Not Montreal’s Smallest Park, But Close
“It’s not much of a park,” said Jocelyne, a middle-aged woman sitting on a bench in St. Henri, gesturing to the small green space behind her.
“It’s okay, but you can’t call it a park because it really isn’t one. There’s no place to wander, nowhere for kids to play. It’s just two benches and a bus stop.”
Nonetheless, the small parcel of land at the corner of Notre Dame and Rose de Lima Sts. is indeed a park, and one whose name — the Parc du Bonheur d’occasion — carries far more heft than its 263-square-metre area. With a handful of trees, an attractive stone path, two benches and a bus shelter, this tiny park is one of the smallest in Montreal.
“It came into being on Nov. 30, 1994, as part of an operation by the city that gave names to a lot of other small parks in the area,” explained Dominic Duford, an urban planner for the city. “Thirteen parks were named in St. Henri on the same day, like the Parc des Hommes Forts or the Parc des Cordonniers. They’re all names that reflect the history of the area.”
Bonheur d’occasion, known as the Tin Flute in English, is the title of Gabrielle Roy’s groundbreaking 1945 novel about working-class life in St. Henri. Its stark yet compassionate realism was a revelation in a city that had long overlooked the dire conditions in which many of its citizens lived. Some even claim that Roy’s book helped inspire the social reforms of 1960s Quiet Revolution.
For such an important work, the Parc du Bonheur d’occasion might seem a somewhat underwhelming tribute. In fact, until two years ago, the park stood adjacent to a vacant lot, and the position of its sign gave the impression that the park was actually the weedy, trash-strewn terrain next door. Eventually, however, a a three-storey building with retail shops and apartments was built on the lot, giving the city the opportunity to rebuild the park.
“We installed two benches and created a path for people to cut through (from Rose-de-Lima to Notre Dame),” said Pierre Brochu, director of the southwest borough’s park services department. “It’s a really interesting park that allows people to relax and sit down and interact in public space. It wasn’t designed by an architect, but it’s still nicely done.”
Elizabeth Zeeun and Brian Dunn, a young couple who live half a block away from the park, see its appeal.
“It kind of encapsulates the socio-
economic layers of the neighbourhood. You have this crossroads between the McGill kids just passing through, the guy who parks his Porsche in front while he gets money from the bank next door, the old guys just barely struggling home from Chez Pierre (a nearby bar) and the skeezy prostitute who hangs out there at night. It’s sort of this small neutral space that everyone ignores,” Dunn said.
“When we first moved in, it was just weeds. After a while, it was redone by some craftsmen. In fact, there was this woman who was there hand-laying the stone path all day long, cutting each stone herself,” Zeeun added.
Dunn interjected: “I don’t know if it’s second-hand happiness or not, but she was investing as much time and energy in it as she would have for some rich person’s yard in Westmount.”
Tags: Montreal, Parks, Saint-Henri, Urban Design
Maria Gatti says:
I love these tiny parks (of course they can’t replace bigger ones, that is not the point). Two near me: a lovely park for children at the corner of Drolet and Bélanger in what was just an expanse of asphalt off the intersection – it has nice red-flowered and leaved decorative fruit trees – and a very odd little park on rue de Castelnau – think it is the eastern corner of avenue de Chateaubriand – just some vines, foliage and benches.
What is the smallest park?
August 30th, 2008 at 6:35 pm