Another fire, 14 September 2025

Coincidentally, there was a second fire (this time on Elmhurst Avenue) only two streets over but in the same city block a week after the fire on Westmore; the second fire, five alarms, was in a building that had not been occupied for about fifteen years. No one was injured, the apartment building had been boarded up for many years. It's possible homeless people were in the building.

Fire on Westmore Avenue

Here is the apartment building, on Westmore Avenue, where there was a fire on 05 September. These photographs were taken on 13 September 2025. When I took these photographs there were former residents leaving the building with what they could salvage from the fire, a disaster for them, and now they must find new places to live at a reasonable rent which will be difficult.

Fire on Westmore Avenue

05 September 2025

After last night’s rain and heavy winds—broken tree boughs, many branches littering the streets, loss of electricity—after that, a property fire occurred on Westmore Avenue. 

Here is the communique from our Borough mayor regarding the fire:

Update – Fire on Westmore

Our thoughts are with the residents affected by the major fire currently underway on Westmore. Videos and images circulating on social media show just how serious the situation is.

Thankfully, everyone has been safely evacuated and is safe and sound. The Red Cross is on site providing emergency housing and immediate support to those in need.

The borough has set up an emergency response team, in collaboration with OMHM and the NDG Community Council, to support residents in the coming days as they navigate this difficult time.

A heartfelt thank you to the firefighters and all first responders for their courage and swift action.

 

William Morrissey on Westmore Avenue

An hour ago I was walking on Westmore Avenue, on my way to Pharmaprix on Westminster Avenue, when a cardinal flew across the road; maybe he's here for the winter, or maybe cardinals stay all winter. Westmore was always my favourite street in this area, large lots, nicely kept Cape Cod houses, and quiet. In fact, in 1997 when we were looking at homes we looked at two houses on this block of Westmore; this was two years after the 1995 referendum on separation (we call the topic the "neverendum") and the bottom had fallen out of the real estate market; home owners were accepting rock bottom offers for their homes; what else could they do if they wanted to sell their home? Political instability will destroy the economy because business hates instability. Anyhow, those inexpensive homes from 1997 are now worth six or seven times what people paid for them, but it's almost thirty years later and house prices across the country have become prohibitively high. 

One day, years ago, my mother commented that back in the early 1950s my Uncle Bill lived on Westmore. I checked it out in Lovell's Montreal City Directory and there was his name, living in the house where the cardinal flew over the street earlier today. I think he and my Auntie Lill and possibly his son Bill Jr., stayed for a year in this house before buying a home in Ville St-Laurent. My mother was never critical of Young Bill but she was also never critical of anyone in the family.

My cousin, Young Bill, as opposed to Old Bill who was my uncle (this is how they were referred to), had been in the army in World War Two and had been part of the Canadian army that liberated Holland; his mother would speak to my mother and read her letters from Young Bill that described in detail the horrors of war. Young Bill was alcoholic and returned to Canada with possibly/probably undiagnosed PTSD; maybe when he was younger he also had Asperger's disease or ADHD, maybe that's how he would be diagnosed today. People were critical of Young Bill for his alcoholism that seems to have consumed his life. I've heard stories about him falling down drunk in the streets . . .  I don't know what became of his wife, the mother of his daughter Jo-Ann, she was never mentioned, but Uncle Bill and Auntie Lill raised Jo-Ann and she was very close to her grandparents and, as far as I know, estranged from her father. 

I haven't mentioned any of this before now; I didn't know Jo-Ann when she lived in Montreal but I got to know her on Facebook. I am sad to say that she died about a year ago. I never mentioned her father, Young Bill, to her, I felt he was persona non grata. 

This is the house at 5265 Westmore Avenue that Uncle Bill rented in 1950,
back then it would have been typical of other Cape Cod cottages, not renovated like it is now.

This is the grave of Lillian and Bill Morrissey at Mount Royal Cemetery;
their son, William Chipman Morrissey, is also buried here. He died on 27 February 1990.

William Morrissey in 1973