Demolishing Ecole Ste. Catherine de Sienne, late February 2018

Ecole Ste-Catherine-de-Sienne was demolished due to asbestos in the original construction; a new school with the same name was built on the site. Located on Somerled Avenue near Coronation Avenue.

A house on Connaught Avenue

 Mid-June, 2023.

Where Trenholme Park meets de Maisonneuve

De Maisonneuve Blvd West, between Girouard Avenue and West Broadway Avenue, used to be called Western; up to the early-1950s it was a dirt road. It was country-like back then and people would go for walks along Western. From 1950 to 1954 we lived at 2226 Girouard with my grandmother and Auntie Mable, and my grandmother's sister, my Great Aunt Essie. That's seven people in a fairly large flat, but it's still a lot of people. My mother's parents lived at 2217 Hampton Avenue which is a short walk along Western from Girouard. Today, de Maisonneuve is a through street, you take it to avoid traffic on Sherbrooke West; only the stop signs slow people down. There is a bike path and the train tracks running beside de Maisonneuve are used by commuter trains going from downtown Montreal out to the West Island and beyond. The CPR long ago gave up passenger service to other cities on these tracks. 

    Here are some photographs, taken yesterday morning, of de Maisonneuve Blvd at the bottom of Trenholme Park. Trenholme was mayor of NDG when it was a separate municipality from Montreal, now it is part of the NDG-CDN Borough which, by the way, has a larger population than the province of Prince Edward Island but none of the advantages of being a province. k 

    BTW, the streets on either side of Trenholme Park are Park Row East and Park Row West; Sherbrooke Street West on the north and Blvd de Maisonneuve on the south.

Looking south to de Maisonneuve Blvd

Looking north to Sherbrooke Street West

Some of these maple trees must be seventy to eighty years or older

de Maisonneuve Blvd West

The modern 1960s building above is a part of the park; there used to be a skating rink below the building which is where I lost teeth playing hockey...

Honey bees at hydrangea flowers, July 2016

A favourite activity, watching honey bees foraging for nectar and pollen in flowers... here is the latest video on that.

Chanting at the Buddhist temple

Out walking in Montreal West when I made a detour back to my own neighbourhood, the borough of Notre Dame de Grace. Passing the old Rosedale United Church on Terrebonne, seeing the labyrinth outside of Dewey Hall, and that the Hall is now a Buddhist Temple. Standing outside the temple and listening to the chanting coming from inside...

Waiting for a bus

Sunset at Gilbert Layton Park

Moon over Gilbert Layton Park

A happy occasion in NDG, May 10, 2013

Cardinal in back yard at Belmore

A bleak lawn

Why so serious?

Grafitti on the front of the old Merton School, now a study center for autism, on Connaught Avenue and West Broadway in NDG. Why so serious?

A New Hope, Graffiti

Most graffiti in NDG is fairly ugly, it's tagging. There are also some ridiculous laws about graffiti, they make landlords responsible for removing graffiti, at their own expense or they face hefty fines. Meanwhile, the borough does little to prevent graffiti... Some graffiti seems a synchronistic message from the Universe,  it seems to be speaking to one's inner needs, it is a voice telling you what you need to hear. "A New Hope" is one of those voices. Whoever maintains the building on which this is written keeps painting over the message but it keeps reappearing.

The Chalet Bar-B-Q near NDG Park

Here is the Chalet Bar-B-Q, a block from Girouard Avenue. As I'm driving home from work, getting off the Decarie Expressway, I drive up the exit ramp to Sherbrooke Street West, the smell of chickens cooking permeating the air, and I always think one of two things: it's either I wouldn't want to live near the Chalet Bar-B-Q because of the smell of cooking or I think I'd like to eat supper there and I should go more often . . . The Chalet Bar-B-Q was opened around 1940 and I doubt they've changed the decor since then.  The place has a rustic appearance with wood paneled walls, friendly waitresses some of whom have been there since the the 1970s, and we always make the usual order: creamy coleslaw, a quarter chicken and french fries, served with their own BBQ sauce and a toasted white bun. I am not sure they have these establishments in other places but there is a Quebec-based chain of trendy St. Hubert BBQ restaurants that can now be found in Ontario. In addition to this, there is the Cote St-Luc BBQ on Cote St. Luc Road near Girouard; and the New System BBQ cars seem to deliver to remote locations from their restaurant on rue Notre Dame. Back in the 1940s the Chalet Bar-B-Q didn't provide cutlery, they did have finger bowls and you were expected to pick up the chicken and enjoy it that way, but that's long changed. Imagine that. Before the ubiquitous McDonald's.

BTW, NDG Park is known to many of us as Girouard Park, that's what we always called it.

 

That's Girouard Avenue at the far left, as we drive south, cross
Sherbrooke Street West, and arrive at
my grandmother's flat at 2226 Girouard Avenue