Tel Père, Tel Fils

La Rochelle, France

Montreal, Quebec

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New Signs in Old Montreal

For all that I’ve written about Montreal’s street signs, I haven’t mentioned much about the signs found in Old Montreal, the city’s birthplace and one of its most important tourist attractions. Although the signs here are meant to reflect the red-and-beige colour scheme of the city’s first street signs, they are actually a recent invention, created in the 1980s with a somewhat contrived typeface that is meant to look historic.

For a long time, I had assumed that all of the signs in the old city were homogeneous, but on a recent walk around the neighbourhood a friend pointed out to me that there were two different types: one, mounted on buildings with the street name written in all-caps, and others, mounted on posts and written in an entirely different font. I can’t explain the difference between the two — maybe some of our readers can help.

But I did notice something else that was interesting: at the corner of Le Royer and St. Laurent there is a building with street names engraved into its façade. Just like the street signs of the 1950s, when English signs were place on one side of the street and French signs on the other, the street name on one side of the building was in English (Le Royer Street and St. Lawrence Boulevard) and in French (rue Le Royer and boulevard Saint-Laurent) on the other.

Films de Mars

The Champ de Mars is one of Montreal’s most storied places. It derives its name from the French colonial era, when it was a military parade ground, but in the eighteenth century it was the site of the city’s northern wall. After the wall was torn down in the early nineteenth century, the Champ was used as a farmer’s market. Eventually, in the twentieth century, it was converted into a municipal parking lot.

While the field was restored and converted into a public park in the 1980s, it still maintains the essence of the parking lot it once was. Despite its stunning view of the downtown skyline and its location next to City Hall and the tourist hub of Place Jacques Cartier, the Champ de Mars feels like it isn’t quite living up to its potential. Something needs to be done to make it relevant, once again, to Montrealers.

Just a couple of ideas ago, I was walking through the Champ with my friend Sam, and he proposed a great idea: why not project movies on the blank concrete wall of the Palais de Justice? Free film projections are already a big hit at Place des Arts during the World Film Festival, and thanks to Montreal’s liberalism, we wouldn’t be stuck with a bunch of family-friendly schlock. It would be a great way to bring people together while highlighting one of the city’s historically significant public spaces as well as some of its best views and architecture.

They could even be war films. How appropriate.

Looking Down on Us

The view from behind the Silo No. 5. Photo by Karl Harrison

On a late July evening, with the last fingers of dusk lingering in the sky, Karl Harrison and Roma Lake were looking for a roof to climb. They headed south to the Lachine Canal, toward the old Silo No. 5.

“We’re going up really soon. I know the way in,” said Harrison, pointing toward the silo.

But not tonight. Instead, they veered west to tackle another abandoned building in Point St. Charles.

Harrison, a photographer who works in IT, and Lake, an event planner, have been sneaking onto rooftops for several years, taking in the view from dozens of buildings around Old Montreal and the Lachine Canal.

“Once you get up there, it’s as if you’ve climbed a mountain,” Harrison said. “There’s this aspect of getting these beautiful views that nobody else is seeing.

To him, the city’s fire escapes and abandoned buildings are gateways to an extra dimension of urban space. They offer a chance to escape the bustle of city streets, but also to see and understand how the different elements of Montreal’s urban landscape fit together, like pieces of a vast toy metropolis.

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