Notes on a couple of the city's least desirable addresses, apartment complexes with mice and cockroaches, mold and poor insulation, and a canny landlord who has been getting away with this for years.
posted at 12:17

 
Decent summary of the Mont Orford debacle and what it means to Jean Charest.
posted at 12:10

 
Club Unity, said to be Montreal's biggest gay bar, burned down yesterday when nobody was in it.
posted at 11:54

 
With a month to go till new, strict tobacco laws come into force, restaurant owners are planning to turn their terrasses into smokers' paradises and banish non-smokers indoors for the season. That is, if the complicated rules allow.
posted at 11:40

 
McGill University shuts down a professor's website after he posts jpegs of the Playboy pix of the school's students who appeared in its pages recently.

I'm not about to dissect the lack of clue shown by everyone in this story. But Prof. Devroye's site has been a reliable source of information about fonts and typography for a long time, and I hope it is reinstated by McGill after this nonsense blows over.
posted at 09:46

 
Quebec makes a deal with cities to give them back all their provincial tax outlay.

Meanwhile the suburban mayors are miffed with the agglomeration council for being dominated by Montreal.
posted at 09:37

 
Interesting glimpse of Gérard Tremblay, the mayor who cannot tell a lie.
posted at 09:17

 
The Mirror has a down-to-earth sports and leisure section today, with items on urban activities like cycling, hackey-sack and dragon boat racing; I'm noting Hour's explainer on the legalities of getting across the border because it answers a question I see asked a lot, here and there; various versions of the recent police actions at a pro-Palestinian event on the Main agree on one thing: Nobody knew why the police barged into the venue and started hitting people.
posted at 14:24

 
Saku Koivu will be off the ice Friday with an eye injury, as Montreal plays Carolina in the fourth game of their series with the Hurricanes. Rumours that the referee is also having his eyes checked have not been confirmed.
posted at 14:06

 
Montreal has reached some of its environmental goals but has fallen down on plans to do more to preserve Mount Royal's green spaces.
posted at 11:03

 
A terse but efficient summary of the superhospital situation focuses on doubts about the government's pet public-private plans.
posted at 10:40

 
It's a story like the opening scenes of an early X Files episode: a Longueuil family is offering a $10,000 reward for information about the fate of a relative's head, stolen from a funeral home last summer.
posted at 21:28

 
Plans to build a condo tower on the old Unitarian church lot on Sherbrooke are not popular with the surrounding residents, who have shot down three other such projects over the years.
posted at 11:33

 
The Société du Havre has tabled its plans for the western downtown waterfront, a document called Vision 2025. As predicted, they want to see the Bonaventure expressway moved, plus there's the usual trendy pony-wishing about tramways, but they also want to see a hydroelectric plant constructed offshore, and a convention centre built in the Peel basin. (The last report I saw about the Palais des congrès said it was very much under-used. I can't see any argument for needing another one, especially with the imminent changes in U.S. passport rules.)

The notion of moving the expressway probably owes something to urban critic Jane Jacobs, who died yesterday at 89. Her fights against highway construction in New York and Toronto did an immense amount of good for those cities; maybe we can learn from them.
posted at 01:00

 
The Îlot Voyageur project is already being excavated (in fact, it's been going on already for a couple of weeks), but UQAM has yet to present a maquette of their plans, which will surely have a huge impact on the whole Latin Quarter.

(Déjà vu moment, seeing the "don't worry about the kabooms" signs at Berri-UQAM; it seems like only yesterday they took down similar signs from the construction of the library.)
posted at 13:13

 
There are to be public consultations over the enlargement of McGill's Molson stadium, which will involve cutting down a hundred trees and other inevitable damage to that side of the mountain.
posted at 12:57

 
Now that we're no longer World Book Capital, the city's talking of spiffing up its network of 40 libraries. I'm guessing that the unexpected success of the Grande Biblio has reversed the received idea that the populace doesn't care about books. (The GB's numbers also come from lending music and movies, but it does lend a lot of books.)
posted at 12:39

 
Blue-collar workers in CDN/NDG will be tracked via GPS in a pilot project to "make services more efficient" and, officially anyway, not to check that the guys aren't all parked outside Picasso's.
posted at 11:51

 
Developer has plans to build on the Sherbrooke Street lot where the Unitarian Church burned down, almost twenty years ago.
posted at 11:52

 
Montreal passes World Book Capital honours to Rome and Torino.
posted at 11:48

 
A new law will make it much easier for landlords to evict tenants who don't pay.
posted at 11:42

 
Gérald Tremblay says he'll be in the running for mayor in 2009.
posted at 11:38

 
Metro system may be slower and less reliable over the next few years as equipment ages and is slowly replaced. The STM also wants a new financial deal before the Laval metro stations open.
posted at 11:30

 

Manifestation SOS Orford - Les Mémés déchaînées
Originally uploaded by Eric Baillargeon.

posted at 14:42

 

SOS Orford
Originally uploaded by Eric Baillargeon.

posted at 14:41

 
The bloggeuse has a raging head cold this weekend, so is posting, from Flickr, two excellent Eric Baillargeon photos of yesterday's demo against privatization of Mount Orford park.

In closing, let me also say: Go Habs Go!
posted at 14:33

 
Good, perceptive Nathalie Petrowski piece on the Michel Tremblay separatism bombshell and its aftermath.
posted at 12:55

 
This is the last day to vote for the Montreal City Weblog in the Mirror's "Best of Montreal" poll. The catch is that you have to fill out at least 25 categories, but if you find yourself at a loss, you can easily consult last year's entries.
posted at 14:02

 
Festival season is sneaking up, with the new Musique Multi-Montreal fest opening this weekend and running till the end of the month.
posted at 13:55

 
An event held Wednesday evening in support of Palestinian political prisoners turned nasty as police arrived and the batons came out. Some are saying the arrest of Jaggi Singh and the level of police involvement were unwarranted.
posted at 13:17

 
How are the trees doing in Montreal? Some boroughs are planting more than others, but there are plans to gradually replace old trees and trees still suffering from ice storm damage all over town.
posted at 12:51

 
Francophone actresses appear in anglo play; two Toronto reviews of Pure, a movie set in the Montreal club world; another Toronto review of The Rocket and a look at yet another feature film with a Montreal connection.
posted at 12:47

 
Level crossings are always a hazard when people take them lightly. So it's not surprising this is Railway Safety Week.
posted at 12:21

 
Montreal Poutine is your source for everything pooters – reviews, recipes and history.
posted at 21:10

 
There will be fewer calèches in Old Montreal this year, and they'll be more expensive, but since we'll all be hiding inside from the sun, we'll hardly notice.

(I don't envy the doctors trying to convince us that, after a long winter, we should stay inside all day, or else wear a hat, long sleeves and long pants when we go outside.)
posted at 10:28

 
Carolina is looking twice at the team they beat repeatedly during the regular season, but others are a little worried about the Canadiens' toughness versus the more successful teams this year. Not surprisingly, the first round of the playoffs is sold out.
posted at 10:21

 
Piece about the movie Maurice Richard (titled The Rocket in English) as it opens in the rest of Canada.
posted at 09:30

 
Time to get in training for the Féria du vélo at the end of May, with the familiar Tour de l'Île and other events spread over a week.
posted at 09:22

 
The city libraries are offering an amnesty for late book fines April 22 and 23 to coincide with the closure of the World Book Capital year. Nearly 100,000 items have gone missing from the library system since 1992.
posted at 09:17

 
Hydro-Quebec has been given the nod to raise their rates by 10% next year, this following a series of other recent rate hikes.
posted at 09:07

 
This is the second wave of news about the paper clip guy, first heard of last November, but now I can't ignore it: Kyle MacDonald, a Montrealer, is getting worldwide press for his scheme to barter a red paper clip up to a house. His blog tracks the trades, which have now worked up to a free year in a house in Arizona (does MacDonald have dual citizenship? I haven't seen anything about that).
posted at 10:39

 
This week and next, Two By Four's show Shit Job is on at the Theatre Ste-Catherine; Discover Japan Montreal is a festival that presents aspects of Japanese culture in various locations till the end of May; Café Sarajevo finally closes; the closing spectacle of Montreal's year as world book capital takes place April 23.
posted at 10:13

 
Ville-Marie gets new money and new laws to make cleaning up the downtown core easier.

I find it ironic that a little graffiti is considered such an eyesore, while garish things like the giant gas stations at Sherbrooke and Saint-Laurent, or Mont-Royal and Park, are accepted and even welcomed. I'm hoping that future Montrealers will look back on these and shake their heads in amazement.
posted at 10:05

 
With Washington's defeat of the Thrashers yesterday, the Habs squeaked into the playoffs.
posted at 09:43

 
A first: elderly landlords allowed to evict a long-term tenant in order to move in medical personnel. The usual rule is that only the owner or immediate family are permitted to do a "reprise" of this kind.
posted at 09:38

 
Roger Taillibert, architect of the Olympic stadium, insists that only a kevlar roof will work on the structure. His previous warnings of roof problems have all come true.
posted at 09:35

 
How Thomas Mulcair's departure from the environment portfolio may affect the future of the shrinking nature parks around the island of Montreal; in the short, cynical version: expect more condo development.
posted at 12:33

 
Thoughtful obit for fashion maven Iona Monahan, who died last month; kudos for Red Fisher, still covering the Montreal Canadiens after fifty years.
posted at 12:26

 
The Bal en Blanc, the biggest Easter party, goes off without a hitch and only five arrests.
posted at 12:19

 
Wine in cartons is coming to a dépanneur near you (but the article focuses more on the business aspect than taste or culture).
posted at 12:17

 
The Canadiens need a point to make the playoffs. They next play New Jersey on Tuesday.
posted at 12:48

 
The city's going to spend $125 million on fixing streets this year, which should mean lots and lots of road construction this summer. (Radio-Canada gives the figure as $85 million, but either way, lots will be spent on road repairs.)
posted at 12:46

 
The Point St. Charles waterfront, long inaccessible because it's been a railyard for decades, is now open for development, and unfortunately a big-box mall scheme like the Marché Central is on the horizon, complete with Wal-Mart. Earlier plans for a new casino and conference centre have collapsed, and the Point's residents may have to face the big-box menace next. Whatever happens, doing something about the Bonaventure Expressway is key to redeveloping the area.

I wonder why the obvious notion of extending residential streets down to a new waterfront park isn't being considered. Is that because it doesn't promise big bucks for somebody?
posted at 12:31

 
Notes on the new horror film festival at the Imperial this weekend, 1000 Frissons, and on the new Robert Lepage show Projet Andersen, at TNM.
posted at 12:23

 
Item on people who recover and recycle architectural antiques.
posted at 13:05

 
The New York Times goes on the river around Montreal. Dig the scene-setting in the opening 'graph.
posted at 13:01

 
Are there too many film festivals in Montreal?
posted at 12:55

 
The Main is going to have a facelift – at least, the section between René-Lévesque and Sherbrooke.
posted at 12:47

 
The Montreal Symphony's summer schedule includes free outdoor concerts.
posted at 10:21

 
A summary of the kerfuffle that has followed announcements by Michel Tremblay and Robert Lepage that they're no longer for Quebec sovereignty – with a rebuttal by Tremblay today; another summary of two other ongoing stories, Guy Cloutier and the Orchestre Métropolitain; more here on Cloutier (whose sordid story I haven't followed closely in this blog) and the Orchestre.
posted at 10:06

 
A court will hear arguments against Bill 112, the law to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.

I hope they don't lose track of the notion that it isn't just about giving customers the choice between smoking and non-smoking, it's about the working conditions of bar staff as well.
posted at 09:42

 
April 22 will be the Jour de la Terre and various entities are doing environmental activities around town. I can never decide whether this kind of thing is good and educational, or whether it leads to people thinking "Well, I've done my bit" and then slacking off for the other 364 days.
posted at 09:51

 
"Last year, 14 out of 22 women who were murdered in Quebec were killed by a boyfriend, an ex-boyfriend or a member of their family. In 2004, 23 out of 30 women who were killed were attacked by a man they knew."

From this brief piece on the violent history of Martin Morin-Cousineau, convicted Monday of stabbing his girlfriend to death.
posted at 09:46

 
A somewhat kvetchy rant about getting around in Montreal without a car; as a sans-auto myself I find the transit system has a few glitches but is not yet the disastrous, filthy mess implied in this article.

Drivers should slow down and respect the law, though. He's right about that.
posted at 09:33

 
Quebec is allowing some stores to open on June 24, which this year will be the day before the Grand Prix.
posted at 09:31

 
Many stores are removing charity donation boxes after the Journal de Montréal's report showed that lots of them are bogus: an entire dossier on the investigation is linked here.
posted at 09:26

 
Interesting visual database of hospital architecture in Montreal. "Case study" has some interesting searches, turning things up like aerial shots of Mount Royal from the 1920s. (Interface looks like hell in Safari, though, and it would be nice to have more specific dating than "early" for the older photos.)
posted at 09:11

 
Blue-collar workers to be punished by one-day unpaid suspensions for illegally skiving to picket City Hall in February.
posted at 09:56

 
The Plateau has withdrawn its request to make its part of rue Saint-Denis officially a tourist zone after residents rose up and protested the longer shopping hours, greater amounts of traffic and so forth. In other Plateau news, the riding of Ste-Marie-St-Jacques remains a Parti Québécois bastion despite incursions by the new Québec Solidaire party.
posted at 09:38

 
Someone has stolen 25 of the 85 historical markers from Old Montreal. This reminds me of the recent pillaging of artwork from the city's cemeteries: somebody somewhere is willing to buy.
posted at 09:16

 
Citizens are being asked to clean up their own property. Usually this passion for tidiness comes up yearly as the snow recedes, then is mostly forgotten about till next March, but the Tremblay administration seems pretty serious about it.
posted at 09:11

 
A new bus route and bus lane are being floated to make the Old Port more accessible; a surface tram to Anjou would be no more expensive than extending the metro's blue line the same distance, according to an urbanist's study.
posted at 19:48

 
The city plans to support environmental notions like green rooftops and solar panels experimentally in three boroughs.
posted at 19:44

 
Quite detailed piece about what the city ombudsman can and can't do for citizens.
posted at 19:09

 

The chaos of Montreal's parking signs continues to provoke amusement. Above, an actual sign I photographed (privately posted, not a municipal production) which might solve all the problems.
posted at 14:02

 
Michel Tremblay says he no longer supports Quebec sovereignty because it's now just about the money and no longer a matter of national feeling. More on Tremblay here as he accepts a prize at the Blue Metropolis festival, which closed yesterday after a successful run.
posted at 12:47

 
Top-secret Hydro-Quebec security documents are found in the metro in either an example of incompetence or mysterious skulduggery.
posted at 12:40

 
A constitutional amendment nine years ago to allow Quebec to change its school boards from confessional to language-based has created a loophole according to which Quebec doesn't have to maintain school boards at all. Not surprisingly, opinions vary on whether this would be a good thing, although 40% of Quebecers surveyed were in favour of getting rid of them.
posted at 12:04

 
A private feud between two exes has broken out in the media and in the high-profile blog of one of the principals; whether this will provoke yet another debate on fathers' rights remains to be seen.
posted at 11:58

 
Alternatives to open green recycling bins are being considered by Montreal boroughs. Of course, with the feds basically throwing their hands in the air and saying Kyoto targets are impossible, (read: Conservative voters won't buy them), it might be entirely futile for municipalities to try to be responsible environmental citizens.
posted at 11:49

 
The NY Times raves about Montreal's new hero, Oo-Ay.
posted at 22:16

 
More images of Friday's pillow fight with a link to a Youtube video.
posted at 18:30

 
Josh Freed waxes Dave Barryesque again on the topic of Montreal's always entertaining parking signs.
posted at 18:27

 
Might be useful: list of cut-rate clothing sources although it gives the wrong date for the Braderie de mode québécoise, which is this weekend.
posted at 18:24

 
A review of the Anselm Kiefer show at the Musée d'art contemporain; excitement for BMW's theme park to be created during the Grand Prix; controversy over a new construction development likely to obscure most of a half-million-dollar, seven-storey mural at Concordia – there may be a referendum on its future.
posted at 13:08

 
The story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, the slave who was brutally executed for burning houses in the Montreal of 1734, has been commemorated with a plaque and ceremony, and a segment of a government website (Flash and sound).
posted at 11:51

 
The plan to remake the western parts of Montreal's waterfront are described here with an artist's rendering of the idea.
posted at 11:44

 
Is the pricetag for the superhospitals going steadily and precipitously up, or is this scare talk designed to make more of us accept the whole partenariat public-privé scam? Editorial ponderings here from Le Devoir, more factoids and yet more factoids and a look at the minister's change of plans.
posted at 11:35

 
Friday night saw a flash mob pillow fight in Dorchester Square.
posted at 11:25

 
Arthur Porter, head of the MUHC hospitals and chosen czar of its superhospital project, says there's nothing stopping the start of construction. The rest seems to be casuistry about the difference in public-private partnerships between here and the UK. For their part, Quebec ministers are gung-ho about PPP, also talking about how Quebec is subtly different from the UK and thus won't experience similar problems.

It seems pretty clear to me: if business is in, business wants profits. Business tends to want constantly escalating profits. I can't imagine that's any different in Quebec from how it is in the UK: "The rental costs associated with a British PPP represent 20 per cent of a hospital's budget, the MUHC study notes. By comparison, in Quebec the maintenance of facilities takes up six per cent of a hospital's budget."
posted at 11:01

 
Major comedy stars are expected at Just for Laughs; McGill girls pose for Playboy as the university is, once again, tagged as one of North America's top ten party schools; Montreal museums see a record year as visitors pile in to see the Anselm Kiefer and Catherine the Great shows.
posted at 10:58

 
The Mirror's Best of Montreal 2006 poll is open.

Under Film, Arts, etc., they have a Best Blog option.

Regular readers of this blog could go there and vote for Montreal City Weblog. But remember: "You must fill out at least 25 categories for your ballot to count and to be eligible for prizes."
posted at 10:15

 
Another note about Gourmet magazine's Montreal issue, to be featured in the Blue Metropolis literary festival, now open.
posted at 10:10

 
Saint-Jean and the Grand Prix are on the same weekend this year, and some fear it may not be good for business.
posted at 23:36

 
It's a little shocking to read that a McGill professor has been denied a grant by a Canadian funding body because he had failed to prove the credibility of the theory of evolution.
posted at 11:21

 
Transit users will get a small refund to make up for the inconvenience of labour actions held in November 2003. Passes bought for some as yet unspecified month will be a little cheaper than usual. No joy for ticket users, unfortunately.
posted at 11:18

 
Despite massive profits, Hydro-Quebec plans to hike rates again and again. And yet it's claimed this is not because Quebec is using it as a cash cow.

Then who is?
posted at 10:51

 
Britten opera at the Monument National is given a rave; Charles Aznavour here in September, maybe for the last time; Madonna fans are camping out to get tickets for her show in June.
posted at 10:44

 
Are Montrealers ruder than most? A tale of a woman finding it hard to get a seat in the metro despite being seven months pregnant is illustrative.
posted at 10:24

 
Montreal plans to emphasize its sexiness in a new ad campaign (although "late for everything" is somewhat ambiguous as a sexual slogan, it seems to me); the upcoming U.S. requirement for passports at the border is making the tourism folks anxious and provoking the expenditure of bigger bucks on promoting the city.
posted at 20:08

 
Théâtre du Nouveau Monde announces its 2006-07 season; a blogger notes the upcoming Flora Montreal show at the Old Port; Bill Gates is now the biggest shareholder in CN; review of Prodigy at the Théâtre Ste-Catherine; Montreal is the first city in North America to adopt a charter of rights and responsibilities.
posted at 10:25

 
This Flickr set is labelled as showing Expo 67 photos, although the first page seems to actually be from the New York World's Fair in 1965. If you start at the bottom row on the first page, and continue, there are a lot of nice shots of Expo, as on page 2 and page 3. Via metafilter.

I also just noticed someone's flickr set of some pages from the Lovell Street Guide for 1961.
posted at 09:53

 
Montreal reports a $163-million surplus last year, but a lot of it has already been used up; the city foresees major tax adjustments coming soon; those who don't pay can receive threatening letters even over minor sums outstanding.
posted at 09:36

 
Although there's been a tug-of-war between Bombardier and Alstom over the contract for building new metro cars for Montreal, Quebec is not in any hurry to decide which to choose; the new train service will go from Montreal to Mascouche in an hour, including a stop at Sauvé metro and using the same tunnel under the mountain that's used by the Deux-Montagnes line.
posted at 18:49

 
La Presse looks into troubles in north-end Ahuntsic-Bordeaux-Cartierville: an evening in a social assistance van, and a story about the van service itself (although doesn't Dans La Rue offer something similar downtown?).
posted at 12:26

 
UK experience has shown that involving private money in public hospital construction doesn't work very well on a large scale.
posted at 12:16

 
Montreal has some of the worst, most confusing parking signage in the world.
posted at 12:14

 
It's a slow news Monday, one of the biggest local stories being Madonna's visit to Montreal on June 21. Oh well, at least Toronto is jealous.
posted at 12:12

 
A tongue-in-cheek suggestion (well, poisson d'Avril was yesterday) to move the Casino to the Olympic Stadium.
posted at 12:13

 
Look at the childhood exhibition at the McCord Museum; brief glance at architecture book exhibit at the CCA; Antarctic exhibit at the Biodome and butterflies at the Botanical Garden greenhouse.
posted at 12:05

 
Good profile of two men who struggle to keep young Haitian-Canadian kids from getting into trouble.
posted at 11:52

 
There are going to be celebratory events for the 400th anniversary of the birth of Jeanne Mance, one of the founders of this city; in other anniversary news, the Planetarium is 40 years old.
posted at 11:44

 
Yesterday broke weather records by more than four degrees, and bike paths are open early.
posted at 15:50

 
Major new projects for the city are on display as maquettes this weekend in the Caisse de dépôt atrium.
posted at 15:11

 
Montreal has put in a bid to host the 2009 world junior hockey championship.
posted at 11:55

 
Montreal's metro system has a $100-million annual deficit, which the metropolis wants to spread out among all 82 municipalities clustered around.
posted at 11:53

 
The Main reinventing itself – one of Josh Freed's better screeds.
posted at 11:51