When I think of George Takei, I think about a couple of his two most famous roles: that of Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, and that of gay rights and Asian-American activist. Spokesperson for Milwaukee public transit does not necessarily come to mind.
But, sure enough, after my last post on strange public transit advertisements, a regular reader directed me to this 1980s ad featuring Mr. Sulu extolling the virtues of Milwaukee County Transit. “When I’m out in space, I use the Starship Enterprise to get around. When I’m here in Milwaukee, I ride the bus to save time and money,” he says in his characteristically rich baritone before beaming off to points unknown.
This, of course, raises a couple of vital questions such as, When are you ever in Milwaukee, George Takei? and, Were you really so broke that you were forced to do ads for public transit in Milwaukee, George Takei? I’ve heard good things about Milwaukee but its bus system wasn’t one of them.
Naturally, I was curious to find out why such a well-known actor would bother to participate in such a hokey promotion for what must be one of the least important public transit companies in North America. Takei doesn’t seem to have family or personal connections to Milwaukee: he was born in Los Angeles and has spent his entire life in California. He didn’t seem to have any post-Star Trek period of cocaine-fuelled desperation, which rules out that possibility.
Mile End underground station. Photo by Nicobobinus
There are at least three Mile Ends around the world: one in Montreal, one in London and one in Adelaide. All three share some intriguing similarities. As their name would suggest, they are all located fairly close to the centre of their respective cities: Montreal’s Mile End is about three miles north of Place d’Armes, London’s is nearly four miles east of Charing Cross and Adelaide’s is about two miles west of Victoria Square. But what else do they share? Is there some secret Mile End connection between two former colonies and Mother England?
Maybe. Each one began life as a suburb only to evolve into a decidedly inner-city sort of neighbourhood. Each is culturally diverse. Most importantly, though, each of these neighbourhoods were named for perfectly logical local reasons—but it seems clear that their names are all directly related.
To understand the origin of Mile End, you must first turn to the British capital, home to what is, undeniably, the ur-Mile End. Here, the neighbourhood took its name at least seven centuries ago from a milestone marking the spot one mile east of Aldgate, the eastern entrance into the walled City of London. In 1381, this area played host to a peasant’s revolt. Four hundred years later, at the end of the eighteenth century, it had become the Mile End New Town, a bona fide suburb of Georgian London.
One of many groups on a weekday morning, in a beautiful lakeside park in north-central Guangzhou.
Sticky summer days in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China. Guangzhou’s an old city with lots of outdoor life, especially in the parks and smaller neighbourhood streets.
Mahjong players on Guangzhou’s Shamian Island, once the European district. The set back buildings create a many wonderful places to while away a summer afternoon playing mahjong.
Suburban Toronto at night. Photo by Dennis Marciniak
In 1970, Toronto was in the throes of Apartment Fever; nearly 40 years later, we are paying for it, and dearly.
It seems like a cruel joke for a city that tries so hard to become a centre of good design, but concrete evidence of this mid-century orgy of high-rise construction exists in hard statistics: Toronto, with more than 1,700 completed high-rises, has the second largest number of skyscrapers in North America, most of these being the mid-century apartment blocks in question. For a more tangible sense of the situation, however, one only needs to walk down a random inner suburban thoroughfare, like Don Mills St. or Finch Ave.
The immediate impression is the striking banality of these apartment blocks, whose shabby air is instantly familiar to anyone from Vancouver or Sudbury. Toronto’s distinction lies in sheer numbers. On any given major avenue in Toronto’s outer boroughs—North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough—these buildings can line the street as far as the eye can see, 30-storey concrete slabs thrown haphazardly together with wind-blown voids in between, the only attempt at adornment being the brick facade (choice of red, brown, beige) and novel building shapes (Y or X). In other words, they are about as charming as Victorian mental wards.
Enter one of these buildings (note the ragtag curtains behind the windows) and one may encounters either a spartan but well-cared-for lobby—or a scene of squalor. But invariably one can smell curry or some other fragrant ethnic cooking, and white faces are hard to come by–these buildings may be eyesores, but a deeper problem is the fact that they’ve worked wonders in accomplishing segregation (racial and economic) and isolation.
Regular readers will know that Guillaume St-Jean is an exceptionally dedicated enthusiast of Montreal history. His growing collection of then-and-now photos is fascinating and informative. Often, the best ones look back not to the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries but to recent decades—the 1970s, 80s and 90s—which offer clues as to what we’ve done wrong and what we’ve done right in recent urban history.
A case in point is the above photo of an early nineteenth century cottage on Charlotte Street, an easily-overlooked downtown sidestreet near the corner of Ste. Catherine and St. Laurent. Sometime after 1985, when the top photo was taken, the house burned down and was never replaced.
Charlotte Street is in the midst of a neighbourhood that has been neglected for decades. It first developed in the eighteenth century as a faubourg strung along the old chemin Saint-Laurent. In the early twentieth century it became an important commercial district, but by the 1930s, it was better-known as Montreal’s red light district, a seedy, seething conglomeration of bars and brothels. Much of the neighbourhood was razed in the 1960s to build the Habitations Jeanne-Mance, a large public housing project in the typical Modernist mould.
On the left of the bottom photo is the Bagg Street Synagogue—a diminuitive place of worship from which the Bagg Street Klezmer Band takes its name. Meshuggah!
Calgary and Lachine are rarely mentioned in the same breath—actually, make that never. The prosperous city of one million and the working-class Montréal borough of forty thousand have little in common but for one thing: new public markets. The Calgary Farmers’ Market and the Lachine Market, both of which opened in 2004, differ significantly in size—the Calgary market could swallow its cousin in Lachine several times over—but with good management and a keen eye for community development, both could radically transform their respective neighbourhoods.
What exactly is a public market? Generally speaking, it’s a place where independent merchants gather to sell many different things—usually fruits, vegetables and other food products; but also crafts, books, antiques and anything else. Unlike an ordinary retail street, it’s centrally managed. Unlike a shopping mall, rents are low, overhead costs minimal and market management is not out to make a profit. Markets make a point of providing an alternative to mainstream retail, and this is accomplished with panache by some of North America’s biggest and best-known markets, including Seattle’s Pike Place Market, Vancouver’s Granville Island Public Market and Toronto’s Saint Lawrence Market.
Above all, markets are public spaces. Market-goers go to meet friends and neighbours and witness their city’s diversity. They go because merchants and vendors know about the products they’re selling, can cater to special requests and can offer recommendations on what to buy and how to use it. It’s the kind of relationship that is impossible to foster with faceless chain merchants, and one that is set amid the exciting sights, smells and noises of a lively, distinct area.
Last fall, work finished on one of the better planning decisions Montreal has made over the past couple of decades: the replacement of the labyrinthine interchange at the corner of Pine and Park Aves. with a surface-level intersection.
The new junction is elegant, attractively furnished and easy to navigate. It’s also empty. Destroying the interchange freed up a lot of space that is currently occupied by loose bits of rock and gravel. It seems clear that the space above Pine Avenue will be turned into park space, which only makes sense since it abuts Mount Royal and Jeanne Mance Park. But there’s a more controversial parcel of land south of Pine Avenue. A small part of it is a triangle that stretches west along Pine to Durocher Street; the rest is a square at the southeast corner of Pine and Park. All in all, the land in question covers about 5,000 square metres.
Currently, the Plateau Mont-Royal borough is figuring out what to do with it, but residents of the surrounding neighbourhood, Milton Park—better known as the McGill Ghetto—have made it known that they will only tolerate open space. “There are constant rumours that people want to build there,” Lucia Kowaluk, president of the Milton Park Citizens Committee, told the Montreal Gazette. “I know two people who work for the city who have told me in the last four months, ‘There are going to be buildings there.’”
Matt Blackett is obsessed with sidewalk stamps. He wrote about them in Spacing’s first issue and his interest was even featured in the Globe and Mail. Last month, when Matt met with a group of fellow public space enthusiasts here in Montreal, he asked us if our sidewalks were stamped too. Everyone shook their heads. “No,” they replied.
But that isn’t true. Montreal doesn’t seem to stamp its sidewalks anymore but it certainly did in the past. I’ve come across a stamp from 1922 on a Villeray sidestreet; a few weeks ago, on a balmy May evening, I noticed a lovely metal stamp embedded in the sidewalk of Park Avenue near the corner of Mount Royal. Shaped like a maple leaf, it testifies to the date of the sidewalk’s construction (1953) and the name of the contractor who built it (Charles Dufranceau).
I have no idea why Montreal abandoned the sidewalk-stamping tradition. It still seems to be practiced in Toronto; in Vancouver, sidewalks are often stamped with decorative elements, like leaves around the base of a tree. But perhaps I’m not looking hard enough: I’ll have to head down to look closely at the new sidewalks that have just been installed on the Main.
I would be surprised if more than a handful of Montrealers actually know the name of Place Vauquelin, an unassuming little square on the west side of City Hall. That doesn’t matter: it’s a well-used, well-proportioned and pleasant space nonetheless. With a large fountain at its centre, it’s a great place to sit and watch Old Montreal’s summertime crowds. As a passage between Place Jacques Cartier and the Champs de Mars, it’s probably the most picturesque way to walk to Chinatown or the metro. When a square is this thoughtfully designed, we take it for granted—but we really shouldn’t.
Montreal Apartments