Chinatown’s oldest building fenced off
The oldest building in Chinatown – nearly 200 years old – has been fenced off because the masonry has been crumbling. Two years ago the building was one of the Chinatown lots bought up by one of the Shillers.
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Kate
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Ephraim 11:18 on 2025-05-21 Permalink
City/Province needs to change how they charge and having a rising scale. The longer you take, the more you pay for permits. Like the CSM building at the corner of St-Denis and Avenue des Pins. It’s been under repair for so long. It’s now covered in a shell, been that way since 2021. In 2011, it had scaffolding up on the side for 2 years.
Every month you delay the repair, the more it costs. The longer you wait, the more it costs, with a discount during the winter, of course. So 1 month costs X and wait 3 months and the permit is 3X. Put an incentive to get it fixed… and quick.
Taylor C. Noakes 16:57 on 2025-05-21 Permalink
Montreal: come for the history, stay for the piles of rubble where history used to be
Nicholas 16:57 on 2025-05-21 Permalink
That’s not a bad idea, Ephraim, but for CSM specifically, the owner, since 2013, is the Quebec government.
Ephraim 05:46 on 2025-05-22 Permalink
@Nicholas – Good way to transfer provincial money to the city government. It’s really bad facility management to allow a building to decay… and being the province isn’t really a good excuse.
Ian 20:30 on 2025-05-22 Permalink
It’s an interesting building fore sure and I hope they preserve it, if nothing else for the sheer historicity of being the Wing’s soy sauce factory. Back in the 70s no matter where you went in Canada, the little soy sauce packets that came with takeout were Wing’s. Also plum sauce and hot mustard. I have lived in PEI and BC. ON & QC, and these little packets were ubiquitous. In every little town the very first restaurant that would open after the diner/ family restaurant was a Chinese place. Later it was pizza. Powassan to Kelowna to Summerside those Chinese restaurants used Wing’s.
CE 07:15 on 2025-05-23 Permalink
It was also designed by James O’Donnell, architect of Notre-Dame Basilica. Other than the church, it’s the only building he built in Montreal and if I’m not mistaken, his last before his death.
Kevin 10:44 on 2025-05-23 Permalink
My only disagreement is that nobody knows what will be found when a decades-old wall is opened up.
Nobody knows what cobbled-together atrocity has been hidden by previous repairs. Nobody knows if the only thing holding up a ceiling is the plumbing and layers of paint.
If you’ve never done renovations it’s easy to get hopeful when you see a lowball offer that assumes a best-case scenario, when the decision-maker really needs to pay attention to the person with the expertise who can calculate the real cost of a complete teardown, salvage, and rebuild.