Lucia Kowaluk Park to be inaugurated
A new park at Park and Pine will be inaugurated Monday in honour of social activist Lucia Kowaluk. She was one of the movement that saved the Milton-Park neighbourhood from being razed in the 1980s late 1960s and 1970s.
Jack 20:22 on 2020-09-20 Permalink
Thats some really good news, fearless lady.
Ian 07:55 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
That is good news, I had no idea that bit of green was even in danger – seems like a fitting tribute.
Blork 11:06 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
Picky point, but the neighbourhood’s threat of being razed occurred in the 60s and 70s. By ’79 that threat was over and the process of going co-op had begun. (The co-op was formalized in ’83, but the fight against the real-estate developers — who ironically began as a group of lefty communists — started in ’68 and peaked in the 70s.)
CE 11:12 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
I doubt this is a popular opinion but I thought the idea to develop that parcel as social housing after the interchange was demolished would have been a much better use for this spot. That intersection is very busy and noisy so I doubt many people will be using the space to “hold forth on various subjects.” Currently, you rarely see anyone using it, especially since there is are much nicer spots nearby in the rest of the other parks that surround it. It also always felt awkward as a public space with the backs of houses and an alley on one side and a skyscraper on the other. I think a residential building at that corner would have framed the rest of the park nicely. Even with some landscaping and furniture, it’s still going to feel like an awkward empty lot with a park on it.
Blork 11:13 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
A bit more: the origins of the real estate developers who wanted to raze the neighbourhood and install highrise apartments (they got three built — which are crumbling now — but the plan was to put up 12 so I think) began as a bunch of communists who wanted to tear down the old privately-owned (landlords!) triplexes and build a huge utopian city-within-a-city of dense high rises. Their rhetoric and thinking is highly reminiscent of the current “density above everything!” rhetoric that we hear so much today, including comments on this blog.
As the project evolved it became clear how much money was involved and how much money was there to be made, so the communists quietly evolved into capitalists and the rest is history.
CE 11:17 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
I’ve heard the Communist connection with LaCité before. Is it a coincidence that the company that manages the buildings has “red” in its name? (Redbourne)
Blork 13:20 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
@CE, that’s a stretch.
david18 13:37 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
As this blog’s foremost proponent of a denser and more affordable central city, I’d like to make a distinction between something like Milton Park – which involved a wholesale demolition and reconstruction of an entire neighborhood into those superblocks. The end result today is great, as it was stopped just in time, and we got a bunch of important landmarks, medical offices, the cinema, etc. It’s an especially wonderful asset in the depths of winter.
That’s related but independent of the fact that this corner lot is a very dumb place for a park. It’s one of the city’s busiest intersections and absolutely nobody does anything on that stretch of grass except cut across it. It’s the perfect location for another 20 story tower, connected underground to the Transat building and the rest of the Cité. We could get another 500+ people living there, with basically no pushback against construction, a super desirable and central location, more support for the ailing mall and nearby Saint Laurent and Park commercants, and that very marginal effect on the ever rising rents in the area.
Properly considered, putting a park there is just an insane idea.
MarcG 13:47 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
If I’m getting the right place it seems like people do actually chill there: https://goo.gl/maps/YC9gW8uWVJNtdswRA
PatrickC 14:43 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
I got to know Lucia during those 60s and early 70s of the Milton-Park struggle when as a student I worked part-time for Our Generation, the journal Dimitri edited. An exceptional woman. She could hold her own in ideological debates without dropping a stitch in the knitting she sometimes brought to editorial meetings (though she was no Madame Lafarge!). Typical of her multi-tasking.
Michael Black 15:08 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
Peter Hechtman died in March, though I only noticed about a month later. His obituary mentioned he was involved in “Our Generation” but as a club at McGill. I think the magazine came out of that, but if I knew for certain, I read it a long time ago.
PatrickC 17:58 on 2020-09-21 Permalink
@Michael Black, IIRC the original title of the journal was Our Generation Against Nuclear War, and it emerged from people involved with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. An important influence was the anarchist Murray Bookchin, but there was a range of views from across the non-Communist left (later more “new leftie”), and members of the editorial board I knew included Abe Limonchik, who went to be a city councillor (he used a pseudonym at the magazine to protect his day job), and Herbert Marx, later a prominent Quebec politician, and judge.