Ex-town hall on sale for $1
The city is putting the old Côte St‑Paul town hall up for sale for a dollar but there are strings attached. You need to have $3 million to invest in renovating it to a high and heritage standard and you need to include community use in your plans.
nau 08:39 on 2023-07-24 Permalink
So that’s what that building was. Always thought it a bit grand to just be a fire station. It has a periscope type tube at the top that swings around in the wind, calling to mind a steampunk lair if one’s in a whimsical mood. There used to be some sweet oldfangled fire trucks stored there.
MarcG 09:52 on 2023-07-24 Permalink
I also love that weird periscope at the top! Verdun’s old city hall & fire station is also on de l’Eglise not too far away, although it’s beauty is hidden by the ugly addition of a 3rd floor, trees in front, and the building next to it. https://goo.gl/maps/ZZHiumNd14txrUvEA https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2436435
Kate 10:30 on 2023-07-24 Permalink
I kind of like that weird building with the hexagonal windows, although I admit its style clashes.
nau 13:55 on 2023-07-24 Permalink
I didn’t know that was the old Verdun town hall and fire station. Clearly, the old fire stations all had towers, so I guess that explains what the building with the tower at Osborne and Verdun was originally. Did they actually have firemen manning the towers and looking out for fires back in the day, I wonder.
I like the oddness and “out-of-place”-ness of the hexagonal window building too. Perhaps that’s the building MarcG is referring to as next to the old fire station but perhaps not. Going by the older photo, the building next to the old fire station is in the same style as it but built out to the sidewalk. No doubt it made sense to maximize floor space but it would definitely have looked better if it was set back like the older building. The hexagonal window building is now apparently occupied by an anglo community group. I remember it harboring a satellite radio company, which might explain the antenna. In another whimsical moment, back when the Raelian’s car could be spotted on Verdun’s street, I liked to think this was where they contacted their alien overlords for instructions. (There was also at one point a radio station building in Verdun but that was on Gordon. Vanishing Montreal website has a picture. Streetview’s earliest date is 2007 by which point it had already been torn down.)
It must have been brutal when they rammed the autoroute through Cote Saint Paul, but the blight it causes means it’s actually an interesting area to wander through between the occasional sweet old building, cut off streets that don’t entirely make sense, some wild graffiti art, the odd restaurant or residence in out of the way spots, clandestine homeless camps, a distillery, the abandoned building at St. Patrick and Angers and the tunnel under the canal that comes up by the crumbling Canadian Malting Co building with the Pink House on top.
MarcG 14:32 on 2023-07-24 Permalink
Yeah I was thinking about the new addition not the hexagons – I never noticed it was in the same style before but they really matched it up – it’s too bad it obscures the facade of the original building. There is also a professional recording studio, Studio 451, in the hexagon building.
SMD 22:33 on 2023-07-24 Permalink
nau, the towers were used to hang and dry out the rubber hoses.
nau 13:44 on 2023-07-25 Permalink
@SMD Cool, thanks.I like that image for some reason, maybe because it means the tower would’ve been open from top to bottom.
@MarcG Looking again, I see Fire Station is engraved right on the building. Considering how many times I’ve walked past it, I’m not sure if I should be more concerned about my observational abilities or my memory (esp. since it looks familiar…) Even without the new wing, as you mentioned the third floor really messes it up, the way it crowds the tower. It’s always had an odd feel that stretch of the street. That the original building has been added on to explains that, plus the fact that the part built out to the street has no door since you don’t really get a sense walking past that it should connect with the original set-back building.
Still, even if the original building had been left alone, I have to say the Côte St‑Paul town hall is the sweeter building. There’s an old photo of that building where it has cupolas on the top of the fire hose tower and where the periscope is. Must have looked pretty nice from the right vantage point along with the cupolas of the church just north (i.e. west) of it.