With many thanks to the public broadcaster that put this up gratis on the interwebs; amazingly the public broadcaster didn’t have this video in their archives…
On November 7th 1990 a couple was out for a swim in the heated rooftop pool of the Bonaventure Hilton. Looking up, they saw a large metallic shape with several bands of glowing lights, slowly hovering around the as-yet still incomplete 1000 De la Gauchetiere. Alarmed, they contacted hotel security, which in turn contacted the authorities. Police arrived on the seen and a small crowd gathered on the roof. They were all seeing the same thing – an immense, aerial vehicle, slowly maneuvering around the tower. The constables contacted their brass, including the commanding officer of the local police station, who in turn put a call in to the military base at St-Hubert, and then to Mirabel and Dorval airports. Nothing on radar, no military exercises, nothing official and no idea what it was that, at least officially, 300 people saw that night. Over the course of a few hours, the object slowly drifted across the city, moving northeast before taking off over the Big O. The police even went so far as to turn off the floodlights at the construction site across the street – it made no difference. It was generally silent, and even caused a power failure in the East End.
Some argued that it was a highly localized type of Aurora Borealis, though as someone who has watched the famed Northern Lights, I can say that no one calls the RCMP or the Canadian Air Force for suspected Northern Lights, especially not high ranking police officers.
The following is a great video with additional interviews made by Canal D (so its en Francais), check it out and come to your own conclusions, but for the record, this one is still one of the most well-known unsolved flying object cases ever recorded.
On November 25th 1984, a bomb was delivered in the form of a VCR to an apartment at the Le Maisonneuve apartment building, killing four and injuring eight. Those killed had themselves participated in the assassination of Frank “Dunie” Ryan twelve days earlier at a no-tell motel on Upper Lachine. Ryan, the reputed leader of the West End Gang, at the time one of the most important crime syndicates in the city. The blast was powerful enough to destroy most of the floor, though mercifully no civilians were killed, and the building didn’t collapse. Of note – the the time, a police station was located across the street at de Maisonneuve and St-Mathieu!
There’s no doubt the Bell Centre is a success unto itself; it’s an excellent hockey rink which has sold out every game for the last four years – certainly the Habs have a lot to do with it, but if the building weren’t well designed and an experience unto itself, I’m certain more people would stay home to watch the game. Moreover, it’s also a half-decent music venue, attracting the overwhelming majority of the city’s big-name acts. This last point is contentious, as many hard-core concert goers have told me the acoustics could be better, but I digress. The question is – is the Bell Centre replaceable?
I’d argue that it is, that its probably already being discussed and that the further inconvenience of its placement is justification alone to demolish it and have the Habs play somewhere else.
Architecturally, I’d say it offers nothing to the cityscape. It is a purely functional building with a design and style thoroughly influenced by commercial concerns – it’s not a landmark, it’s already beginning to look dated, and has all the soulful expression as a highway 40 turnkey warehouse built by Broccolinni!
So perhaps its time to move hockey back to Atwater?
Lac-St-Louis is notoriously polluted, thanks primarily to years of dumping raw-sewerage directly into the Saint-Lawrence River and having it collect in this pond of a lake. Massive water-treatment plants in addition to the construction of new beaches and wetlands would be necessary to restore the lakeside eco-systems so heavily damaged by years of mis-use.
I think St-Anne’s could use a re-branding of sorts. It is spectacularly beautiful at all times of the year, and benefits (tourism-wise) not only from two colleges (with dorms), but a massive veteran’s hospital, an arboretum, an eco-museum, marina, adjacent golf courses and the spooky remnants of Fort Senneville, the former veterans hospital and a very old church. The concentration of unique cultural and societal institutions and artifacts in this area means there’s plenty to do and see, and yet the community has struggled with a recent dip in tourism dollars.