Heavenly City: an image
Alanah Heffez finds a picture of the Heavenly City that was never built after its conception in 1928 because the Depression came along and squelched it, but in a way, didn’t the idea came to fruition in Place Ville-Marie more than thirty years later?
Marc 09:58 on 2012/09/10 Permalink
PVM? Yeah, I would say so. But it would have been nice to have a large, imposing art-deco building. The Aldred Building will suffice. But I love PVM; nothing else quite like it.
Mathieu 11:13 on 2012/09/10 Permalink
If only Bell Centre weren’t standing in the way, we could still be using Windsor station. I’m sure the relationship people have with commuter trains would be different.
Kate 13:31 on 2012/09/10 Permalink
Mathieu: totally. But I don’t recall any outcry when the Bell Centre was proposed, although I wasn’t blogging yet then and may have missed it. It was an incredibly stupid move to decommission Windsor Station like that.
Marc: The Aldred Building would’ve been dwarfed by the Heavenly City, although it remains a beautifully proportioned bit of deco regardless.
Mathieu 14:14 on 2012/09/10 Permalink
I was too young to really remember it, but I think that it didn’t bother people so much because it was at a time when trains were really unpopular.
C_Erb 19:26 on 2012/09/10 Permalink
I wasn’t living in the city but I’ve heard that there were people making noise about it. I think it was more people like planners and universities who had a bit more foresight regarding the return of train travel. While I’m not sure of the details, I also seem to remember hearing that there were plans to raise stadium enough that would have allowed trains to go to Windsor station but the idea was nixed by the Molsons. Anyone know anything more about that?
Doobish 12:16 on 2012/09/11 Permalink
I was an occasional train user back when Windsor station was abandoned, and I don’t remember anyone saying ‘boo’ when the plans were proposed. I suspect that was because the service on the Dorion line was (and still is) shit. When your options consist of 8 or 9 trains/direction/day in the best case, your expectations are accordingly low. Being forced to walk an extra block to work was just one more kick in the teeth.
The service has improved since those days, but only marginally. The Vaudrieul line has only half the daily departures of the Two Mountains line, and it stil takes 45 minutes to get from Sainte-Anne’s to downtown. It’s better than sitting in traffic on the the bus, but not by much, and it costs more.