More travel pieces, skewered
Another Australian writer came here in the summer to cover the city in 24 hours. It’s pretty much the standard stuff, although I do wish the tourism folks wouldn’t flog Schwartz’s (on “Boulevard Saint Lauren”) as being “in the Jewish district” because, as noted earlier, that area hasn’t been a particularly Jewish neighbourhood in decades.
Also, the handout photo of Maisonneuve in Place d’Armes – he’s been off his plinth for more than a year now.
Another piece in a Milwaukee paper checks out Bixi and prints one of those terribly misleading, well-meaning errors: “It costs $5 to keep a bike for 24 hours.” No, it does not. It costs $5 to have access to the Bixi system for 24 hours, but if you kept the same bike the whole time, you’d be charged $279.50!
Meanwhile, Now, in Toronto, is very worried about helmets not being handed out with Bixi bikes. Would you wear a random helmet a dozen other people had worn that day? No, and neither would I.
Carlos 00:38 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
Did you mention the horrible article in Le Figaro Madame from this summer? There were about a dozen important factual mistakes (the Musée d’art contemporain is in Old Montreal? Where is Ile Sainte-Anne?). Here it is: http://madame.lefigaro.fr/loisirs-et-voyages/enquetes/942-montreal-une-ile-trois-ilots
ant6n 07:17 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
Well, Schwartz’s is still awesome even though it’s very touristy and been declining a bit in recent years.
Requiring bike helmets is a bad idea; it really didn’t help the Melbourne system, because bike sharing relies on flexibility, easy hop on hop off. Toronto should rather look into providing more safe infrastructure for bicyclists. That said, having some helmet stores in downtown probably won’t hurt; bixi regulars might use them. Or Helmet vending machines, like Melbourne is trying out.
Kate 07:49 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
ant6n: Schwartz’s is fine, but the area around it, which was a Jewish enclave back when Mordecai Richler was a boy – and which has left traces like the Bagg Street Shul, Moishe’s, Berson’s Monuments and the synagogue on Duluth that’s been an apartment building for decades – is no longer a Jewish neighbourhood.
carlos: ooh, good find. I didn’t see that Figaro piece, thanks for the link!
AJ 09:06 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
Wow, that Figaro piece is chockablock with basic errors. Santropol is “right across” from Saint-Denis friperies? Maybe if you fold the city in half so they touch. Harricana, down on the boundary of Saint-Henri and Little Burgundy, is in Mile-End? Outremont is an anglo neighborhood? La Montee (formerly “…de lait”) was never in Mile-End to begin with, and it’s on Bishop Street downtown now. They get most of Villeray right, at least. And they actually sent someone here to do the report, too!
dwgs 11:52 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
It’s my understanding that Schwarz’s has been owned by Greeks for decades now.
Not that I don’t love me some Schwarz’s once in a while, just saying.
Kate 12:57 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
Sure. Schwartz’s makes no claim to being kosher. I remember a visitor wondering whether it would be OK if she asked for a glass of milk with her sandwich, and just laughing.
carswell 13:24 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
AJ, whether or not you agree that La Montée de Lait’s original location (371 Villeneuve East corner of Grand Pré) is in Mile End, there’s pretty much no denying that it’s current location is (the former Bouchonné space at 5171 Saint-Laurent between Laurier and Fairmount). La Montée on Bishop closed last spring, and more’s the pity.
AJ 14:52 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
Carswell, thanks for the update. Haven’t been back there since before they moved, I guess I missed that. I would call their original location more northeastern Plateau (what’s the cutoff? I traditionally think St-Joseph and St-Laurent as marking the southeastern corner.)
carswell 16:24 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
AJ: So as not to look the idiot on my first Montreal City Weblog post, I searched for a map or description of Mile End’s boundaries. Found nothing in the Wikipedia article, on the Plateau Borough website, etc. Did find a description of the Mile End riding, which said its boundaries extend as far east as Chirstophe Colomb. I’d place the district’s eastern frontier well west of that, though maybe not as far as St-Laurent. Isn’t Mont-Royal Blvd. the traditional southern border?
Kate 18:43 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
Hi Carswell. Anecdotally, and without thinking about it too much, I’d automatically peg Mile End as being defined roughly by the CP tracks on the north, the Outremont boundary on the west (i.e.
a block and a halfhalf a block west of Park) and Mont-Royal on the south. The eastern boundary is a little soft because I tend to feel Mile End includes at least some part of the old needle trade district, maybe the area north of Maguire and west of Henri-Julien, but not most of the rest of the stuff east of the Main. I can’t really substantiate these boundaries with any map or document – it’s more a change of vibe from the rest of the Plateau than a legal definition.C_Erb 21:16 on 2010/12/01 Permalink
Kate: Those are exactly the borders I go by.
It seems everyone can agree on about St-Joseph/Laurier and north to the tracks as being part of Mile End and I find anyone who lives in that section will dispute Mont-Royal being the southern border. Anyone who lives south of St-Joseph will often call the street just south of them the southern border. Mile Enders tend to try to keep Mile End as small as they can, so long as they’re inside of it.
SMD 00:42 on 2010/12/02 Permalink
Small correction: Mile End’s western border is right down the middle of Hutchison, so half a block west of Park.
Kate 07:59 on 2010/12/02 Permalink
Oh good point, SMD. Somehow my memory had displaced the border onto Durocher but you’re quite right.
Justin 02:20 on 2011/01/16 Permalink
Mile End in 1815 was the intersection of Saint-Laurent and (what is now) Mont-Royal.
In the 1840s, a chapel of Saint-Enfant-Jésus was built (near (today’s) Saint-Dominique and Laurier); its parish, detached from the parish of Montreal in 1867, was Saint-Enfant-Jésus-du-Mile-End and initially covered a wide swathe of north-central Montreal. Mile End post office was established near the church by the 1860s.
In 1876, the Mile End stop on the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa & Occidental Railway (bought by CPR in 1882) was created at what is now Bernard & Saint-Dominique.
The classic borders of Mile End (village of Saint-Louis-du-Mile-End, 1878-1895; town of Saint-Louis, 1895-1909; Laurier Ward, 1910-1921) are Mont-Royal Avenue on the south, the Outremont border on the west (generally along Hutchison), Henri-Julien (or the lane just east of it) on the east. The northern boundary was approximately at rue de Castelnau, just south of Jarry Park.
Obviously, nothing north of the CP tracks has been considered to be Mile End for quite some decades now. When the electoral district of Mile End was resuscitated in the late 70s or early 80s, it used the boundaries of the former town, south of the railway. Redistribution in 2001 added a small strip east to Saint-Denis, and in 2005 the larger chunk east to Laurier Park.