CultMTL’s Best of Montreal poll is open…
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Kate
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Kate
Haven’t students always had to share apartments? Radio-Canada writes about this as if it’s a new thing.
EmilyG
It was certainly a common thing back when I was a university student in 2003-2007.
Blork
Definitely not new, but more necessary now than in the past I think. Also more of an issue because some younger people are a bit more… um… used to feeling special (?) than kids of previous generations. (Not all of course, but the phenomenon of helicopter parenting has gone from edge case to almost standard.)
I recently did a back-of-an-envelope calculation regarding my first Montreal apartment. It was a 2BR 4-1/2 in the McGill Ghetto, and I think I paid $525/month. That was actually on the high end I soon found out, as people farther east (Plateau, etc.) were easily paying $100/month less. (I figured $100 a room was about average at the time.) That $525 is roughly equivalent to $1240 now. Can you get a 2-BR 4-1/2 in the McGill Ghetto for $1240 today? Maybe. But it would probably be a dump.
jeather
The only people I knew who lived alone in Montreal as students lived in very tiny 1 1/2s.
Ephraim
It’s not a new thing. I didn’t go to university here, but when I did got to university, I shared. Smallest share was 2 of us. Largest was 6 of us.
I’ve had parents approach me, asking me to buy and rent out houses/rooms for students, knowing that I can get someone in there to fumigate and clean every once in a while. Apparently, some of their offspring don’t realize that you are supposed to wash your sheets, etc. Basically, they want a contact that ensures that their offspring get hosed down and a place for them to call when they need help. Probably one of the only ways that I would agree to be a landlord… parents depositing the rent directly. I hate chasing after people for payment or worse, having to engage with people for payment.
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Kate
All Anglo media are tipping their hats Tuesday to the retirement of CHOM’s Terry DiMonte after 43 years at the microphone.
dhomas
Maybe I’ll finally be able to listen to CHOM in the morning again.
Ephraim
Radio still exists? Between podcasts and streaming music, I haven’t heard radio in years. Are they still bitching on CJAD every day?
Kate
Radio still exists. I usually hit up CBC radio (online) a couple of times a day to get the news headlines.
I know they were still bitching on CJAD up till a couple of years ago because I had a coworker – an older fellow – who occasionally liked listening to that. I presume they still are.
Uatu
like Ephraim said the podcasts and streaming are shrinking radio’s audience and Terry sees the writing on the wall and knows it’s time to quit. He’ll probably come out with his own podcast later where he can set his own hours and choose his guests without Bell and the ratings book always on his case
dhomas
I mostly do streaming, too, but radio is still convenient in a car, just because it’s easy. I listen to my stuff after I drop off the kids at school, but I listen to FM radio while with the kids. It’s usually a pretty safe option for the little ones, until you get the bitching. Like this:
https://mtlcityweblog.com/2021/04/21/no-osheaga-this-year/#comment-160091Kate
dhomas, so is DiMonte one of the sources for the perennially sour anglo response to things here?
I had been thinking maybe Josh Freed was a reason for it, but figured he couldn’t be the only dispenser of that chronic tendency to snipe fruitlessly at everything.
dhomas
I mean, he wasn’t all bad, I guess. He was genuinely upbeat about certain things and had his favourite topics in terms of “community” like talking about favourite restaurants or local businesses. But he was very pro-car, as I assume you must be when you work in radio since probably 85% of your audience is listening in their vehicle.
But he had gotten worse in recent years. I don’t want to falsely accuse the guy or anything, but it seemed to get worse when Valerie Plante was elected. He’d complain about the usual Montreal stuff, but with some added barbs towards the current administration. Like complaining about snow removal on bike paths (gasp!) before sidewalks. Or the above “summer being canceled” thing. That said, there are definitely people worse than he is. He just has a certain way of putting things that turns me off. He does this thing when he is critical of something where he “sucks his teeth”, I think is the best way of putting it. I hated hearing it.CE
@Kate, Wasn’t it Terry DiMonte who told you off for not liking some student’s video about Montreal?
Kate
CE, wow. I’d forgotten that. Here’s where we discussed it on the blog. And yes, here’s the Twitter thread.
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Kate
Lemay architects, closely linked with the Caisse de dépôt already, has taken up the job of designing the elevated track that will thrust the REM system through the heart of downtown. Other firms declined to touch a project they felt would inevitably cause a defacement of the city. And yet the REM will be underground in Montreal North.
Update: A committee of experts has been struck to try to calm people down about the REM de l’est.
Bill Binns
St Catherine is “the heart of downtown”. Rene Levesque is one of the equally important but less glamourous organs like the liver or the pancreas.
I have been genuinely surprised that so many people give a damn about Rene Levesque. The street seems designed to make driving, cycling and walking equally miserable.
Kate
René is the heart of business downtown. Many big cities have a street like this, with the skyscrapers all in a row. It’s not a big strolling street but it really is one of the city’s major “big city” elements.
Is anyone proposing to run an elevated train down Fifth Avenue, or through La Défense?
A surface tram down the midline of the street, maybe. Rotterdam has something like this on a street not unlike René. But an elevated train is insane.
DisgruntledGoat
Look on the bright side: the uglier and more grotesque the final elevated design is, the more it will decrease nearby land prices and combat gentrification !
Bill Binns
What’s more “big city” than an elevated train passing between skyscrapers? Hasn’t hurt Chicago any. Nobody could accuse the train of blocking out the sun. The sun barely penetrates the unbroken walls of towers on either side of the street.
ant6n
An elevated train could perhaps work on Rene-Levesue – if it was built 80 years ago.
PO
I also just realized that this thing will end at Robert-Bourassa and René-Levesque… Sure it’s approximately equidistant between the Square Victoria and McGill stations, but that’s still one hell of a transfer. And not only distance, but also quite an altitude change as well.
qatzelok
Other cities in the world would make R-L a glamourous boulevard with a tramway and public places. In North America, MONEY sometimes treats neighborhoods and boulevards with all the finesse of a sewer network. And urban infra projects- for callous MONEY – are mainly a way of funelling resources from the less well-off to the extremely rich. (look at the service charges CDPQ is asking for per km)
The REM looks like it is mainly a wealth-transfer project, like the ones that Greece was so good at before it went bankrupt.
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Kate
Cole Caufield scored a second overtime winner Monday night against the Leafs.
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Kate
People needing vaccination will soon be able to get jabbed in their car at the airport.
jeather
40+ is now open on clic sante, if you want to see when appointments suddenly open up in Montreal, check vaccelerateur on twitter for same or next day availability. In the past I have been able to make a second appointment and cancel the first afterwards.
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