Urban Blight: It’s a Gas!
Corner Saint-Laurent and Sherbrooke
A few years ago there was an outcry when McDonald’s proposed to open a branch on Park Avenue at Mont-Royal. Neighbourhood people were up in arms because its arrival threatened to create a huge eyesore at the edge of the mountain park. McDonald’s opened anyway, keeping its external signs relatively low-key: it’s still there and nobody thinks twice about it.
Not long after, just opposite, a huge garish gas station with an A&W and a dépanneur sprang up. I heard no protest, saw no one speak out against it, but there it sits, testament to the pre-eminence of the car in our lives.
Corner Park and Mont-Royal
Over the last decade, Montreal has seen an ugly invasion of highway-style service stations into its neighbourhoods. Few of its streets have been deemed off-limits for these excrescences and nothing seems to bar them from any neighbourhood save for Old Montreal. No doubt we can expect to see more of them.
It’s understood that the needs of the car are paramount, so there is no will at City Hall or in the boroughs to speak out against the construction of these visual horrors. Somehow these buildings are surrounded with a “this must be tolerated” field. Even at the corner of Sherbrooke and Saint-Laurent, right in your face in what’s currently regarded as the trendiest strip in town, is a massive gas station with a Tim Horton’s attached. I hope it gives international travellers a good laugh at our expense: Saint-Laurent Boulevard was declared a national treasure not so long ago, but even that was not enough to keep the highway from depositing one of its bastard children on its doorstep.
Corner Saint-Laurent and Jean-Talon
Such is the power of corporate suggestion that we have to make an effort to recall that something that might be a welcoming beacon by the Trans-Canada after a few hours on the highway is neither necessary nor suitable on an urban street corner. But the city is apparently powerless to stop the construction of these buildings, largely because we have collectively agreed we don’t see them and we don’t mind. But we should see them, ponder their existence and consider how their overwhelming designs have come to dominate many of our streets. We should question this blight on our neighbourhoods.
Corner Saint-Laurent and Saint-Viateur
A secondary but legitimate concern is that these stations always have a dépanneur attached. These stores represent a deeply unfair source of competition for independent dépanneurs in every neighbourhood where they appear, but I’ve heard little protest about the parachuting-in of such corporate-backed establishments to compete with the more economically vulnerable shops on our local streets.
Station service M.G., corner Saint-Denis and Guizot
And yet gas stations have existed equably within the fabric of the city for decades – stations built on a scale and in a style compatible with their surroundings. Some still exist, although these spots are the ones that tend to fall in and be converted into monster glitz service stations at the drop of a hat.
Corner Saint-Hubert and Gounod
A few examples are shown here of older stations that are still in operation; there’s absolutely no reason why modern stations can’t also be built on a similar scale and in a style to harmonize with their setting. It would be admirable if the city added to its new “green” transit plan a means to hold back the proliferation of the mega-glitz style of service stations, and preferably to bar such establishments from offering any services besides fuelling up vehicles.
Esso station, Nuns Island
One of the city’s obscure architectural gems is this Mies van der Rohe building on Nuns Island that’s a tiny essay in the purest international style. It’s also an Esso station. So don’t tell me it can’t be done. It only remains for us to demand it.
Tags: Montreal
Montreal Apartments
hyfen says:
The last gas station plays a large part in the Canadian documentary about Mies van der Rohe:
http://www.frif.com/new2005/regu.html
It’s at the top of my list of things to see for my next visit to Montreal
May 20th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Christopher DeWolf says:
The Mies station is great. The Esso signage kind of detracts from it but it’s still a good example of how gas stations can be designed to look something other than bland and unremarkable.
In Paris, gas stations often consist of a couple of pumps built right into the sidewalk next to a garage, which itself is situated in the ground floor of a building just like any other storefront. I stayed across the street from such a station and I didn’t notice any smell.
May 20th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Kate McDonnell says:
I’d settle for bland and unremarkable. It’s huge, garish, overly lit up and gigantically out of proportion to the surrounding urban fabric that I have a problem with.
May 20th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Patrick says:
The other problem is that when these urban gas stations do close, there is no law/procedure in place to ensure that someone (Esso, municipal govt., provincial govt., …) covers the cost of decontaminating the soil so something else can be built. I wonder if this problem has been tackled efficiently elsewhere.
I’m not sure if our over-prudent laws about soil contamination/security would allow the construction of parisian-style gas stations.
I agree about the garish designs being innapropriate in an urban setting, but not sure I agree about the dépanneurs. I think it’s our responsibility as shoppers to decide where we shop. Given the choice, I’ll buy my pint of milk at a dépanneur that adds something to the urban environment than at a suburban gas station in the middle of downtown
Speaking of garish designs, some of the bars on lower Saint-Laurent give these gas stations a good run for their money.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:33 am
Dan says:
An increasing number of city and suburban governments in the US are adopting architectural and site planning requirements for commercial uses. Regulations for gas stations often incorporate the following:
* High quality materials are required: brick, masonry, hardy board, or something more granular and organic than tilt-up concrete or pre-fabricated metal.
* Primary colors cannot be used for the building’s dominant color.
* Vehicle service areas and bays must be sited so visibility from the street is as low as possible
* Co-branded uses must be architecturally integrated into the building.
* Canopy fascias must be the same color as the dominant color of the main building; internal illumination, striping and banding and primary colors is prohibited.
* Canopy pole covers must be brick or masonry; not sheet metal.
* Canopies must include design elements found on the main building, including color, materials and roof pitch.
* Under-canopy lighting must be flush to the ceiling.
* Reverse frontage (building in front, canopy in rear) for sites in an urban context.
* Unrelieved pavement area on the site must be broken up using landscaping, contrasting colors and banding, or areas surfaced by brick pavers or textured concrete.
* Outdoor storage areas, trash containers, tank vent pipes and vending machines must be screened.
* Temporary displays such as a-frame signs and banners on light poles are prohibited.
* Piped music and loud beeping and screeching alerts are prohibited.
May 21st, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Eric says:
The Mies gas station got a “beautiful but unusable” designation from Jean Belisle when I took his Architecture and Urbanism in Montreal course.
Petro Canada strikes me as having tried to design a nice gas station (with brick-lined beds of shrubs by the sidewalk), but unfortunately only designed it once, so all their stations of a certain vintage or renovation date are clones sitting there ignoring their surroundings.
May 21st, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Esso backwards is ossé at Fagstein says:
[...] Kate McDonnell has some words (and photos) about downtown gas stations, calling them “urban [...]
May 21st, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Zvi says:
In general in Europe, urban gas stations are very small and not very noticeable (probably because there are just so few of them). I walked all over Lisbon last month, and can only recall seeing one gas station (which was similar to what Chris described in Paris)!
Anyway, one welcome trend in Montreal is that more and more gas stations are in fact being removed and converted into other uses. Quite a few Park Ave and Van Horne gas stations are now condos. Now if only they would start doing this closer to the metro stations….
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:17 am
jr says:
Thanks for the article. My question, as a new resident of the city/province/country is; from whom do we demand such changes? I’ve heard recent grumblings about the new transport plan and I have an interest in transportation planning but in trying to educate myself how things get done around here, I get easily confused, discouraged and completely thwarted by the beaurocracies in place. Maybe you could point to some emails where people can at least voice their opinions and have some involvement.
In Arizona, where I used to live, many petrol stations were shut down by the state in recent years when owners could not afford to ensure/insure that site contamination would be remediated. Good: that toxic sites are getting cleaned, even at taxpayers expense. Bad: that these, often smaller stations, give way to large “convenience” stations like you see at Sherbrooke and St. Laurent. (only really, REALLY big to fit the absurd scale that cars consume in life in Arizona).
It seems to me that Montreal has the opportunity by its geography to be largely car-free. The population needs to lead that direction. It’s a generalization, but the people here in Quebec seem to value quality of life over the quest for income. What better quality of life than to be car free?
There are multiday, multicity, organized conventions on petrol/convenience store franchising put on by the major players whose interest is in divying up major population centers in order to increase profitability. It’s not a secret, it’s just business and it’s happening because people keep driving. All you have to do is make some conscious decisions to protect your quality of life.
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:05 am
clive says:
Does anyone know why the station at Rachel and deBullion (just east of the main) closed and what will take its place?
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:17 am
Ian Rogers says:
Interesting you should single out the gas station on St. Laurent & Sherbrooke as an example of intrusiveness, there’s actually been a gas station on that spot at least since the 30’s. Not that I bring this up to defend its lack of aesthetic appeal, but rather to point out that this phenomenon is not particulary new.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/greynotgrey/232387372/in/set-1308018/
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:59 am
Chris says:
Does anyone know what is happening to the site of the old gas station that was on Sherbrooke (I think near Clifton) in NDG?
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:45 pm
gas stations a new building of interest? « urban-ism says:
[...] dedicated to the ubiquitous form that appears everywhere in North America. Urbanphoto has written a great article on the gas station’s creeping influence on Montreal – there is a lament for great [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
bas says:
even more intense at night.
see link here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51506760@N00/157088288/in/set-72157594145221595/
October 26th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Kate McDonnell says:
I have to note with a touch of sadness that the Station service M.G., corner Saint-Denis and Guizot, pictured above, was demolished this week to make way for a condo project.
November 11th, 2007 at 1:15 am