After ten season games, Guy Carbonneau sums it up: not a bad beginning but it could've been better.
posted at 10:34

 
Quebec has dished out $60 million to Concordia to build their business school, the John Molson School of Business, on the west side of Guy opposite the metro. Note the Gazette's dig at Quebec's low tuition fees, although they don't appear to be stopping the city's universities from building more and more new monster installations, do they?

Also today, a look at McGill University and how it gets its funding.
posted at 10:23

 
Last night saw a demo at City Hall for keeping Park Avenue as well as other issues.
posted at 10:16

 
As Toronto ponders a bid for a world's fair, they look back at Expo 67, its successes and is aftermath. (Although I wouldn't call Place Ville-Marie a legacy of Expo 67.)
posted at 10:05

 
A nice interview with the bloggers at Endless Banquet.
posted at 22:01

 
Demonstrators in favour of keeping Park Avenue will be at city hall tonight around 7 to express their views.
posted at 18:41

 
New bike paths which consist merely of road markings are called dangerous for cyclists – but then the old-style ones, with concrete borders, as along Rachel, don't satisfy some critics either. The real question seems to be whether police will ticket drivers who infringe on the paths, and since they already turn a blind eye to many driver peccadilloes, what are the odds?
posted at 10:09

 
Is Angrignon Park being neglected with overgrown plants and weeds – or is it simply gestion écologique in action? Reactions differ.
posted at 10:04

 
The ongoing unrest over the renaming of Park Avenue brings out further suggestions for renamings; can rue du Croissant and rue de l'Évêque be far behind?
posted at 09:51

 
Update on a notorious Ahuntsic slumlord and his evasion of the city's attempts to deal with him; what it's like to live in the kind of apartment we're talking about.
posted at 09:40

 
A record amount of rain Saturday followed by heavy winds Sunday have swept away many of the remaining leaves.
posted at 09:34

 
Today's fierce winds have caused power outages all over Quebec, including some in the Montreal area.
posted at 22:30

 
Journalist starts by saying that the reasons people prefer Park Avenue or avenue du Parc remain obscure, but then he goes on to list them. It's not as if tradition and familiarity are easily dismissed when applied to the nomenclature of our daily lives. They are key.

Also, the mayor now says he may hold a free vote in council over this issue.

Mayor Tremblay is not stupid, and must realize by now he's trying to do something unpopular that, if carried through, will haunt him if he runs for a third term. Forcing the change on the city at this point would not be the action of a strong leader: real strength would show in admitting it was not a good idea, and asking for help in finding a better one.
posted at 11:34

 
Interesting piece on several organic farms operating successfully on remaining agricultural land at the western end of the island of Montreal.
posted at 11:07

 
Twenty years after recycling began in Quebec, some folks still don't get it and throw garbage and worse into the bins.
posted at 11:02

 
Let's hope we don't see any snow before Halloween, because snow trucks cost $120 an hour before the snow clearance contracts kick in November 1.
posted at 14:13

 
The Park Avenue name change remains a hot potato but there are signs the mayor is heeding the unpopularity of his choice. And remember, if you haven't signed the petitions, they're here and here.
posted at 14:01

 
Great excerpt of Adam Gopnik writing on Mordecai Richler and the value of his Montreal settings.
posted at 12:36

 
An American writer slams the architectural chaos in Montreal, but a British writer finds it charming.
posted at 12:30

 
Blue Bonnets racetrack will be moving to Laval where a kind of casino is to be built including not only horse races but video lottery terminals as well; Bell Canada plans to move 3000 workers to a brand new campus on Nuns' Island; on the other hand, a Bloc bill may delay the sale of the Canada Post sorting station on Ottawa Street, which was to be sold off for luxury condo development.
posted at 12:23

 
The city's tightening up on blue-collar workers caught goofing off, firing workers after a second offence.
posted at 12:15

 
Online petitions against the Park Avenue name change continue to grow and the street's shopkeepers are planning a legal battle, but Mayor Tremblay remains firm that he will propose it at the November 27 council meeting. And there are more suggestions for street name changes, too.
posted at 12:12

 
Mario Morin, who brought traffic to a halt on the Jacques-Cartier bridge last may in a one-man protest over the custody of his kid, gets a 20-month sentence for various charges.
posted at 10:54

 
Dancer Paul-André Forcier is going to be doing a lunchtime performance every day for a month at the corner of Clark and Ste-Catherine.
posted at 10:41

 
Two iconic Montreal stories are coming to CBC: the story of champion swimmer Victor Davis, slain by a driver in the West Island, and the dramatization of Mordecai Richler's opus St. Urbain's Horsemen (which, despite the intervention of a diligent copyeditor, never had the hyphen in St-Urbain).
posted at 10:25

 
After the condemnation of last year's experiment with electronic voting, Vision Montréal, although squarely defeated, is considering asking that the elections results be cancelled and new elections undertaken.
posted at 10:17

 
Procedural delay means the Park Avenue name change won't be tabled till next month at city hall, which may give the many voices of opposition more time to organize. The two online petitions (here and here) now count 10,000 signatures as dissent rumbles even within the mayor's own party. An historian weighs in on why changing Bleury would also be unfair; the STM sidesteps the issue of renaming Parc metro as well: it invoked a moratorium on station name changes after Longueuil became Longueuil-Université-de-Sherbrooke.
posted at 10:02

 
A study by the Quebec director general of elections says the electronic voting used in last fall's municipal elections was badly flawed, a statement that backs up Pierre Bourque's charges of unfairness. The report is here.
posted at 11:08

 
The suspension of the principal of FACE school may end up in court as his return is called for by many.
posted at 10:54

 
NDG's Fraser-Hickson Library is closing at the end of the year for lack of funds.
posted at 10:40

 
Pressmen at the Journal de Montréal are locked out as a long strike continues.
posted at 10:29

 
Next week there's a public meeting, and next month the public can sign up to ask for a referendum over the enlargement of Molson Stadium. But even with a successful bid for a referendum, often residents' wishes are flouted: an unwelcome demolition on Ontario will probably result in a big shiny pharmacy replacing a building from 1885, as the city pulls a fast one with zoning.
posted at 10:20

 
Defenders of Park Avenue are gathering to fight the fait accompli of the street name change. Online petitions are here and here.
posted at 10:14

 
Phyllis Lambert has an open letter in today's Le Devoir asking the mayor to reconsider changing the name of Park Avenue. Bravo, Ms. Lambert.
posted at 10:56

 
A private foundation is putting big bucks into getting Quebecers to move around a bit and lose some weight.

Does having TV commercials telling you to get up and exercise actually do anything? (Remember Participaction?) Now, if they'd make gym memberships and the like tax deductible, it might be a start.
posted at 10:48

 
After freezing borough budgets a few weeks ago, the city decides to hand out cash again so boroughs can keep libraries open and do more recycling.

Also, Quebec is giving $30 million to the University of Montreal to begin cleaning up the Outremont train yard where its new buildings are to be built. It's the first step in what's meant to be a billion-dollar project.
posted at 10:36

 
A Mile End florist gets hit with a big fine for putting some of her wares on the sidewalk. It's a harsh law – I remember how it shut down one small bookshop in the area. If the shopkeeper doesn't impede foot traffic and leaves no mess after they close up shop, where's the problem?
posted at 13:27

 
A Toronto view of Yves Beauchemin's Montreal epic leans hard on a comparison with Balzac.
posted at 13:14

 
The Festival du Monde Arabe opens this week and runs till November 12.

Also, the Grande Bibliothèque opens a show of fancy art bookbindings, free, till February.
posted at 13:05

 
A panhandler who announced his retirement in the paper has been doing well as he waits for his first pension cheque.
posted at 13:03

 
The November bus pass will be a princely $2 less than usual to recompense users for the inconvenience of a strike held in November 2003.

A better deal is today's free admission to showings of Bon Cop Bad Cop at the Cinéma Quartier Latin.
posted at 12:57

 
The shopkeepers around the lower Main voted to reject the creation of a commercial development group, thus flummoxing some of the ideas for glitzing up the area.
posted at 12:53

 
Another demo yesterday expressed opposition to the Park Avenue name change, saying that although they had no objection to Bourassa being honoured, changing Park is not the way to do it. However, numbers show that Robert Bourassa is not much admired ten years after his death.

I've seen two great suggestions: create a park with a model hydroelectric dam in it, or rename Henri Bourassa to Henri & Robert Bourassa.

(Actually, why not just Bourassa? We have Papineau and de Maisonneuve streets, which are thankfully not named Louis-Joseph-Papineau and Paul-Chomedey-Sieur-de-Maisonneuve. So, why do streets get the whole moniker now? Change in toponymic fashion?)
posted at 12:54

 
A city project to inject millions into the Chabanel needletrade district raises hopes of creating a second downtown in the area.
posted at 12:41

 
The first snow of the season fell early, on Friday afternoon.
posted at 13:09

 
A friend of Dawson shooter Kimveer Gill is arrested for making death threats three days after the Dawson incident. Unlike Gill, he appears to have a history of instability.
posted at 12:18

 
A demo protested the Park Avenue name change to Avenue Robert-Bourassa this morning, and another is planned for 2 p.m. here, meeting at the Cartier monument and marching to Gérald Tremblay's house.

There's also an online petition against it, and the mayor has instructed his people not to discuss it, a sign he's well aware of the unpopularity of the decision.
posted at 11:48

 
An excellent diatribe against renaming Park Avenue, and a rally planned for tomorrow against the name change.
posted at 14:48

 
The New York Times visits Montreal and lists some highlights and addresses for things it likes.
posted at 13:31

 
Workers at Ben's Delicatessen have been on strike for three months, including one 72-year-old waiter who's worked there for fifty years. And now a 28-storey building is planned for right next door.
posted at 13:29

 
The city has come up with a scheme for ride-sharing lanes on highways into town – the 20, the 40, and the north-south axes connecting to bridges. It should start next spring, and I hope it does, now that our federal government has blithely pulled the plug on Canada's adherence to the Kyoto accord.
posted at 13:25

 
Downtown streets are becoming a big ashtray, so businesses are being warned to provide cigarette disposals at their entrances, as the oncoming winter prepares to test the smoking law for the first time.
posted at 11:44

 
The city's famously fractious blue-collar workers seem to be mellowing out a little, despite being hit with a $91,700 fine for having used illegal pressure methods during labour unrest in 2004.
posted at 11:21

 
Some hope for the future of the Farine Five Roses sign from promises made by its current owners.
posted at 11:15

 
The street name change of Park Avenue to Avenue Robert-Bourassa is not universally popular; it could be a year before the change is approved by various councils.
posted at 11:05

 
The 35th annual Festival du nouveau cinéma opens tonight.
posted at 11:22

 
The Farine Five Roses sign has been turned off since Friday and its eventual fate is unknown. Once again, I recommend the flickr tag link and text search link to see how many ways Montreal photographers have seen the sign.
posted at 11:15

 
If the mayor has his druthers, it'll be Park Avenue that becomes avenue Robert-Bourassa rather than St-Joseph Blvd, but one street or another is bound to be renamed for the Liberal premier (unless the Parti Québécois returns to power and halts the process, which wouldn't be surprising).

I don't buy the argument that du Parc's a less important street, though. It's got a long history among several ethnic communities, and it actually runs past the city's most significant park. Besides, it's arguably time to start cutting back on the overwhelming number of saints in the city's toponymy.
posted at 10:56

 
A new office tower is going to be built right next to Ben's delicatessen, looming over it.
posted at 10:35

 
The city's posh private clubs are beginning to decorously grovel for new membership in order to survive.
posted at 10:55

 
The new Laval metro stations each have a holding cell, although whether this was a request by that city or something that will be built into all future stations is not clear.
posted at 10:54

 
In the second domestic fatality here in three days, a woman was stabbed to death and the suspect, her ex-boyfriend, was shot down after threatening police.
posted at 20:07

 
The city could handle 5000 more trees although this brief piece doesn't go so far as to say it's really going to plant them.

In other tree news, labour minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn is blaming environmentalism for the loss of forestry jobs, an almost comedic instance of missing the point. We can't always put off environmental concerns till tomorrow, or till the next change of government.
posted at 19:55

 
Review of Peccadilloes staged by Whip Theatre; review of Carmela's Table at Centaur; the 50th anniversary of the Grands Ballets Canadiens; people thrilled by Barbra Streisand at the Bell Centre tonight; a preview of the Cinemania festival, opening next month.
posted at 11:56

 
This weekend the triple murder and attempted suicide by a West Island father is the dominant local story, although as quite often happens there's no explanation and neighbours had no idea anything was wrong. Despite its suburban family values, the area has seen its share of mayhem, as pointed out in this piece.
posted at 11:20

 
Story of a woman who took the metro yesterday for the second time, her first ride having been during the initial launch 40 years ago.
posted at 10:40

 
The Erskine and American church, the one that sits at the top end of Crescent Street, is finally to be bought by the Museum of Fine Arts to house their Canadian art collection.
posted at 18:15

 
Interesting little piece about a Montreal photographer who does portraits of doppelgangers – the linked gallery is fascinating.
posted at 18:11

 
What do Parisians make of Montreal? It's convivial and pleasant, with streets that remind them by turns of London and New York – but it isn't one of the world's beautiful cities and it isn't a major cultural capital either.
posted at 18:07

 
The last casualty from the Dawson shootings a month ago has left hospital. Also, few students have dropped out of their studies there, no more than in other years, and only a handful have given the shootings as a reason for doing so.
posted at 17:31

 
Canada Post's parcel delivery practices in Montreal are questioned. I've noticed myself, more than once, that you can get a parcel delivery notice even when you're home.
posted at 13:16

 
A look at forty years in the metro business.

Also, there's a one-time discount on November's transit pass to make up for inconveniences caused by a strike some time back. It's all of two bucks on a regular fare card.
posted at 10:50

 
The Guaranteed Milk bottle is deteriorating, but it's nobody's responsibility to look after it. Another Montreal landmark whose fate is uncertain.
posted at 12:00

 
A law against idling your car, announced a year ago with much bowing towards the environment, has never been enforced.
posted at 11:56

 
The city has had to fork out big bucks to pay for a stolen snowblower, and it isn't the first piece of really big machinery that's been nicked in recent years.
posted at 11:48

 
A quiz on how well you know Montreal ushers in a La Presse series on the city. (The quiz doesn't add up your score at the end, which is a bit lame.)

The STM is holding a contest, the prizes being 40 year-long free subscriptions to STM transit passes, and there are free rides on the entire system tomorrow to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the opening of the metro system.
posted at 11:44

 
Residents of the surrounding area can sign a petition for a referendum over the enlargement of Molson Stadium. (Where should they go, you ask? These items do not say.)
posted at 11:40

 
I'd noticed this too: big black spots on fallen maple leaves around town. It's a fungal disease, the good news being that it seldom does any lasting damage to trees.
posted at 11:37

 
The city has created a new policy for its civil servants, making it trickier for them to divulge any information about the city's operations. For a city with a tradition of extreme municipal arcana, this is really something.
posted at 11:34

 
A north-end Bloc MP has received threats from gangs after her recent publication of a book on the topic. Such threats might, of course, be a tribute to the book's accuracy.
posted at 11:22

 
McGill University is blamed for the shortage of doctors in Quebec. The report makes this the basis for asking the government to cancel the new MUHC hospital and build a single mega-CHUM instead.
posted at 11:16

 
Canada Post is planning to sell its old sorting station down by the Lachine Canal to developers, but community groups had been hoping it would be bought for subsidized housing. It's a big piece of land with obvious potential, either way.
posted at 11:10

 
The man who blew the whistle on lax security measures at the Port of Montreal is fired for allowing journalists unauthorized access.
posted at 11:01

 
A series of masquerade parties will mark Halloween on Place Jacques-Cartier.
posted at 10:45

 
After much talk about the hazards of salt corrosion, it turns out that a misplaced strut led to the collapse of the Concorde overpass in Laval.
posted at 10:42

 
A wonderful series of photos of the interior of Saint-Sauveur church, which stands unused and abandoned on Saint-Denis at Viger.
posted at 11:18

 
The Journal focuses on a sad and extreme case of anorexia while blaming fashion magazines for the malaise and soliciting comments from the health minister. It seems a rather hostile welcome to Montreal's Fashion Week.

The irony is in the difference between how anorexia's discussed – with fascination over the details and a tone of tragedy – versus how obesity's handled by the media. Slenderness is still glamorous even when it's fatal.
posted at 10:49

 
A look at two big geeky events happening in town this week.
posted at 10:38

 
The New York Times lists some Montreal shopping highlights.
posted at 10:22

 
A Gazette series is comparing commuting methods downtown from the suburbs: so far, bicycle from the South Shore; commuter train from the West Island and (you're kidding) various methods from the Plateau, with two more instalments to come. The assumption seems to be that nobody walks or takes the bus.
posted at 10:16

 
Security cameras destined for the Main between Sherbrooke and Duluth weren't installed after all, because they might've been removed or dislodged during street renovations – the street renovations that haven't begun yet, that is.
posted at 10:05

 
More and more reports of gunshots in the streets are being made, presumably an effect of the growing influence of gangs.
posted at 11:09

 
Seems the notion of an access toll on all entries to the island of Montreal is being considered by city hall.
posted at 11:06

 
Item and photo about surfing on the mighty St. Lawrence.
posted at 11:01

 
The boroughs differ on their response to the budget freeze from city hall, but either way it seems that services will suffer.
posted at 10:46

 
Despite having been declared a protected zone, Mount Royal has 39 construction projects on the go, and very little means of stopping further ones.
posted at 10:38

 
Pop Montreal's happening now, and there are lots of suggestions, items about individual acts and mini-reviews of shows.
posted at 13:26

 
Montreal's top opera company is working in the hole.
posted at 13:22

 
This obituary for Myron Galloway is also a capsule history of English-language theatre in this city.
posted at 13:17

 
The Canadiens open their season tonight with a new coach, a hotshot goalie, some new players and a hopeful captain. What could possibly go wrong?
posted at 13:15

 
The city is tightening its belt and restraining budgets to the boroughs.

(How long do you give the borough system? I'm certain that at some point a recentralization impulse will come over the city and they'll be abolished to save money. Maybe not this administration, but let's say by 2011 - ?)
posted at 12:11

 
Panics yesterday in NDG and Pierrefonds about armed men seen near school buildings turned out to be false alarms.
posted at 10:40

 
A new downtown project is going to loom over Place des Arts.

This happens over and over. One day, out of the blue, journalists announce a new project. Nobody in the street has heard about it, most locals don't want any part of it, but City Hall seems to have quietly rubber-stamped it long ago. There's some kind of profound disconnect, possibly dating back to the arrogance of the Drapeau era, possibly something much more universal in how power is used and abused in city governments.

Which leads to the other project described today, a soulless eight-storey glass tower meant to be constructed at Saint-Laurent and Sainte-Catherine.

The Quartier des spectacles is meant to sanitize that part of town and make it more "cultural" and welcoming to tourists. Anyone with a sense of cultural logic could sit here with an espresso and tell them: It may look like cleaning up, but what you're doing is erasing all the history, all the piled-up cultural details that make the area interesting. No, nobody's going to say they enjoy the atmosphere of strip clubs, sex shops and piercing parlours around that part of the Main, but it clearly adds something to the mix.

You need that mix. Why do people love the Plateau so much? Because there's architectural variety, cranky old businesses side-by-side with trendy new stuff, residential and commercial streets in proximity, and a lively sense of a neighbourhood built up over a century and a half. But bureaucracy prefers a Disney version of this, and it can be sold to enough tourists to turn a buck, at least for awhile. But who wants to live in it?

One more observation on this "cultural" glass tower and other projects like it: government should remember that there's no necessity for a lot of fonctionnaires to have their offices in the middle of the action. All the cultural projects I've seen (I'm thinking of this one but also of the even more hideous glass box the Parti Québécois wanted to build on the Îlot Balmoral) include lots of office space. If you're trying to create a light and lively structure for general entertainment, stash the damn offices somewhere discreet nearby. Nothing's more deadening than office space.
posted at 10:23

 
Experts say that rats are multiplying in the city, this too being blamed on decrepit concrete allowing them entry to buildings.
posted at 00:04

 
The Alouettes' head coach Don Matthews has resigned because of an unrevealed health problem.
posted at 23:59

 
Colourful profile of the Canadiens' Steve Bégin.
posted at 23:57

 
A new owner is going to announce new programming for the Cinéma du Parc for later this month.
posted at 15:13

 
The Festival du nouveau cinéma has announced the lineup for its 35th anniversary festival, which runs from October 18 to 28.
posted at 10:53

 
The federal government has suddenly ended funding for the annual Black & Blue party, which opens today. (I'm not linking to the BBCM site because of the volume of music it pumps out, but it's not hard to find.) Their excuse: the organization doesn't need the money, because the party's going ahead anyway. The real reason for the decision is under debate.
posted at 10:43

 
The helicopters over downtown yesterday were running a terrorism simulation exercise.
posted at 10:28

 
Nobody knows yet how road access will work for the MUHC superhospital south of Vendôme metro in NDG; no answer will keep everyone nearby satisfied. Prediction: Westmount will be spared at the expense of Montreal residents, as usual.
posted at 10:14

 
The Laval metro extension will be a heavy financial burden to the STM, costing far more to operate than it's likely to bring in, and bridging this gap is likely to become a political hot potato.

Also, October 14 – a Saturday – is the 40th anniversary of the metro system with free bus and metro rides all day and musical performances at Berri-UQAM.
posted at 10:06

 
The four casualties from Saturday's overpass collapse are no longer in danger and the orphan left by the incident seems to be well looked after; Quebecers are not confident that overpasses are safe (is this keeping many people off the highways?) although emergency studies done since the weekend showed that most of the overpasses tested are stable; road salt is being blamed for the deterioration of such structures, and engineers warn that parking garages could be next and that neglect of infrastructure may well lead to disaster and vastly inflated expense – although in Saturday's incident corrosion may not be the issue. The Journal has a dossier on the whole topic.
posted at 11:46

 
Dawson incident blamed for latest wave of school killings in the U.S. (or, as the National Post charmingly puts it, "Montreal might have triggered" the wave); Dawson is, not surprisingly, now forming a new anti-gun coalition hoping to swim against the current of the Conservatives' intention to end the gun registry.
posted at 11:14

 
Excellent story about a mail-order entrepreneur and his troubled business.
posted at 11:02

 
It's big news in some circles that Montreal will have a Nascar race next August 4. (Nascar site has some predictably macho music playing.)
posted at 10:41

 
Local news today is all about the aftermath of the overpass collapse: a commission led by Pierre-Marc Johnson will look into causes for the incident as engineers worry about the state of our highway infrastructure; three of the deaths have a terrible impact on one family; the blockage of highway 19 is playing havoc with rush hour in Laval, and authorities are asking commuters to use public transit (too bad the Laval metro is not closer to completion) or use an alternate route (PDF file) suggested by the Ministère des transports.
posted at 09:42

 
Midnight Poutine has compiled several podcasts featuring the work of bands scheduled to perform at the Pop Montreal festival next week. The official site is also featuring "popcasts". Profile of the five-year-old festival and previews of some of its events.
posted at 12:14

 
Old-time theatre character and critic Myron Galloway has died. (I admit I hadn't realized he was still alive.)
posted at 12:11

 
In a coup de théâtre, Bob Gainey surprises fans by trading Mike Ribeiro on the eve of the regular season. They get a veteran Finnish player in exchange.
posted at 12:05