The Leonard Cohen memorial mail box

Walking along Westminster Avenue below Sherbrooke Street West, I found a Leonard Cohen decorated mailbox. Must mail all of my letters here. Then on to where the Motel Raphael used to be located, it was demolished years ago and now we have more beautiful condos with a terrific view of train tracks and a highway. Gentrification takes all the character out of a place and is a spreader of ugliness. 

This is the Leonard Cohen Memorial Mailbox, on Westminster near St. Jacques;
it has since been removed.

First Robin of 2021

Motel Raphael, August 2011

Fire destroys the famous Motel Raphael, August 2011. No longer can you dream of the Motel Raphael as a last resort, a safe harbour in the homelessness of modern life...

The Motel Raphael today...

Someone had big plans to build on the site of the old Motel Raphael, just off Highway 2 & 20, the St. Jacques exit. Anywhere else this may have been a good plan, location, traffic, proximity to other buisnesses, it all seemed idea, but it seems to have fizzled out here in Montreal. The Motel Raphael was a fixture in this area of the city, a low cost motel... Photo taken in January 2011.

The Motel Raphael

I drove passed the Motel Raphael for years. The Motel Raphael, located just off the St. Jacques exit on highway 20... When I was a child, sitting beside my mother in our 1961 Pontiac as we returned from my future step-father's apartment in the West Island, we drove by the Motel Raphael. I remember on those occasions sitting beside Mother, singing "Me and My Shadow" in the darkness, on our way home to Oxford Avenue in N.D.G. When I lived in Huntingdon we'd pass the Motel Raphael on the way to the Mercier Bridge and arrive home an hour later; I'm glad those days of commuting are over. Later Artie Gold lived at the Motel Raphael, no money, screwed out of the trust money his father had left for him, the social services agency placed him at the motel; eventually the trust was discovered and Artie moved to the Westmore Apartments on Sherbrooke Street West, where he lived until February 2007. I've heard of others, hard on their luck, living at the Motel Raphael. Now it has a new name, bought by a chain, perhaps it's King's Inn... but stay happy, you need never be homeless, there is always the Motel Raphael (it will always be the Motel Raphael to some of us) where you can live. Yes, I've thought of living there myself. I even priced a room a few years ago. It's a short walk up the hill to a 24 hour MacDonald's, to Picasso's Restaurant if they ever reopen, Super C for inexpensive groceries, and then turn left on Cavendish, walk through the underpass, and a block later you're at the corner of Sherbrooke and a number 105 bus waiting to take you downtown, back to civilization in about twenty minutes. Hurrah for the Motel Raphael! We need never be homeless!