Montreal City Weblog

Kate 18:06 on 2020-11-19 Permalink Reply  

• Jebediah Pallindrome 18:33 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

  God wasn’t it though. Such a travesty given what it was replaced with… moreso given there was an abundance of empty lots all over the city when the current building was erected

• Kate 18:37 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

  The story is they had to demolish it to widen Dorchester.

• Jebediah Palindrome 23:16 on 2020-11-19 Permalink

  My least favourite street widening project

• dhomas 05:56 on 2020-11-20 Permalink

  I’m not sure that’s entirely true about the widening project. Dorchester was widened in 1955. The Architects’ Building (later, the DuPont Building) came down in 1968. No specific reason was given in the Gazette article I found about its demolition:
  https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19681113&id=6XkyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GrkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5020,3315455&hl=en

• dhomas 06:50 on 2020-11-20 Permalink

  In fact, we can see the building here in a picture from 1963, with a widened Dorchester Boulevard right next to it:
  https://www.banq.qc.ca/histoire_quebec/parcours_thematiques/HenriRemillard/VertigeDesHauteurs/vh_s01photo06.jsp

• Kate 11:03 on 2020-11-20 Permalink

  dhomas, nice find!

  I wonder whether there could have been some fundamental design flaw. I can’t see why else a major building would have to come down after only a couple of decades. I’d have to spend time trawling through old newspapers to find out more, and I won’t have time for that for awhile.

  But big buildings do come down. The Laurentian Hotel only lasted a couple of decades as well.

• Martin 11:07 on 2020-11-20 Permalink

  And it should be noted that the building was demolished in the 60’s, but nothing replaced it before 1981. So it’s not like they had to bring it down to build something else right away. It’s really a big mystery. Why ?

• Martin 11:09 on 2020-11-20 Permalink

  Come to think of it, the only explanation is just land speculation. By demolishing the building, the owner wanted to increase the value of that prime spot and sell it when the right time come.

• David274 14:06 on 2020-11-20 Permalink

  I’ve been in a bitter mood since reading this morning that the Arecibo Observatory will be demoliahed, and that photo essay just ruined my day. I’m closing up shop and heading off into the afternoon to find a place to get drunk.

• Michael Black 14:20 on 2020-11-20 Permalink

  Sam Harris used to say “if an antenna stays up the whole winter, it’s too small”.

  Then he moved down to Arecibo almost from the start. He wasn’t merely a technician, which seemed to be the way he was presented to the hobby world.