The ARTM will celebrate Canada Day this year by raising transit fares.
Updates from May, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
McGill students wrapping up their term have, as is traditional, left a trail of detritus in the McGill ghetto.
Blork
That’s what that enormous dumpster which was unceremoniously dropped in front of The Word on Milton last week is supposed to take care of. It’s some kind of non-profit that supposedly recycles stuff like that. It’s there for a few weeks specifically because of the expected detritus dump from exiting McGill students.
DeWolf
The same non-profit also runs a fun little second-hand stall in front of the container. It’s worth stopping by if you’re on Milton during the day.
Ian
It used to be that sometimes if you were lucky you would find that the departing students simply threw away their Canadian money along with the apratment trash. I imagine that happens less now that most people use debit for everything, though.
MarcG
I nominate an addition to the annual news cycle page.
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Kate
The city needs more landfill room despite its efforts to reduce garbage outputs.
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Kate
King Charles is to open Parliament at the end of May. Usually the Governor‑General reads the Speech from the Throne, but this time it will be the King.
I’m seeing a lot of carping about this choice, but I can see the psychology. “Nice try, Donald. But we already have a king.”
Ian
I say we make them duke it out.
Kate
I wouldn’t know which one to bet on. Trump is a decrepit windbag, but Harry has been dropping hints that his father’s not long for this world.
dwgs
As the sovereign he’s not allowed to express a political opinion but he has been taking steps to indirectly support Canada for the last few months.
H. John
Rather nice, as Josée Legault points out, that he’ll be able to do it in both official languages since he’s fluent in French.
Ian
I’m sure he’s got a fine Québecois accent up his sleeve.
Kate
Frenssh he spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to him unknowe.Ian
It’s not every day you get to crack a Chaucer joke haha
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Kate
The site of the old Molson brewery is more contaminated than expected, so the real estate promoter wants the Quebec government to chip in.
Ian
I feel like maybe buying up any old industrial land should come with a caveat emptor clause … like, that is one of the oldest continuously industrialized sites on the island. of course it’s massively contaminated. They’re lucky it’s not haunted, too.
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Kate
Mayor Plante thinks the city could block Quebec’s sale of the FACE building by standing on its zoning as institutional.
Would any commercial buyer want a building in that condition? Isn’t it likely to stand empty and deteriorate for years like other disused institutional buildings around town?
Ian
Gut it, keep the facade, make condos. Developers have been eyeing that spot for years. t has lead pipes and asbestos so good luck for anything else.
Ephraim
What’s the point of keeping it? We need housing. We need housing now. The city holds the rights on changing the zoning. So they would refuse, buy it themselves. Change the zoning. And then partner with someone like a REIT or the CDPQ who can develop the site and knows how to manage construction contracts. Build condos along with some affordable condos. Do a deal where the families that buy into the condo, if they qualify, get it affordably by only selling them 60%, with the city owning 40%. When they sell, the city gets it’s 40% of the value and can offer that money in a perpetual affordable mortgage fund. So the city owns 40% but isn’t responsible for upkeep, repairs, etc. You have no interest to pay on their 40%, which is their contribution.
Kate
Ephraim, you’d demolish it completely?
I have no emotional connection to that building, but I suspect it might be on the heritage list. But looked at from your point of view, at some point we’ll have to trim that list and sacrifice some older buildings. The city is a living thing, not a museum.
Ephraim
@Kate – Honestly, I have no opinion. I think we honestly have too many buildings on the heritage list. It should only be on a heritage list if we are willing to put up money to actually preserve it. It’s nice that we want to save buildings, but, look at Rosemont that has put protection on 561 shoebox homes. Really? We need 561 of the same building as heritage? Even the city has put these in 3 categories, with 158 in the highest (3) category. And that doesn’t even include all the shoebox homes in other neighbourhoods…. homes that fit one family, uncomfortably, could be home for 3 to 4 families.
So do you put all of van Gogh’s artwork in a museum or do you also put all the copies or all the works of his students based on the original? We don’t need 561 shoebox homes. Maybe a block of them.Do we need 158 or 561. How do we decide if 561 is too much or not enough?
Orr
Perhaps some of the now-famous artists who went there should voice their opinion.
Ephraim
@Orr – They have some money to put up? Or would they themselves rather have housing?
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Kate
Weekend notes from CultMTL, CityCrunch and La Presse.
The La Fontaine tunnel will be closed all weekend.
Other road closures as roadwork season begins.
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Kate
Shots were fired early Friday at an unnamed bar on Mont‑Royal close to the metro station. (CBC radio specified it was still open at 2:45 a.m. and people were inside, but that isn’t mentioned in these reports.) Shells and bullet holes were found but nobody was injured. Another one for the incident map.
Nicholas
Gotta be Fitzroy. Only bar at Pontiac, is open til 3 on Thursdays, and, well.
Kate
That’s up above the Jean Coutu, isn’t it? I used to take Pilates classes up there.
Nicholas
Yup. There’s that dance studio on the 3rd floor.
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Kate
Photos of the May Day anti-police demo in the east end show something like a pitched battle.
Tim S.
I saw a guy in a mall yesterday looking very armoured. Thought it was very odd, until I remembered the date.
Ian
“le nombre de déploiements du SPVM pour des «services d’ordre», soit pour des événements publics en tout genre, dont des manifestations, a grimpé de 73% en trois ans.”
Sounds like someone trying to justify their grotesquely inflated budget. We absolutely had protests in decades past before the police decided they needed to be equipped like paramilitary assault forces.
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Kate
Two Montreal North brothers have pleaded guilty to indignity to a corpse: an Inuk woman was found in an advanced state of decay on their sofa after she had been declared missing, months earlier. Details are inevitably nasty and the direct cause of the woman’s death impossible to discern.
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