Montreal’s Lampposts

Montreal has a particularly varied collection of lampposts. They often seem to change from street to street, reflecting different eras with different design tastes. In Westmount, and on Esplanade Avenue facing Jeanne-Mance Park, vintage lampposts dating back to the 1920s or 30s still stand. Similarly old light standards, engraved with the city’s coat of arms, can be found in many downtown alleys. Elsewhere, lampposts range in style from coolly modern (like on Park Avenue) to gaudily faux-historic (like in Old Montreal). I’m kicking myself for not doing more to explore these different types of street lights before I left town, although some might consider that to be one step closer to doorknobs.

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Emmenez-moi

Sometimes, while taking in a stereotypically southern scene like this, I give into cliché and let my mind drift to Charles Aznavour’s Emmenez-moi:

Moi qui n’ai connu toute ma vie
Que le ciel du nord
J’aimerais débarbouiller ce gris
En virant de bord

Emmenez-moi au bout de la terre
Emmenez-moi au pays des merveilles
Il me semble que la misère
Serait moins pénible au soleil

The Montreal North Riot

Montreal is no stranger to riots. Over the course of its history, it has seen political riots, sports riots, nationalist riots and punk riots. From 1844 to 1849, Montreal was the capital of a united Canada, but imperial authorities stripped it of that status after rioters (most of them conservatives angry over the supposedly light punishment given to the 1838/39 rebels) trashed and burned down the colonial parliament. A little over a century later, Montrealers angry over the suspension of Maurice Richard left Ste. Catherine St. in tatters; the Richard Riot, as it was known, signalled the dawn of the nationalist era in Quebec life and politics. More recently, hockey fans and hooligans smashed windows and burned cars downtown after the Canadiens won the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

So what about Sunday night’s riot in Montreal North, then? It isn’t the first time mobs of angry people have burned cars and looted shops, but somehow it seems distinct from Montreal’s other riots. Maybe it’s the undercurrent of racial tension that seemed to run through the destruction. All riots start with a public united by a sense of injustice; in this case, it was frustration and anger directed against a police force and municipal authorities that seem to treat Montreal’s minorities — and in particular, blacks, Latinos and Arabs — with contempt, suspicion and, at times, violence.

Saturday’s police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old, Fredy Villanueva, seemed all too familiar to those Montrealers who still remember other incidents in which a police officer, for reasons that are never made clear, has killed a man of colour. Most recently, in 2005, Mohamed Anas Bennis was shot when he passed by an unrelated police investigation in Côte des Neiges. (Police claim that Bennis stabbed an officer, but evidence of this has never been made public.) All told, an average of 20 civilians die every year in police custody, many of them in rather shady circumstances. Whether police behaviour in these instances was justified or not, the reticence of the police to fully explain them has angered many Montrealers. Combined with the often-strained everyday interactions between police and people in neighbourhoods like Montreal North, it creates a toxic atmosphere that can easily ignite.

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Le spécialiste du melon d’eau

Watermelon stand at the Jean Talon Market

Scenes from Away

Early in 2007, when the city was under cover of snow, somebody stapled pictures of lush gardens and inviting squares onto the wooden hydro poles around Mile End. “This is where we make good on life,” it was written below one of the photos. It was a nice gesture, reminding us that gentler weather was ahead, and perhaps commenting in on the state of our public spaces by showing examples of good urban design.

Last month, the same person (or maybe just an imitator) stapled new photos around Mile End. This time, though, they depict desert landscapes, not urban spaces. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

Hoisting the Warning

If you’re not the type who constantly follows the weather, it’s a bit of a surprise when you see that a typhoon warning has been “hoisted,” as people in Hong Kong so quaintly put it. The first indications appear in office buildings, MTR stations and shopping malls: little signposts bearing a somewhat cryptic T1 logo, accompanied by the inscription, “Typhoon signal no. 1 is hoisted.” What this means, according to Hong Kong’s decidedly proactive weather observatory, is that a typhoon is within 850 kilometres of Hong Kong and, in the near future, more serious warnings might be issued.

After spotting the warning, the day’s still air and muggy humidity become more ominous: the calm before the storm, as the cliché would have it. The sense of anticipation increases as you spot more and more of the warning signs throughout the city, and even on TV, where a little “T1″ is displayed in the upper left-hand corner. You can almost feel the increase in nervous energy among your fellow pedestrians, bus riders and ferry-goers.

Hong Kong’s typhoon warning system dates back to 1884, when a gun—and later a bomb—was set off to warn the public of an approaching storm. 1917 saw the introduction of the first numbered warning signals, the same system that is in use today, with the exception of a few small refinements. After the first warning is issued, the Hong Kong Observatory can issue a number 3 warning for “strong winds,” a number 8 warning for gale-force winds, a number 9 warning for gale winds that are increasing, and a dreaded number 10 warning for hurricane-force winds of 118 km/h or more. Separate warnings are issued for thunderstorms and heavy rainfall, which makes the typhoon season a bit of a game — which storm can collect the most warnings?

Last Wednesday, shortly after I arrived in Hong Kong, I experienced my first real typhoon. Severe Tropical Storm Kammuri, as it was officially known, passed within 150 kilometres of Hong Kong, lashing it with heavy rain and sometimes frighteningly strong winds. It started the evening before with otherwise innocuous rain; by the time I woke up the next morning, winds rolling in from the sea slammed into the windows, and periodic waves of fog and rain reduced visibility to no more than a few feet. The number 8 warning was issued just before rush hour, and nearly all bus and ferry services were suspended for the day; MTR trains ran every 15 minutes. Shops and offices were closed.

I discovered most of this from watching television. The weather was too scary to venture outside, so I stared out the window at empty, rain-lashed streets. By the early evening, however, the storm had subsided. There were news reports of a toppled bus and and a fallen neon sign, but nothing too serious. After an entire day spent indoors, stir-crazy people trickled out of their apartments to buy dinner or groceries, pressing on against a strong, damp wind.

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An Unexplored Alley

For all of the things I’ve written about exploring Montreal’s laneways, and in particular those of Mile End, there are still some alleys close to home that I have never, for reasons that are beyond me, wandered down. In fact, when I walk through the lanes near home I usually take the same ones, probably by habit, and it takes a deliberate effort to step out of my routine into something a little bit out of the ordinary.

Not too long ago, before I left Montreal, I walked down the alley just east of Park Avenue, between Fairmount and Laurier, for the first time. It turned out to be full of all sorts of interesting things: discarded furniture, potted plants on windowsills, vines drooping from hydro lines and an impressive collection of graffiti and street art.

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No-Name Deps

The old axiom “build it and they will come” certainly applies to dépanneurs. You don’t need an attractive façade, windows or even a sign — as long as people know that it’s a dep, and that they can purchase there the holy trinity of Montreal needs (beer, lotto and cigarettes), they will come. The city is full of no-name deps (a figurative term, since many do have names — sometimes two or three — but nobody actually knows or cares) that manage to eke by with only the most minimal of investments.

Following My Father

My father was born in 1919 in a town near Manchester. His parents were both of Irish background, part of a wave of people who had migrated there to find work in the Lancashire mines and mills. He was an only child. By the time he was ten years old his mother had died and his father, for reasons that remain unknown, brought him to Montreal and left him with a relative of his wife’s, Margaret Ryan, and her daughter May. They hadn’t been in Canada long before my father joined their household, where he stayed until he married my mother in the late 1950s. Thomas McDonnell returned to England and never saw his son again.

When I found out that the Bibliothèque nationale had digitized Lovell’s street directories, a catalogue of Montreal residents and businesses from 1842 to 1999, I spent a few hours tracing where the Ryan household had lived in Montreal long before I was born. The directories functioned for many years much like a phone book: look up someone’s name and it gives you their occupation and a street address, although not a phone number.

I knew that the Ryans had lived in various rented premises over the years and recalled mentions of the street names and parishes. The directories made it easy to find out the exact addresses where my father had lived: 1720 Nicolet, from 1931 to 33; 4354 Fullum, in 1934; 4324 Messier, from 1935-41; 5973 Waverly, from 1942 to 50; and 5352 Park Avenue, from 1951 to 57. So I went to have a look.

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“To the Glory of God”

Chinese United Church, Second Avenue SW, Calgary

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.

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