00:19 on 2012/09/07 Reply  

• walkerp 05:58 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  That is great news, if it actually happens.

  But WTF?: “But meantime, that stretch of Sherbrooke St. is strikingly similar to Beaubien St. in Hochelaga Maisonneuve, where a mix of residential and commercial properties sit adjacent to a beautiful park.”

  Was this writer from Toronto?

• dwgs 06:25 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  @walkerp Speaking as someone who lives a few blocks from the Empress I have to ask why you disagree with that statement.

• walkerp 06:40 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  Beaubien st. and the Cinema Beaubien is in Rosemont.

• Kate 07:49 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  Ha, now it reads “that stretch of Sherbrooke St. is strikingly similar to Beaubien St. in Rosemont-La Petite Patrie…”!

  Memo to you CTV folks: I’m going to have to start sending in an invoice for fact-checking done by me and some of my commenters!

• dwgs 08:10 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  Ah, I’ve always been foggy about municipal boundaries in that area.

• willie granger 08:15 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  The city councillor later groused that the CinV wasn’t the project of his choice. Borough Mayor doesn’t want his opponent to take credit, of course. City councillor responded by doing a ridiculous “flashmob” dance to “walk like an egyptian.” (Gilles Duceppe voice: “think twice about looking like an idiot when dere’s camera round).

• dwgs 08:17 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  Would that councillor be Peter MacQueen by any chance?

• walkerp 08:19 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  The thing is, this isn’t like the Cinema Beaubien is near the boundary or in a similar type of neighbourhood. It’s in the very heart of Rosemont (in both the geographic and cultural sense) and demographically and visually Rosemont is totally different than Hochelaga. dwgs, I don’t expect you necessarily to know that if you are not from the area, but the local TV affiliate should DEFINITELY know that.

• dwgs 08:27 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  I will admit to feeling stupid when I looked up the borders and saw that Sherbrooke was the northern boundary of ‘HOMA’.

• Kevin 08:49 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  @Kate – hey, I caught this error by a co-worker myself. :P
  But the original writer was born and raised right here in Montreal. Lives in the Plateau.

  I’ve sent everyone a note to ignore Google maps when it comes to borough boundaries because they’re effing wrong, and go directly to the city of Montreal website.

• Kate 08:58 on 2012/09/07 Permalink

  Kevin, here’s a terrific map assembled by emdx to clarify the location of many Montreal areas often referred to but not official enough to be on many maps. The boroughs are indicated but if you load the 2000px size on most computers you’ll see the smaller labels.

• owl 01:22 on 2012/09/08 Permalink

  Last Wednesday’s Côte-des-Neiges/NDG borough council meeting about the fate of the Empress was PACKED with passionate supporters from both sides.

  Serious accusations were flying all over the place. Politicians and citizens were losing their cool.

  Democracy in action but very messy.

• walkerp 07:54 on 2012/09/08 Permalink

  Why are people opposing the project?

• walkerp 07:59 on 2012/09/08 Permalink

  Never mind, I just went and read the article. Interesting. On the face of it, it seems like the sad reality of financial considerations gives the win to the Beaubien-backed people (having Caisse Desjardins as one of their tenants sounds like their trump card in this respect). But the other group’s plan sounds much more cool, though perhaps a bit ambitious. I’m curious to know what other political factors are going on behind the scenes.

• Kate 08:43 on 2012/09/08 Permalink

  walkerp, I’m no expert on this story, but I would hazard a guess it’s a struggle between Projet Montréal’s Peter McQueen wanting a more community-oriented purpose for the building, vs. Union Montreal’s Michael Applebaum, who seems to hate Projet with a white-hot hatred and would never, ever back anything he thought would make Projet happy.

  Of course the decline of the building stretches back well before the existence of Projet so there’s more to the story, but I’m pretty sure the current issue is between the two parties.

• walkerp 14:03 on 2012/09/08 Permalink

  Ah yes, that explains a lot. Thanks!

• owl 18:07 on 2012/09/08 Permalink

  I think ‘hatred’ is too strong a word, but it’s certainly true that there’s no love lost between Projet Montréal’s Peter McQueen and both Michael Applebaum and Marvin Rotrand, especially after McQueen’s crack about Marvinmandering.

  Tensions have been building for a long time but things really exploded at the Wed. Sept. 5 CDN-NDG council meeting as the never-ending Empress saga moves closer to endgame.

  I don’t think that there were any journalists on the scene from the Big Media, so thank goodness we have fantastic blogs (like this one) and “community” papers like the NDG Free Press and the bilingual paper Les Actualités to keep us informed.

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