A Saint On Your Doorstep
You can almost always tell when an apartment in Montreal is home to a Portuguese family: there’s usually a small tile mosaic depicting a saint next to the door. On some blocks in Montreal’s old Portuguese neighbourhood, which includes much of the western Plateau and eastern Mile End, especially the areas around Duluth, Rachel and St. Urbain streets, nearly every apartment has these tiles.
Portuguese culture has a strong tradition of azulejos, or ceramic tiles. In Lisbon, there are entire houses and churches covered in tiles. Here in Montreal, that might have been prohibitively expensive, so I guess the smaller tilework we see is a small way for Portuguese immigrants to assert their heritage. I’m curious to know what happens when a Portuguese family moves out of their apartment: do they take their tiles with them, or do they leave them for the next occupant?
Montreal Apartments
Kate McDonnell says:
In my part of Villeray there are enough Portuguese folks to keep restaurants, a bakery and a grocery store in business, but I’ve seen very few religious tiles on houses, don’t know why not.
October 31st, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Ben says:
Unless they use some weird bonding agent, they would not be able to remove the tiles. Tiles are hard things to remove.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:27 am
Kate McDonnell says:
I’ve only once noticed a patch taped over one of these tiles, presumably by a tenant who wasn’t keen.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:57 pm