittled away at since it was the club district under Drapeau. The QdeS expropriations over the decades were another several nails in the coffin. Then when the entire block at Saint Larry got expropriated besides Cleopatra (bless their hearts) and when funding fell through stood as a gaping hole for years and years… really, even Foufs hasn’t been edgy since the early 90s.

  Foufs went where it is because at the time it was cheap and undesirable. Back in the day that neighbourhood was best known for the street hookers and random dealers wandering along saying ‘ash-coke-‘ash-coke all night. The first incarnation of Foufs was a large, dank room where the girls’ bathroom was a shooting gallery (the cops wouldn’t go in the girl’s bathroom – there were no female officers on that strip at the time). We were not the most tony clientele in the 80s but the city evolved around us, some of us even evolved along with it.

  FWIW the whole male stripper scene has really suffered since the internet, apps, and widening social tolerance. Much like how gay villages the world over are dying out because being gay no longer means you need to hide in a specific neighbourhood and go to specific places at specific times to meet people that don’t want to beat you up and/or toss you in jail. Male strippers for women were always a bit of a novelty act compared to strip clubs for men.

  I dunno, I get it,. sad to see things go… but St Larry and Ste Kitty is not the cool entertainment district it once was by any stretch. As far as places to live, though , it’s pretty seedy, smells like urine in the morning, and the closest grocery store is the IGA all the way over at place Desjardins. If the yuppies think that’s a great place to drop lots of money to live, well, at least they aren’t moving into my neighbourhood.

• Filp 20:56 on 2020-02-28 Permalink

  An IGA express opened in front of st-Laurent metro actually. A sign people are moving to the area certainly

• Ian 21:14 on 2020-02-28 Permalink

  Ah neat, I hadn’t seen that. While you’re right, Les Habitations Jeanne-Mance started construction in 1959… this has been a very residential neighbourhood for a very long time… just poor people.

• Meezly 12:42 on 2020-02-29 Permalink

  Yeah, I think most of us have mixed feelings about new development. More often than not, there is a loss of character, history and diversity. I’m all for more affordable housing, just wish urban planning is not so affected by quick profit and corruption.

• Filp 15:05 on 2020-02-29 Permalink

  Ian, I obviously know about habitations Jeanne-Mance. It’s kinda hard to avoid given how much it sticks out from the normal row housing and street grid. You can imply from my comment that people moving to an area doesn’t mean there aren’t any there already. No need to twist every single comment as an attack. There are huge condo buildings being built right across from the metro station, which are adding tons of units to the area.

• Ian 18:14 on 2020-02-29 Permalink

  I didn’t mean it as an attack on you so much as an attack on the kind of urban planning that would allow for a vertical ghetto surrounded by a food desert. I am genuinely glad to see some grocery stores actually coming into that neighbourhood.