Sad to read that the Coalition verte has lost in Superior Court in their attempt to preserve the St-Laurent Technoparc ecosystem as a sanctuary for rare and interesting birds and animals. Check out the range of creatures photographers have captured in the area and posted to Flickr.
Of course, they make no profit for anyone, so they’re dispensable. It’s irrational, but it makes me sad.
Let me get this straight. Legault gets his vaccine Friday and talks breezily about a third wave of Covid while opening places of worship and gyms, and sending high school students back to school in person – even while variants are shutting schools down in various parts of Quebec.
Is coherence too much to ask for?
Kevin commented here Thursday: “Legault’s goal is not eradicating this disease or keeping you healthy.” Like all politicians, his goal is re-election – we shouldn’t forget that, especially if we’re Montrealers. He has no reason to do anything to help us out.
It’s frustrating. I don’t think Legault is sacrificing Mtl; it is the engine of the province – he can’t afford to. I think he’s mostly focused on ICU numbers not covid cases. As long as the hospitals can function, that’s the goal. We’re on our own otherwise.
It’s worth remembering that people were locking themselves down weeks before the politicians caught up with official lockdowns last year. That was true in Canada and even in the US. I assume many will just ignore the official opening up. The variant crisis is getting a lot of media attention; maybe some of it will go in.
“I think he’s mostly focused on ICU numbers not covid cases. As long as the hospitals can function, that’s the goal. We’re on our own otherwise.”
Precisely.
Let us not forget that hospitalizations lag by 10-14 days, so of course the huge jump that started Thursday (and the beginnings of the increase that started a week ago) probably won’t affect hospitalizations until the end of next week. (I’m not sure if the variant have a different lag time.)
Monday morning, in Montreal, Legault clearly chose his camp. Legault said he did not agree with Trudeau, but rather with French President Emmanuel Macron. Since the Oct. 16 beheading of a teacher in the middle of a French street, France’s president has vocally supported the right to make fun of religions and the need to protect freedom of expression above all.
The fire department has lost a veteran of note. Bruno Lachance was with the service for 40 years, culminating in becoming chief of the service in 2017. He stepped down a year ago.
At the end of last year, the Museum of Fine Arts ruled out the creation of a special new wing for the works of Riopelle. At that time, the idea was floated of turning the old Saint-Sulpice library into a museum dedicated to his work. Now that too has been ruled out as the handsome old library building is gradually falling into ruin from disuse.
I thought the St Sulpice library was supposed to be converted into a youth centre?
It was supposed to become a sort of tech centre and library for adolescents but that was cancelled last year.
Excellent example here against naming sites for politicians – especially living ones. Laval was about to name an arena after longtime councillor Jacques St-Jean, when he was faced with five criminal charges of fraud. Maybe the fact he was an old pal of Gilles Vaillancourt should have tipped them off.
Union United Church, close to Lionel-Groulx metro, had some disgusting cleaning-up to do after people left graffiti on the walls and shit all over the place. Did they do the latter as a statement or simply because there aren’t enough public toilets? The graffiti, however, is not a response to a physical need.
The suspect in the domestic assault murder in Lasalle has been charged with murder in the second degree, after initially being charged with assault.
Ali Ngarukye, the new suspect in the Park Ex attack on police officer Sanjay Vig, appeared in court Friday morning and was charged with attempted murder, disarming a police officer, stealing cars and other associated offences. He’ll remain locked up until trial. La Presse got a photo of the suspect’s family but not the man himself.
Do I think they have another fall guy? They claim to have DNA evidence. I have no way to tell.
La Presse posting pics of only the suspect’s family is…an odd choice.
There’s no pics of him because he wasn’t in court in person.
My goodness the suspects family has been the most important part of this story on LCN and sadly Radio Can. Anyone want to guess why?
Thaddeus Ashford, cousin of Sylville Smith, reacts to the acquittal of ex-cop Dominique Heaggan-Brown in the fatal shooting of Smith that set off two days of violent unrest near Sherman Park. The verdict was just the latest of many acquittals in police shootings around the country, including one in Minnesota last week of the officer who fatally shot Philando Castile. Like that case, it involved suspects with guns, split-second decisions about self-defense and video evidence.
Montreal is mentioned only 25 times in the 500‑page Quebec budget tabled Thursday.
Mayor Plante is disappointed in the minimal amount for social housing, which the city badly needs. It undercuts her hope for many new units and I wonder whether the CAQ is manipulating the municipal election by starving Montreal of a key promise made by Plante.
Something which this blog and its commenters have shone a bright light on this year, is the lack of agency Montreal has over its own destiny, with Quebec making all the big decisions and calling the shots from afar.
What interests me, is how aware is the average Montrealer of this depressing political reality? I wonder If most of its citizens don’t realise how little control the Mayor has over these things.
With this hindsight, it was probably unwise of Projet to base their biggest election promise on the Pink Line, something which the City would have had no power to implement in the first place.
It’s frustrating, as what I’m seeing is the provincial government views Montreal as a magic money box to use to generate wealth (eg: big profitable projects no one asked for like the REM or the baseball stadium mentioned in a recent post), and beyond that it sees the city either as a problem to be solved or a political wedge to be used. Montreal is so much more than these things.
I think the average citizen has absolutely no idea how little power municipalities have in Quebec (and in Canada more generally) which is why they get mad at the mayor for things totally outside of her control.
Then again, maybe they do have a sense of things, because why else would turnout in municipal elections be so low?
Yes, one good example is the lack of control the city has in commercial rents as it’s a provincial jurisdiction. The city seems powerless in doing anything effective in combatting abusive business practices I only learned this recently and I consider myself a little bit more informed than the average citizen.
Some driving notes for the weekend.
A resident of the Mile End laments its demise.
“Proto-Hipster yells at cloud”.
Anyone longing for the dirty sidewalks and communist sentiment of old Mile End has plenty of present day Montreal neighborhoods to choose from. Maybe go join a grocery store robbery team in St Henri or help QS mobilize the proletariat in the Village. Pick up a knife and a few cans of spraypaint and help Hochelaga keep the scourge of gentrification at bay.
Sounds like someone is jealous because the dirty, crime-ridden neighborhood they bought property in didn’t experience the immediate wave of gentrification they expected would follow in their wake.
If he moved to Mile End in 1999 he had already missed the best of that neighbourhood. We left in ’99 because it was getting too expensive and precious. So there.
Finally, an essay about gentrification in Mile-End!
@JS My neighborhood is considerably less dirty and crime ridden than it was when I arrived. Thanks in no small part to me being there. My house has appreciated over 40% in 5 years and I will soon unload it on someone who will likely gut it and turn it into condos. I’m quite happy with how things have gone.
I’m not aware of Mile End ever being crime-ridden. I lived there for a couple of years (1991-93), before hipsters, and before anybody talked about it being anything more than a neighbourhood. But I liked it because it was full of creative people (confession: creative anglos; I was studying photography at Concordia at the time and a bunch of other people from the program also lived there). I liked the proximity to bagels and the handful of affordable restaurants along St-Viateur and Bernard that were not just casse-croutes. (Does anyone remember Gigi’s pizza?)
It was a chaotic time for me personally, for a number of reasons, and aside from those other photography people from Concordia I didn’t know anyone else in the hood. I was also pretty poor at the time, so I didn’t get out much and didn’t take full advantage of the place. But I liked the general vibe and the oddness, and the proximity to nice parks in Outremont.
I left in 1993 because of the above-mentioned personal chaos (and I had to find a cheaper place because I was stuck paying rent on a 5-1/2 by myself). I ended up in St-Henri for 10 months, and that was a nightmare. Crime-ridden, very bad vibe, no good restaurants (cheap or otherwise), no cafes, and even the one name-brand grocery store was a dump.
In the ensuing years, as my chaos decreased and my disposable income increased, I regretted leaving Mile End, especially after I got a job in the Peck building (1995-97 I think), which put me back in the ‘hood on a daily basis. But by 2000 or so I could see the sellout happening all around. At first it was nice that some new shops were appearing, and some old places cleaned up a bit. But that rapidly evolved into zero vacancy rate, high rents, and ridiculous businesses that catered to silly hipsters whose only concern was that their own life was better curated than the person next to them. The current situation is the natural extension of that.
Bill Binns, you’re full of crap sometimes. There’s more to a neighbourhood than crime rates and real estate values. People who miss the old Mile End won’t find it by moving to some beat up ungentrified neighbourhood.
I remember thinking that Mile End as a cultural hub was dead in the mid 2000s. When something dies, eventually it starts rotting.
I agree with the author’s sentiment, but I also found it pretty pretentious. It’s too easy to just pin these things on capitalism. It’s part of the problem, but there’s something really tacky about the pining through rose-tinted glasses for a time that won’t exist again, not because of generic capitalism but because things just change. Nostalgia is a dangerous indulgence.
I moved to St-Henri in 2010, when it was still not the nicest place (and I know in the decades before it was even worse). Gentrification hit that neighborhood fast and hard. Recently a friend passed through and described it as Toronto-esque and I almost vomited from the nausea.
Do I miss the old charm I knew? Yes, I suppose. But it was a different time. I was a student and was seeing it through different eyes. The whole business of “back in the day it wasn’t so polished and the community was tighter” will never stop. It’s just different because things change as fast as we do. In twenty years, the regulars at any of the 27 taco restaurants on Notre Dame will lament that their local taco joint (circa 2017) is being priced out by the newest iteration of hipsters and the augmented reality studio that set up shop in the hollowed out Home Depot.
I tend to agree that waxing nostalgic isn’t useful, but it’s inevitable. And it is useful to look at what forces are at work when a neighbourhood changes.
Funny enough, I sort of like the new St-Henri. The area around Courcelle is pretty interesting. Definitely hipstery, and very anglo, but it’s almost entirely small, locally owned independent businesses. And who doesn’t love tacos? I feel like if the same taco wave had hit St-Viateur it would have been mostly organic vegan tacos owned by chains from Toronto.
Tejano makes my favorite burrito in Montreal. Adamo makes a tasty slice (not so cheap, but definitely good and the slices are huge). Rustique pie’s are great, and the shop is charming AF. etc etc etc. If that area had been like that when I moved there in 1993 I might never have left. Instead, what I got was drunks, degenerates, loud thumping cars (even when parked in the alley!), a couple of stinky deps where Heinekin was the most exotic beer to be found, crippled kids*, middle-aged nudists**, a few nauseating casse-croutes, and only one bar*** that was so depressing you’d cross the street rather than walk past it. It was like living in a Gabrielle Roy novel but as written by William S. Burroughs.
Endnotes:
Crippled kids of a type that you felt were crippled by fetal alcohol syndrome or a diet of expired canned goods, or maybe being clipped by their drunk uncle’s old Chevy on his way to the depressing bar.
OK, only one pair of nudists that I know about. Not to body shame or anything, but these two were like chubbier versions of the folks from La Petite Vie only minus the clothes. Not attractive people, and they’d walk around their apartment (across the street from mine) drunk, starkers, and perpetually smoking, at night with the curtains open. In any other neighbourhood they’d just be the odd folks next door, but in the Hank of 1993 it was just another piece of the awful.
That bar was, and is, Bar Courcelle, which is largely unchanged now except for its cleanliness and clientelle. Still unpretentious and a bit divey, but it’s now like a real neighbourhood bar where you can meet friends, watch a game, and not fear getting hepatitis or mugged in the washroom.
@Bill “Thanks in no small part to me being there” – I would love to hear about all of the do-gooding you’re responsible for, Superhero of the Village.
@Kate: I know you like to surprise us with fun words but I’m pretty sure “eugoky” in the title of this one is a typo.
@marco – The only thing keeping Hochelaga from looking like Westmount is having enough people willing to pick up the phone and call the cops or the city about quality of life issues. I will definitely take some credit for getting graffiti cleaned up quickly and reducing open drug dealing and prostitution in the parks. I certainly hope I contributed to the rooming house full of drug dealers finally going out of business.
You paint a picture of a heavily militarized garden of eden that makes me shudder.
MarcG: my fault for writing headlines on my ipad while I’m still half asleep, before coffee.
I was trying to decide whether “elegy” or “eulogy” was the correct word, and my fingers got all mixed up.
>Anyone longing for the dirty sidewalks and communist sentiment of old Mile End…
You’ll be excited to know the sidewalks are still dirty. Especially right now, with the usual snow melt revealing months of litter.
@Blork. I also lived in Saint-Henri mid-90s. It was truly grim. You forgot to mention the tanning salons–every fourth shop along Notre Dame was a tanning salon.
A terrific mural depicting scenes from East End life has appeared on the wall of the premises of T V Edwards solicitors at 33 Mile End Road. A few snippets can be seen on this page, but a visit is a must The amazing story of an old boy of Jews Free School in Bell lane who became a Chinese General by his cousin Dr Cyril Sherer.
I just noticed this comment, in which the person mixes up Mile End in Montreal with the Mile End Road in London.
To the readers that live in Mile End, how many local places do you actually patronize? How many places have you gone to, that you still go to?
I’ve lived in the Mile End for about 7 years. Lately, I would pass by a vacant storefront that once had a business I used to patronize, and feel a twinge of loss. Le Cagibi, Arts Cafe, Comptoir 21, etc. Then I would think about it a bit more, and realize I hadn’t been to any of those places in a long time, and it was because of bad service or product.
I recall the lady at the Spice Station interrogating me after I asked for dried onion and they didn’t have it. Why couldn’t I just use fresh onion? I remember the guy at the second-hand sports store asking with incredulity what I wanted with a workout mat, and on another occasion selling me a chin-up bar in a beaten, dusty old box and telling me gruffly that he would not take it back if it could not be installed in my apartment. I remember being shuffled around to different seats at Arts Cafe to make way for other patrons by unsympathetic staff. I was just there to read and eat some shakshuka. I’ve made it at home ever since, and now their windows are covered with paper. I used to go to Le Cagibi all the time. I was a vegan, and I was taken by its improvised charm, but I had to admit to myself that most of the food wasn’t very good, the entertainment wasn’t good, and maybe 50% of the staff didn’t like me for some reason. I stopped going long before they moved up to little Italy, and before the video they put out asking for help, where somebody from the cafe implied that we, the customers, owed them because some of us “had our first kiss there”.
I think we have to consider that sometimes businesses disappear because they just weren’t that good, or they were run by people who didn’t know what they were doing. Sure, we can blame landlords for raising rent (and I agree that we should impose upon landlords who would leave buildings vacant for years in search of deep-pocketed tenants), but let’s not forget that sometimes the people running these shops are complacent assholes. I remember going into H.G. Wells and asking the guy if I could take a book from the window, and without looking up, he said “you can do what you want”. Or being at Olympico, and waiting for the barista to finish chatting up a customer while I stood there waiting, or an altercation with the manager that arose from me having a Myriad cup in my hand. There are a few places I sorely miss, like Clarks, and we do need to do something to make the area more appealing to creatives and independent businesses, but I could go on and on about Mile End places I won’t set foot in again.
In the mean time, I’ll be enjoying my Lululemon running shorts and looking forward to my try-on appointment at Bon Look, both of which are Canadian companies, while petitioning my local representatives to penalize landlords for long-term vacancies.
@Jeff
Agree: Lululemon make the best running shorts, hands down. From spins around the neighbourhood to mountain ultramarathons in Charlevoix, they’ve never let me down.
Disagree: I love(d) the Cagibi. Its improvised charm, as you put it, the vegan food, the cider, the great shows I saw there. I’m rarely in the neighbourhood these days, but I always feel a pang of sadness when I walk past that place. Maybe it’s just nostalgia for the early-to-mid 2000s when I arrived in Montreal and everything seemed amazing.
Jeff, I miss the Spice Station. They carried things nobody else does, and the guy who owned it had a positive genius for spice blends. I had some good conversations with various employees there – clearly everyone he employed had some interest in or knowledge of spices. Place always smelled wonderful, too.
Su 21:19 on 2021-03-26 Permalink
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Meezly 09:31 on 2021-03-27 Permalink
Dominion implies some kind of control or management, which man isn’t even capable of doing with the natural world that it continues to destroy, in the name of “progress.”
That really is sad. Their cause should have got more traction in the media.
Chris 12:21 on 2021-03-27 Permalink
What happens on Earth doesn’t really matter anyway. All that matters is the eternal afterlife. /s
Виктор 19:23 on 2021-04-24 Permalink
While both sides were expecting a decision on the injunction Friday, the judge presiding over the case said she ll need more time to go over all the information that was presented.