Category Archives: History and Culture

A modest proposal, History and Culture, Montréal Landmarks, Montréal Stories, Political commentary, Public art proposal, Québec sovereignty

Mordecai Richler’s Ghost

1 Comment
Mordecai Richler - 1983 - photo credit to Ryan Remiorz

In case you’ve had your head stuck under a rock for the last few weeks, a petition has been put forth by City Councilor Marvin Rotrand to have something named after Richler before the 10th anniversary of death this July. If you’d like to sign the petition, go here. Among other things considered, Fairmount Street, St-Urbain Street and the Mile End Library.

If you’d like to find out what the President of the St-Jean Baptiste Society thinks, go here. As you can imagine, the mere mentioning of this great writer’s name in certain circles got the Independence-minded swimming in circles, defiant to the last that nothing should ever honour this writer. You see, Mordecai Richler secretly hated all French-Canadians. I say secretly because he was so good at keeping his hatred hidden deep down inside that there are virtually no examples, no even shitty, half-assed examples, of his hatred for all things Québecois.

And, ten years after the man’s death, no one has found anything to nail his ass to the wall, so to speak.

That being said, Rotrand’s proposal has come under fire from the lunatic fringe of the Québec Independence movement, as there is a general perception of Richler, among certain circles, as an anti-Québecois racist.

Unfortunately, when it comes time to deal with that pesky thing called proof, the irrational and misguided Patriotes tend to point fingers in all directions except Richler’s work. there’s a feeling he may be a racist which isn’t backed up by legitimate information. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

Could it be as a result of the separatist fringe’s unwillingness or disinterest to sit down and actually read his books, whether fiction or non-fiction?

I haven’t read much of his work, and don’t worry, I’m already on my own case for being so negligent. It’s a New Years resolution of mine. However, I have read his extremely controversial 1992 non-fiction essay, Oh Canada! Oh Québec!, which itself was largely based on a series of essays he penned for some major international publications, such as the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly. When I say controversial, I mean to say it was perceived as such. I personally couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.

For many years Richler was as much the quintessential Canadian essayist as he was an author of fiction, and herein lies the source of the controversy. He lambasted politicians from both sides of the constitutional debates of the late-1980s and early-1990s, and was vilified by French-Canadians as much as the Jewish community of Montr̩al, which at one point called him an anti-Semite. He exposed the dark and, at times, plain old retarded aspects of the Canadian mentality (regardless of faith or religion Рthe ties that bind in our case can be embarrassing).

Here is a video of an interview Mr. Richler gave to the SRC back in 1991, a year before his essay hit the bookshelves. It seems as if most of the controversy arose from Richler’s claims that many key intellectual supporters of Québec independence demonstrated clear anti-Semitic tendencies. It doesn’t help our cause when we’ve gone ahead and named so many things after these people, such as Lionel Groulx and Henri Bourassa. Moreover, Richler indicates that the rest of the world – his international audience – finds our constitutional problems to be laughable. I suppose they were, especially when you consider we could just have easily have gone down the road traveled by the Balkan States at the same time. Moreover, Groulx and Bourassa were definitely anti-Semites, and they in turn were the product of the Catholic mini-theocracy which existed here prior to the Quiet Revolution (which Richler cleverly points out owed its 1960 victory to Anglophone votes from Montréal, as Francophones were still major supporters of the Duplessis Regime and the Union Nationale). More than anything else, Richler pointed out one effective truth about separatist hard-liners. They won’t allow you to criticize them, and are generally poor at being self-critical. If they were, I doubt they’d be in favour of separation.

And Lionel Groulx was a virulent anti-Semite and fascist. He may have been the first writer of nationalist Québecois history, but he also wrote that Dollard-des-Ormeaux died a martyr to our cause. In reality, he attacked an Iroquois hunting-party and paid for his violent tendencies with his life. But this has been swept aside by so many revisionist textbooks…

In any event, I implore all Montréalers to go out and read any one of his books and write me back if they can find any proof of anti-French or anti-Québecois sentiment. And remember, he was a satirist, so tread carefully.

As far as renaming something in his honour – I have a far better idea. Use whatever money which would otherwise go to renaming something instead to finance a film production of any of his novels. That way, everyone can see his work for themselves, and it would clearly honour his memory while simultaneously making it available for all to see. that, or buy everyone a copy of Solomon Gursky Was Here…

History and Culture, Montréal Landmarks, Montréal Noire, Montréal Stories, What were they thinking?

Montréal’s Stonewall – Hard to imagine it was only twenty years ago…

Leave a comment

On one of those insufferably hot July nights back in 1990, about 40 cops arrested 9 out of 400 party-goers after they raided a loft party. That those in attendance were homosexuals shouldn’t have made any difference, but ultimately it did, and the event is comparable to the Stonewall riots, though with a distinctively Montréal character. Those arrested, for the most part, ended up in the Montréal General Hospital, along with many more savagely beaten by SPVM officers. The cops stroked their batons in mock masturbation while the crowd was dispersed towards Beaver Hall Hill. What they didn’t realize was that they were completely surrounded, and the constables had quite illegally removed their identification. They were looking for a fight. Linda Dawn Hammond was on the scene taking photographs of the party when she became directly involved, chronicling the brutality and capturing the photographs which would run on the front pages of the Gazette and La Presse the very next day. It seems as though 1990 was a watershed year for police brutality against citizens of Montréal; thankfully it seems as though it was one of the last.

Richard Burnett gives a clear insight into the way by which the Sex Garage Incident forever changed gay politics in Canada, let alone Montréal, now a premier gay-tourism destination. Twenty years after one of the most horrific examples of police brutality, the annual Diver/Cité festival is estimated to generate about $40 million in revenue and economic spin-offs for the City of Montréal. How times have changed. Unfortunately, it would take another round of protests and beatings before the Chief of the SPVM decided to take action. Among other decisions, the police would scale down its anti-gay crusade, and harassment of gay men on Mount Royal was put on the back-burner while the police morality squad re-focused their energies. Also, two days after the incident, the SPVM promised they’d no longer attack peaceful protesters.

I’m still not convinced about that last point, but it’s good to know that events like Sex Garage aren’t going to happen again in this city. That is, as long as the citizens ensure the protection of their own fundamental human rights.

History and Culture, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Urban Redevelopment

Victoria Square and Square Victoria – Then and Now

2 Comments
Victoria Square, Montréal - ca. 1900

Clearly, not the best quality photo, but a fascinating perspective on one of the city’s most famous public spaces. I’m going to see if I can dig up some pictures of this space between the 1940s and 1990s, before its major redevelopment. It’s actually amazing to see just how ugly this space became for a while. While its current incarnation leaves relatively few suggestions of its former self or scale, I can’t help but feel as though Square Victoria is still an emblematic space, despite the radical alterations of the cityscape in this sector. Guess that’s the cost of progress, though the integration of the Bank of Nova Scotia building and the Canada Steamship Co’s head office into the Montréal World Trade Centre will guarantee at least part of the square retains a 19th century architectural heritage.

Victoria Square, Montréal - photo credit to imtl.org

I can’t count the number of times I sat in this very square, watching the world go by. Against the strong azure of a Summer evening’s sky, the Tour de la Bourse stands with a refined elegance. It was here back in the early Fall of 2006 where I watched, with much delight, army helicopters conducting special-ops maneuvers. Should’ve brought pop-corn actually. I could look at this building for hours, mesmerized by its subtle strengths and grace.

Tour de la Bourse - work of the author
History and Culture, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Urban Redevelopment, What were they thinking?

Beware what lurks below… Griffintown/Goose Village edition

Leave a comment
Before the Bonaventure - credit to griffintown.org

The photo above shows the old CN yards in Pointe-St-Charles, with Goose Village in the bottom right-hand corner. At the bottom of the photo is the entrance to the Victoria Bridge, and the Bonventure Expressway has yet to be constructed, allowing us to assume the picture dates from some time in the early 1960s. Along with Griffintown, (which is technically out of frame in this picture, though the name has been applied to most of the industrial zone immediately south of the city, straddling the Lachine Canal), this area, once known as Victoriatown and/or Goose Village, is also slated for eventual residential redevelopment. Though the Montréal Technoparc finds itself primarily to the south of Rue Marc-Cantin, it’s safe to assume the small wedge of industrial space between Bridge Street, the Canal and the Expressway will likely get the go-ahead for urban redevelopment once the Canada Lands Corporation project goes through. By extension, all the land south of Wellington between Bridge Street and the entrance to the Champlain Bridge will also likely be slated for redevelopment. Most of this rather large area is built on what was once a massive garbage dump. It is, as you can imagine, highly polluted.

This combined area could support significant population growth and is the most likely extension of what we define as Montréal’s ‘downtown’. Aside from the fact that it’s extremely well connected to the city (consider, it only takes about twenty minutes to walk from Dorchester Square to the Peel Basin), large tracts of land zoned for light industry have left the area without much of an architectural heritage, as many of these buildings are highly functional in nature and were constructed recently, which means they’re easy to demolish and replace with new residential zones. Consider how many formerly industrial buildings in this city, within proximity of the downtown, are currently residential; the list is staggering, a testament to our interest in recycling and breathing new life into old factories and warehouses.

So what’s the problem you may be asking? Land suitable for new development is at a premium and it makes a lot of sense to pursue developing the southern sector of the city for residential purposes. Moreover, such a plan could be argued from the standpoint that the city made an error forty years ago declaring this land industrial, and such development is necessary if we wish to correct a ‘historic injustice’. I don’t doubt for a second this last point has been passed around enough board-room meetings, especially with regards to Griffintown.

The Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown has some excellent ideas and makes solid arguments for a ‘smarter’ development of this area, as most proposals have not adequately considered the few, though significant, heritage sites to be found there. Moreover, there seems to have been zero consideration for the fact that unused light-industrial space can be excellent lofts and studios for our artistic community, one which must be fostered at all costs. But underlying all aspects and concerns pertinent to southern redevelopment, we must ask whether the city was trying to do its citizens a favour by declaring this land industrial in the first place and rendering it unsuitable for living until such a time as the pollutants could be cleaned up? Was it slum clearance, or was it a harsh environmental reality?

Alanah Heffez over at Spacing Montréal wrote an amazing article on the extension of the shoreline in this area between 1890 and 1968, and the environmental concerns which affect this area. Great read, highly recommended. As to residential development in the centre-sud sector, it seems almost all projects slated for this area are either on hiatus or back on the drawing board while the developers try to pull together enough coin. Either way, it’s encouraging to see the high degree of public consultation.

History and Culture, Montréal Landmarks, Montréal Noire, Montréal Stories

Montr̩al Stories { No.3 } РThe Vampire of Viger

Leave a comment
Gare Viger and Viger Square - credit to UrbanPhoto.net

My first apartment was on the corner of Berri and Viger; I joined a few friends living in the old headquarters of an insurance company, right next to the National Archives. I moved in during Spring Break – it was the first day of a long weird trip.

The square above was right across the street, and being the naive West-Islander I once was, I figured it was harmless, perhaps an even ideal place to hang out and relax. That’s when I came to realize Montréal has a big homeless problem, and Viger Square was about as close as we get to having a bonafide Gypsy camp. My roomates told me that at the end of the summer The Fuzz came by, swept everyone into a paddy wagon, destroyed the shelters, and drove them all to the metropolitan city limits.

Not to say that I really had anything to do with the numerous homeless, anarchists, lunatics and drug-peddlers I now co-habitated with,  but proximity and a new social circle brought a fair bit of news my way, and only a few weeks in I began getting paranoid, freaked out. It turned out there had been a vampire on the loose.

Now granted, the Vampire of Viger Square had been behind bars for a few years at this point, but still, it made me wonder whether this city had pushed its homeless, its bottom rung, so far away from the public’s view that a desperation had taken hold, and they were going to make themselves heard, or felt, at any cost.

I observed them from a distance, kept casual and started changing my habits, my comings and goings. I often stayed in, especially through that spring and early summer, watching from my second floor perch, cold beers and hot, sweaty joints concocting new terrors in my brain. I took to walking around late at night with a solid pine cane, half-concerned for my safety, half-convinced I was there to bring order to the perceived chaos. A long trip of substance abuse (unusually dominated by caffeine and multi-vitamins), and increasing fear, compounded by a deteriorating appreciation of human life, brought on by reckless engagement in syndicate duties; I found my own dark world in Viger Square, where after a couple months of regular, forced interaction, became the only place I felt secure, even if it was only the security I found in the certainty of my gloom and despair.

I had previously thought where one lived was completely arbitrary, that one apartment was really as good as any other, and that location was ultimately meaningless. How very wrong I was.

A modest proposal, History and Culture, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Urban Redevelopment

A modest proposal { No. 4 } – Port Life

Leave a comment
Memories of a sea-going life

I remember, at a rather young age, feeling disappointed when visiting the Old Port, especially when walking along the boardwalk. While the summertime crowds would grow more impressive with time, and my personal associations with the space changed as I matured, I still couldn’t shake those early impressions of loss. Perhaps it was because my impression of that space was tainted by my father and grandfather, who both reminisced as to the old days when that same space was filled with longshoremen, mariners, and a bustling open-air market in Place Jacques-Cartier. They both seemed wistful for the emotive qualities the Port used to emit, the action and frenzy of a massive industrial and commercial operation which operated almost constantly. The Port of Montréal is actually busier now than it has ever been, and is ranked among North America’s leading ports. It’s still the only major inland port in North America, still feeding and serving central Canada, not to mention the American Midwest and Rustbelt. Moreover, the Old Port of Montréal is thriving as a major tourist destination and, in my personal opinion, has only grown over the years, offering generally excellent services and events. There’s no question the Old Port of Montréal is a desirable, perhaps enviable addition to our fair city.

But, could it have more of a ‘port’ feel I wonder? What port services could be blended into the current incarnation of the Quays of the Old Port?

Port in Thaw

The photo above gives an excellent view of what’s behind Grain Silo No.5, a heritage site no one really knows what to do with. It’s a heritage oddity, given that its a former industrial building and can’t be converted into anything else without significant renovations. Regardless, its one of three principle properties owned by Canada Lands Corporation; CLC is now in charge of the ‘New Harbourfront’ initiative, which aims to develop these areas in and around the Old Port into viable communities and residential areas. Among other things, it may spur a partial redevelopment of the western tip of the Port of Montréal, while providing a foundation for a new Griffintown project. It seems pretty clear the City is looking to increase density between Old Montréal and the Shaughnessy Village area, with many new residential projects and a lot of generally good urban redevelopment along this diagonal corridor over the course of the last decade.

It seems unlikely that the Old Port will retain any current Port functions with an increased population base, as with an increase to population, sites like Point-du-Moulin may be redeveloped for commercial and cultural purposes.

From King Edward Quay

In effect, there’s only one pier left in the Old Port which seems without a purpose, or perhaps investment. The Alexandra Quay is occasionally used to take in cruise ships. When I was younger I used to do a variety of odd-jobs during the summer for the dozen or so small cruise ships which would dock in Montréal, either at the beginning or end of a gambling cruise which would either begin or end up in New York City. Our port lacks a proper passenger terminal, and its about time the City did something about it. As it stands now, the Alexandra Quay is severely cut-off from not only the City, but even the Old Port. There are no services provided at the terminal – the café closed some time ago, and the two (previously free and open) lookouts at the end of the King Edward and Alexandra Quays are not only in desperate need of repair, but are also (apparently) private, and for the exclusive use of those employed by the Port.

The city would stand to benefit from a major investment in a new passenger terminal, and could further provide a source of funding to secure increased cruise-ship traffic (not to mention regular, functional use) by establishing a passenger ferry component to our city’s public transit infrastructure. Imagine you live in Chateauguay, Dorion, Les Cedres or St-Lambert – taking a ferry to the Old Port would be a very nice way to start your day, not to mention, with crossing time relatively low, such a service would doubtless encourage many South Shore resident to leave their cars at home. And that’s just the South Shore, there’s no reason why regular passenger ferry service couldn’t be extended to the West Island, Beauharnois, Vaudreuil or Repentigny as well.

What ought to concern us as citizens is when large spaces are only partially utilized, and/or experience periodic bursts in activity, traffic or economic stimulus. When tourism dollars don’t materialize, the Old Port suffers, so a regular source of traffic entering the port year round (ie, via a passenger ferry service and additional cruise traffic) would go a long way to proving the areas economic vitality. And on a final note, before you even think it remember that winter ice can easily be broken, and Montréal is accessible by a navigable waterway year-round.