It’s no surprise even to a non-fan like me that Max Verstappen won the Grand Prix.
Updates from June, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
There was a fire this week at the vacant Trinity Memorial Church on Sherbrooke Street in NDG. There’s some vague talk here about a plan to convert the building to condos, but it’s been sitting empty for a long time.
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Kate
You can’t have a Grand Prix without an article asking whether it’s worth it. This piece gives no clear yes or no answer, observing what we all know – that it’s good for business in the short term, that it puts the city’s name out there in international media. But is it worth the large sums of public money poured into it, the environmental damage created by the sport, and the sexual exploitation that goes along with it? Evidently yes, to enough people it is worth it.
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Kate
A nice place for a new blog headquarters is for sale in Senneville – I’m sure a quick Gofundme campaign will allow me to move right in.
EmilyG
I don’t know – Senneville is one of the few places on the island that can’t be easily reached by public transit. That’d be a negative for me, as I don’t drive.
EmilyG
On second thought, if I had enough money to buy that place, maybe I could afford a chauffeur.
Kate
If you have enough money for that place, you have everything delivered and you never have to leave. Maybe add a helipad…
Blork
Side survey: how do all y’all pronounce “Senneville?” I’ve always heard it (and said it) with three syllables (“Sen-ne-ville”) but CBC’s traffic reporter from a few years ago would say it with two syllables (“Sen-ville”). What’s the “correct” way to say it?
DeWolf
I say Sen-ville. But it’s a bit theoretical because it never comes up in conversation and I’ve only been there once.
It’s actually a pretty special place. Because of its location next to the lake, it has a microclimate that is a bit warmer than the rest of the island (which is already warmer than everything around it) and the trees are especially big and spectacular.
carswell
I’ve always said it with three syllables, accent on the first, like the West Islanders, some of them francophones, I used to work with did.
That said, Wikipedia comes down on the side of two syllables. Not sure how authoritative it is in this instance, however.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senneville%2C_Quebecshawn
That must be it. I’m a boomer anglo West Islander and we always said it in 3 syllables.
EmilyG
I’ve lived in the West Island most of my life. I say it with 3 syllables.
walkerp
Is that not on a flood plain?
Kevin
I have only ever heard three syllables.
MarcG
Another vote for 3.
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Kate
Five men were arrested Sunday after they kidnapped a man in Montreal East and forced him into the trunk of a car. Police freed the victim, who was unhurt.
shawn
“While police initially described the victim as a man, SPVM spokesperson Veronique Dubuc later confirmed he was a teenage boy.”
Kate
I wonder whether it was a prank gone wrong.
shawn
Well, as we know all too well from those recent killings linked to West Island gangs, you can be a teen and mixed up in some pretty dangerous non-pranky stuff. (We never did hear more about whether the killers of that DDO kid who was videoed were caught, I think?)
Kate
shawn, I’ve got homicide maps from 2020 onward but no DDO kid. Do you mean this incident in Pointe Claire in February 2022? If so, another kid was sentenced for that, last summer. It wasn’t adults who were involved in that killing.
But I take your point that we get incidents where teenagers do get dragged into seriously dangerous gang stuff, indeed sometimes agreeing to take the fall for someone over 18 because their sentences and their treatment will be lighter.
shawn
No, it was that poor kid from Sunnybrooke, DDO. One more horrible part of it was the video where he’s pleading for his life was left up on the web, and his friends were quoted as saying that no one deserves this, and they’re right. https://mtlcityweblog.com/2023/04/25/montreal-man-found-dead-in-ontario/
Kate
Oh man, yes. I’d put that out of my mind. Grim.
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Kate
Owners of bar-terrasses in the Village say they’re considering closing: their clientele has dried up because the area doesn’t feel safe after many violent incidents nearby.
Update: Police claim they’re doing what they can to make the area safer.
Ephraim
Are they hoping that the city will throw money at them? That police can actually do something? I mean, the village has always been a tough place to operate…. so much drugs, alcoholics and homelessness. But the only thing the police can do is patrol
DeWolf
The Village has always been a bit edgy, but the edge has gotten really sharp – there are a lot of really high and really drunk people who are constantly doing unpredictable and anti-social things like randomly screaming at passersby or smashing bottles everywhere. It’s not a good scene. At the same time, a ton of businesses closed during the pandemic, which created a vicious circle: there’s less to do in the neighbourhood, so fewer people go, and as fewer people go, there’s even less reason for them to visit.
I’m optimistic about the Latin Quarter because the foot traffic it lost during the pandemic is finally coming back. And other parts of Centre-Sud like Ontario Street are doing pretty well. But Ste-Catherine between Beaudry and Papineau metros is quickly becoming a black hole.
Daniel
For sure it’s a vicious cycle, DeWolf.
And I don’t want to be “old man screams at cloud” here, but for sure young people have other places to meet people and other ways to do it. The raison d’être for a gaybourhood is disappearing. Not to say with the right mix of businesses, social services, etc it couldn’t come back. But it’s up against economic, social and technological (i.e., phones/apps) headwinds.
Blork
My prediction: the village will whither and die as a gayborhood within a few years. But it will unofficially re-launch elsewhere; not through any sort of planning, but by natural causes and gravitational effects. The new “village” will not even be so-named for a long time, it will just be known among people as something of a gaybourhood. Eventually (15 or so years from now) it will start to organize and wear the label of “village,” which will almost immediately make it more commercial and less appealing to those who will have come to like it by then. FFW another decade or two and it too will whither and die, but not for the same reasons why the current village is dying. It will die from lack of interest by its core demographic.
MW
The village’s current state is a direct result of the increased concentration of services in this area. A viable solution would be to evenly distribute these services throughout the city. The city likely hasn’t done this as they prefer the path of least resistance, presumably to avoid potential backlash from the local residents.
Ephraim
@Blork – You mean like how HoMa is sometimes called HoMo instead? The “village” changes every few decades. It used to be near Guy and Mackay many many years ago. But bars themselves aren’t doing that well anymore
DeWofl
There’s a few different areas with a large number of queer/gay/lesbian people. But the Village still has a role to play, the same way historic Chinatowns have a deep-rooted significance that none of the newer Chinese enclaves do.
DeWolf
(Above comment posted by DeWofl, my alter-ego.)
Ephraim
@DeWolf – You do realize that Montreal’s Chinatown was a Jewish neighbourhood before it’s current incarnation, right? See http://spacing.ca/montreal/2008/01/28/when-chinatown-was-a-jewish-neighbourhood/
Michael
This is what happens when you set up places where they can go and shoot up heroin into their veins.
Who knew having people shoot up heroin isn’t good for a neighbourhood. Encouraging this behaviour is what will lead us down the path of San Francisco.
DeWolf
Yes Ephraim, I wrote that article you’re linking to…
Kate
Oof.
walkerp
Michael, have you been to San Francisco or are you just parroting right-wing talking points you got on social media?
Joey
Bill Binns would’ve loved this.
MarcG
I got whiffs of Bill off of Michael’s bike path comment the other day, but this one really stinks of him.
walkerp
Ah yes, I had forgotten about his stupid ass. We got ourselves a sock puppet here?
Kate
walkerp, I don’t think so, but it isn’t impossible.
“Michael” has made nearly 50 comments from the same email address starting in February 2022. Bill Binns’ final comment, from an unrelated address, was made in May 2021. There’s also no similarity in their IP numbers. None of this is conclusive, admittedly.
CE
Michael is consistently using Canadian spelling which Bill never did.
walkerp
Ah good to know. Well I’ll give Michael the benefit of the doubt and hope that somebody better versed than me can explain the reality of addiction and the generally accepted (by health care professionals and addiction specialists) superior approach of harm reduction.
Basically law & order has not worked to curb addiction and all the social ills that follow it, has actually made it worse. Safe injection sites have very little to do with the big increase in homelessness and opioid addiction in North American cities.carswell
Whoever he is and wherever he’s from, if he’s going to regurgitate rightwing talking points (points for San Francisco bashing!), Michael needs to back up his assertions with some actual facts and trustworthy research. None of what he’s claimed is self-evident despite his appearing to think it is.
Kate
CE, very perspicacious of you!
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Kate
The SPVM Eclipse squad finds GP weekend a fertile hunting ground for information about crooks, who they’re seen with and what they get up to in the feverish party scene.
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