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Updates from September, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• Kate 14:16 on 2024-09-28 Permalink | Reply  

  Following a story earlier this month about barbed wire being added to some downtown properties to deter the homeless, Le Devoir inquired into the law, and finds that it’s not strictly legal in Ville‑Marie. Note from the photo that we’re not talking about great tangles of military‑style razor wire, but a few rows at the top of a standard chain link fence.

  The article spends several paragraphs on a moment from ten years ago when Archambault added anti‑homeless spikes on its sidewalk window ledges. This is an entirely different matter. Preventing people from merely sitting down is not the same as adding measures to deter people from climbing an already existing (and legal) fence.

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  • Ephraim 14:10 on 2024-09-29 Permalink

    Would we be happier if they did it the way they do it in some countries and embed broken bottles at the top of walls and fences?

  • Ian 19:02 on 2024-09-29 Permalink

    “Some countries” I’ve seen this in Mile End alleys, I’ve also seen barbed wire topping alley fences… anyone have some pearls I could clutch? I appear to have misplaced mine.

  • Ephraim 22:16 on 2024-09-29 Permalink

    Never seen it in Montreal… but then again, I don’t often go into alleys, other than the one behind my place. Which is mostly buildings.

  • Kate 06:03 on 2024-10-01 Permalink

    I do a lot of walking in alleys. No barbed wire in evidence in residential areas, but it would not surprise me downtown, especially behind shops with expensive stock.

  • Orr 17:49 on 2024-10-03 Permalink

    While sitting at a window at the back of the grande bibliothèque I watched a person climb over fences in the alley to collect cans and bottles for recycling. From bars and restaurants!

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• Kate 09:37 on 2024-09-28 Permalink | Reply  

  Archaeologists are investigating the traces of what’s said to be the last indigenous village on the island of Montreal, located on the Back River near the Visitation church, as reported last month. Inevitably, a certain political spin is being put on the story, with a claim that the natives didn’t submit to the French regime, but felt them to be allies. Nonetheless, the village disappeared 300 years ago.

   

• Kate 08:32 on 2024-09-28 Permalink | Reply  

  Exactly five years after a grand demonstration for the climate, another climate demonstration took place Friday in Montreal and in other Quebec towns. This one involved 2000 people in comparison to the half a million who marched five years ago. The pandemic certainly took the wind out of those sails.

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  • Meezly 12:56 on 2024-09-28 Permalink

    PLUS DE BANQUISE MOINS DE BANQUIERS is a great slogan!

    I went with my family and it was a really great atmosphere. The march started in the evening this time, and people made signs with battery-powered LEDS and brought various lights/lanterns as the sunlight waned.

    But yeah, after the torrential rains and flooding you’d think more people would catch on about the urgency of the climate crisis. 2000 peeps was pretty good, considering post-pandemic malaise/fatigue, general cynicism and lack of famous people to draw a huge crowd.

  • EmilyG 13:34 on 2024-09-28 Permalink

    I wonder if maybe this demonstration wasn’t as well-publicized as the one five years ago. I hadn’t heard of this one until after it happened.

  • Chris 14:13 on 2024-09-28 Permalink

    Likewise hadn’t heard of it.

  • JaneyB 21:37 on 2024-09-29 Permalink

    Just hearing about it now – and I work in post-secondary education….not well publicized.

  • Kate 22:24 on 2024-09-29 Permalink

    No, it was not. Like EmilyG, I only knew about it after it was over.

  • Meezly 09:46 on 2024-09-30 Permalink

    It may not have been as well publicized as previous marches, but September is climate action month, and if you follow local sites like ClimateJusticeMontreal, Pour Nos Enfants / For Our Kids Montréal, Greenpeace Québec, Équiterre, etc. they will post these types of events.

  • Joey 10:20 on 2024-09-30 Permalink

    The 2019 march was well publicized because Greta Thunberg was in town.

• Kate 08:22 on 2024-09-28 Permalink | Reply  

  Plan to permanently pedestrianize part of Notre‑Dame in Old Montreal inevitably has some merchants worried and there’s the inevitable claim that they were not consulted. That’s what they say, but as always, it’s a preface to saying they don’t want to adapt to change.

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  • DeWolf 11:23 on 2024-09-28 Permalink

    To be clear the part of Notre-Dame that has been pedestrianized is the area directly in front of the basilica. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to be able to walk from the centre of Places d’Armes up to the church without dodging cars and trucks. It’s very nice, I recommend everyone go check it out if they’re in the area.

  • DeWolf 11:32 on 2024-09-28 Permalink

    Also, this is bit like the bit of ginned-up outrage about St-Zotique. Everyone cries that the sky is falling the moment that the change is implemented. Nobody told them it would happen! And yet the details of this specific plan were released several months ago, and the overall plan was announced more than a year ago. St-Zotique was announced five years ago, changed in 2020 after public feedback, and then specific details of the new plan were announced earlier this year. Do people expect a personal one-to-one consultation? Do they not read the news or pay attention to the notices delivered directly into their mailboxes?

  • CE 08:15 on 2024-09-30 Permalink

    When Place d’armes was renovated about a decade ago, the street, square, and sidewalk in front of Notre-Dame were built level with each other with the intention that cars and pedestrians would share the space. That idea largely failed. Banning vehicles from that block was a natural next step because the previous configuration just doesn’t seem to make sense to drivers in North America. Pedestrianizing the block very quickly made that space much more pleasant and safe for the very high number of people that use that space.