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The bells of the St Joseph’s Oratory carillon were shipped to France for maintenance four years ago, but now they’re back. They can be seen on the ground there this weekend. La Presse’s Mario Girard discusses their history with photos from the paper’s archive.
The Gazette headline writer says the bells will toll again – but a carillon doesn’t toll, it tinkles.
I’d never noticed that you can review a metro station, but you can. Metro lists the five worst metro stations according to Google review ratings, although explaining the poor ratings only in the case of three.
Many of the bad reviews are silly. For example, one star for “Je ne connais pas ce lieu!” and one star for “The doors open at 5:15 in the morning, it’s freezing outside” don’t have anything to do with the station itself: in this case, de Castelnau, which stands athwart a poorly conceived intersection and is a bit clunky in layout as a result, but is otherwise unobjectionable.
The list doesn’t name Guy-Concordia, often mentioned as the system’s grungiest, nor Snowdon, which I would award with minus stars if possible for its cramped dark halls and narrow staircases, but I suppose anyone who uses the metro will have other opinions.
I actually like Snowdon station quite a bit, but Guy-Concordia is definitely the worst. Because each station was designed by a different architect, I wonder who gets the shame points for doing such a piss-poor job with designing the Guy-Concordia station?
Not having perused it for a long time, I’m gkad to see that at least the text of the metrodemontreal website is still accessible. Too bad not to have the pictures. It’s quite the labour of love. I wonder if the guy who did it still lives in Montreal. I remember he ran as an NDP candidate in the southwest in one of the electons before the orange wave. He rated every station and is a bit higher on Snowdon than you.
Orr, Guy-Concordia was one of the first stations completed. I’ve never noticed the gap, but apparently the platform is slightly longer than the trains, as explained on Wikipedia. So I can cut the design some slack for being a first attempt. It’s just always felt a bit gritty with the trickling water and the stalactites and the smells from the food concessions and panhandlers hanging around.
nau: If you browse the non-SSL version of the site the images load properly http://www.metrodemontreal.com/index-e.html
Cool, thanks MarcG; that brings back the richness of the website. Weird to see Verdun Station with its old colours.
It’s too bad he didn’t publish all his information and photos in a book. Web 1.0 is starting to deteriorate and we’re losing a lot of research from that era.
Fans have been gathering for the practice sessions at the circuit Gilles‑Villeneuve. People are excited about the return, especially those with plans to cash in on the influx of tourists.
TVA was appalled to find that English signs were dominant at the food concessions. reminding us that “L’affichage doit se faire en français pour être conforme à la loi, même si l’événement accueille beaucoup de touristes étrangers.” How does it make sense to set things up to be more difficult for your clientele, on purpose?
La Presse has a history of the Canadian Grand Prix, its ups and downs.
Why don’t the OQLF lay down hefty fines on vendors breaking language laws at the Grand Prix, see how well that goes down?
There is no logic to language restrictions
There’s probably economic logic. QC doesn’t want to mess with an event that brings in a sh*t ton of money into the city and thus, the province.
Stuff like this cracks me up. Because, yes, there are laws. But they don’t exist independently from the laws of supply and demand. And if they were losing money with their signage, you can bet they’d fix it posthaste.
You have to know that if the signs were all posted in French only, the staff would spend most of their time interpreting them for customers. They probably do anyway, if “apricot brioche soufflé” is nominally in English!
A new skate park has opened down near the Jacques‑Cartier bridge. Designed to mimic normal urban features, it was conceived with the participation of people who actually skate.
A beautifully heavy rain came down on eastern Montreal on Friday evening. Some underpasses were temporarily flooded. But it did clear the air.
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