Josée Blanchette writes a poetic tribute to Atwater Market.
Updates from September, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A man was found injured and unconscious at the door of a church presbytery Friday morning in Centre‑Sud, and he died of his injuries in hospital. Cops haven’t decided yet whether to call it homicide or suicide.
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Kate
A man in his 70s has died following a home invasion in Lasalle five days ago, and police have declared it the 20th homicide of the year. They’re also scouting for information from the public, although it seems odd, if they want information, that nothing more specific about the location has been given out.
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Kate
Revenu Québec, which took over a failed co-op in Cartierville in 2019, has been accused of mismanaging the properties, and tenants are concerned they’re essentially being renovicted by neglect.
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Kate
A man was stabbed overnight in NDG (TVA says Côte‑des‑Neiges but the corner of Sherbrooke and Prud’homme is not Côte‑des‑Neiges) and is in critical condition.
Robert H
Surtout pour ceux qui vivent à proximité, c’est important de savoir exactement où. Un manque de précision paresseux à cause du fait qu’on a confondu deux quartiers distinct avec un arrondissement indistinct.
Dominic
Used to live on that street, its small, parking is impossible, and half the units are gentrified.
MarcG
A family member of mine paid approximately $100 a month to live on Prud’homme near de Mais with roommates in the 90s. I lived on Marcil in the early 00s with (too many) roommates for $200 a month. When I was there my downstairs neighbour and I planted a garden in our derelict backyard and when we were unpacking our stuff from the garden center I caught a guy about to run off with a bag of dirt that we left on the sidewalk. Whenever someone, including myself, suggests that something is not worth stealing, I remind them of this incident. A BAG OF DIRT. A few years later I lived a few blocks over on Old Orchard and someone broke into my apartment and stole my shitty digital camera in the dead of winter – my houseplants froze and died. I seem to remember there was a drive-by shooting in the neighbourhood not too long ago. Anyway, memory lane, good times, I love NDG despite it’s hardships.
MarcG
Why isn’t it “it’s” in this case when it’s possessive? Language are dumbs.
Kate
A long time ago I lived on Prud’homme near Sherbrooke, and it was pretty louche in those days. There was a halfway house for convicts up the street, and a woman who lived in my building had the hots for tough guys, so we had some pretty hard cases hanging around the place. And the landlord was gay and had the hots for young rough trade guys, and he was prone to letting them stay in a technically vacant apartment on my floor – none of them were there for long, but some of them dealt drugs, which I knew because some guys I knew got scammed by one of them and tried to rope me into helping them get even.
Anyway, years after I left the area some friends moved into the building right next door to the one I’d been in. The area had become noticeably so much less dicey in the meantime. I don’t think the halfway house was operating any more, so it may have been the main source of issues on that street.
walkerp
MarcG, just in case you aren’t asking the question rhetorically, it’s because the possessive “its” takes a back seat to the contraction of “it is”. I can only guess because we use the latter more.
dhomas
I worked in Westmount for a long time, until 2010. Even at that time, the area between Décarie and Claremont was billed as “Westmount adjacent” and commanded a premium, both for rent and property value. I’m pretty sure it’s only further gentrified since then.
Uatu
Yes. The superhospital has made the area more expensive because nothing is more mouthwatering to developers than a giant building full of on call doctors and their $$$$
Kate
Uatu, my friends who moved in there eventually bought the ground floor and basement as a condo, and by the time they sold it, it had at least tripled in value. To be fair, they put in some major efforts fixing it up, but they also knew its value had risen because of the superhospital.
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Kate
An opinion piece in Le Devoir rails against the rash of “condo towers with pompous names and marketing concepts and rapidly outdated architectural qualities” springing up all over downtown, at prices out of reach of most residents.
(Which has an air of “the food was so bad, and such small portions!” about it.)
Ephraim
The city is responsible for the outdated architectural qualities, as it can set standards and requirements. As for the names and marketing concepts, people choose what works. But the reality is that it doesn’t matter if they are out of reach of most residents, it’s in the reach of some, who will move there and clear out of other cheaper condos, that others will move to and so on and so forth, creating more room for others to move up the ladder and take pressure off the market, assuming it grows fast enough.
Which reminds me, the (permanent) trailer park in St-Laurent has at least 2 of them for sale at under $100K. And while you have to pay rent for the land, at $331 a month for the land, it’s not a bad deal. If you don’t know the story of this mobile park, see https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/meet-the-people-who-live-in-montreals-unknown-trailer-park
DeWolf
When I clicked on the link I thought it would be a more specific critique of new development downtown. Instead it’s one of those generalized “would you look at the state of things!” rant we get about Montreal every few months or so. And it’s like… ok.
I do want to point out that for every Victoria sur le Parc, Maestria or 1 Square Phillips, there are five more buildings going up downtown that are not particularly fancy or expensive. They’re basically the modern-day equivalent of all those 1970s towers near Concordia, which are ugly but also responsible for the fact that it’s now a thriving, very eclectic and very diverse neighbourhood.
DeWolf
I made the mistake of opening the comments and sometimes I wonder if people walk through the city and perceive completely different realities. There’s a guy who lives in Villeray who is complaining about the pedestrianization of de Castelnau. “Y’a rien autour, pas de café,” he writes. And yet there are several cafés on that stretch, along with restaurants, a very popular ice cream parlour, etc. etc. It’s always filled with families and people hanging out. How can you miss that?
There was a discussion about Prince Arthur on one of those Facebook groups that shares old photos of Montreal. One guy said he recently took a walk down the street and there was nothing there, it was completely dead, like a bomb hit. And there was a woman pointing out that the street has undergone a real renaissance over the past year. And indeed, I walked down Prince Arthur at 9pm last night and it was full of people. People sitting at the picnic tables, people dining on terraces, at least half a dozen new businesses that have opened in the past two years. Again, how can you miss that? Are they wearing VR goggles when they walk around?
Kate
DeWolf, that’s mad about de Castelnau. As you say, do they even go and look at the places they’re wrought up about?
This is like the people on Facebook groups (specifically about Montreal’s history and related topics) going on about how Ste-Catherine Street is a ghost town. I think these people may have last seen the street in the late 1980s.
Robert H
Right, DeWolf. Mélissa Anctil has written a Journal de Montréal style cranky rant about How Awful The City Is Now. Or as a commenter replied, «Encore un joyeux pleurnichage de dénigre-Montréal : Montréal, c’est l’enfer, je ne peux plus y circuler librement avec mon char.» 1 Square Phillips, Maestria, and Victoria sur le Parc won’t be places I can afford to live but I think it’s great that developers perceive a demand to live in Centre-ville sufficient to make such investment; most North American cities are dead at the heart or struggling to attract the sort of activity downtown is seeing now. My problem with many of the high-rises there is more aesthetic than anything else. I’d love to demolish all of those 1970s concrete towers to the west of Concordia you mentioned as well as their 21st century equivalents going up now (hello Le Square Children’s, EstWest, quoiqu’on l’appelle maintenant).
David666
Both Ephraim and Chris are exactly right: construction of these higher end places lightens the load on demand for the next tier down, there’s still plenty of stuff being built at the lower tiers (though almost in spite of the city’s plans), the new towers going up – especially around the Bell Center and in Griffintown are perfectly analogous to the Concordia village building boom in the 1960s and 1970s and will leave a permanent stock of affordable housing as time wears on, and the net benefit of denser and more interesting hoods is real . . . even if people who haven’t been there forever or who just hate change/aesthetics/progress/etc. want to pretend like this is negative.
Hail growth! Hail Montreal!
And, just from the aesthetics, who in their right might would take a parking lot over pretty much any other use, maybe other than a service station? Just great!
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Kate
The municipal election campaign officially begins Friday at midnight for the polling day of November 7.
Candidates of both Ensemble and Projet have to be vaccinated.
dhomas
Are they allowed to have signs up already? Because I saw Coderre’s mug all over downtown last night.
Kate
i don’t think so, but this jumping the gun has happened before, and even if they’re fined they probably figure it’s worth the expense. And they may never even be fined.
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Kate
It’s already Friday so here are some notes on weekend driving.
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Kate
Gilbert Rozon is fighting back, bringing a $150,000 lawsuit against actress Patricia Tulasne, who had accused him of raping her in 1994. Tulasne is not alone in accusing the producer of sexual aggressions.
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