Walking around yesterday afternoon I was struck again by the decrepitude and ugliness of much of Ste-Catherine between Atwater and Guy, but that isn't news to Montrealers.

What gets mentioned less often is the incredible eyesore created by the building that anchors the whole mess.

Sacrilege first: the original Montreal Forum was not a thing of beauty, but it had a certain solid presence and, of course, the cumulative history of the matches and performances that took place there.

This 1950s photo (originally from the city archives) shows what's under that present-day mess. Even so, the office-block-like addition along Atwater is already overbalancing the building in a weird way (it wasn't part of the original design, shown at top).

The major 1968 renovation enlarged the building and created a glass and concrete façade that was unlikely to lift the heart of the architectural critic, but was functional and didn't detract from its surroundings.

But now! Feast your eyes on this big box of mismatched siding, signs tacked up ad-hoc on ugly scaffolding (lots more of that along the Atwater side), dead exit doors on Ste-Catherine Street, a patchwork of junk basically saying nobody gives a damn. Cabot Square across the street could be quite a pleasant spot, but it has this right in its face. Children who look out at it from the hospital opposite are set back in their recovery from illness. This area will likely never be rescued and made right again until this eyesore is taken away and something less hideous replaces it.

A city like ours should not tolerate a blight like this on a major corner of a major street and, what's more, making mock of what once was a fabled venue. But people get used to things and feel they simply have to put up with urban ugliness because it's there and it's not going away. Until it does! Please, somebody, take it down and put it out of its misery. Like the Seville Theatre a block away, there's nothing there worth keeping any more. posted at 12:06