A Hidden Street
I’ve always been intrigued by Demers Street. It’s a tiny street in the north end of the Plateau, running parallel to Villeneuve between Coloniale and Hôtel de Ville, lined mostly by cute duplexes built around 1900 to house workers from the nearby quarries.
Demers was just another back lane in a working-class neighbourhood full of them. That is, until 1969, when a group of five architecture students decided to embark on the renovation of the street, an early example of grassroots restoration at a time when the normal impulse would have been to tear the entire thing down and build anew. Jacques Giraldeau, a director with the National Film Board of Canada, made a documentary of the renovation, Les fleurs c’est pour Rosemont. “Ce film montre le travail accompli par les jeunes professionnels et les habitants de la rue; les déceptions qui, de part et d’autre, n’ont pas manqué de surgir et le malaise sur lequel s’est close l’expérience,” reads the NFB’s description. “Un documentaire propre à inspirer de salutaires leçons à ceux qui désirent oeuvrer auprès des classes sociales défavorisées des grandes villes.”
It’s hard to envision today’s Demers Street as the setting for the “classes sociales défavorisées.” Pedestrianized for one block, its asphalt paving has been removed and replaced with a stone pathway and narrow garden. In the summer, it’s remarkably verdant, but I like it even more in the winter, when the snow piles up and it feels like somewhere you’d expect to find a colony of elves. I’m not entirely sure who lives in the houses that flank Demers, and whether there’s a strong sense of community in this tiny street, but it certainly seems like the kind of place that would bind people together by virtue of its oddness.
Check out the NFB’s website to see a clip of Demers in 1969 along with some cool archival photos.
