This will be demolished for more condos

I'm not saying that this building (it's the Village Shopping Plaza located on the corner of Robert Burns and Cote St-Luc Road), and another in front of it, are now or ever were attractive but there was a restaurant here and other businesses, plus offices on the upper floors (not visible here). People worked here, socialized here, bought stuff and sold stuff, had clothes made here, had their hair done here, bought food here, had a daycare here, sold antiques here, had a life here. You can't keep every building; out with the old and in with the new. But had this building been maintained it would still be a viable part of our community. But the land is worth more than what the present building was bringing in. There is also an empty lot for sale across the street (Westover and Robert Burns) from the Terrasse Robert Burns Restaurant that is also for sale. The empty lot, like this building, has a Hydro Electric pylon running across it. Great view from your living room window. 

On one level we are condo-saturated; on another level we are building condos for foreigners to buy and in some cases not to inhabit but to sit empty. Some of these condos will be Airbnb, party time places for tourists but not a way to build our community.  

What a dump.

This is all falling apart.

Buildings on the left and right will be demolished; that's a condo across the street.

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...

Good Friday morning on the Loyola Campus

It's quiet here on the Loyola Campus; classrooms are empty, dorms closed, library closed, no students on campus for over a year. 

 

Facing Sherbrooke Street West, chapel on the right

The Vanier Library

Main administration building

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

Walking by Caserne 46 on Somerled Avenue

My grandfather, John R. Parker, was captain at Station/Caserne 46 on Somerled Avenue back in the 1940s; it was country back then, apple orchards and farmers' fields. My grandparents lived at 2217 Hampton Avenue, near the railway tracks, in a duplex they bought after many years of living in apartments, the last one on de la Montagne where my grandfather was also the janitor. Before Caserne 46 he was at the Central Fire Station, the building is now a museum, in Old Montreal. When my mother was a child she used to walk to the Central Fire Station to deliver my grandfather's lunch to him. One of my grandfather's brothers was at Station/Caserne 11 in downtown Montreal so we have two firemen in the family and we're proud of them. Whenever I walk by Caserne 46, or I see the big red fire engines moving through the streets, I think of my grandfather and I think of the brave fire fighters in the Montreal Fire Department (now the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal). 

Reading Irving Layton on the first day of spring

On this first day of spring, 2021: enjoying re-reading Irving Layton's Waiting for the Messiah. Layton writes,

The importance of Montreal to me as a poet cannot be over stressed. The city gave me the confidence, the tools, the stimulating friendships and rivalries. It gave me a literary milieu comparable to what Paris had given the American expatriates, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. In the early forties, it was in Montreal where Canada’s first sounds of poetry were heard.

Last day of winter at Strathearn Park

19 March 2021.

 

Walking on Sherbrooke Street West

Apartment building entrances on Sherbrooke Street West between Montclair and Coronation; 

18 March 2021.. 

 

Corner of Robert Burns and Cote St-Luc Road

 

Moving towards spring 2021

Back walking to Meadowbrook Golf Course a few days ago, it is a favourite walk because for a few minutes you feel you are in the country. It's + 11 C today, overcast, and rainy; it's not spring yet but we are moving towards spring and all that means (more walks, gardening, birds in the garden and bird bath, longer days, no winter coats or boots, and so on). Two Russian girls were walking ahead of me and this reminded me that there are many Russian immigrants who live near here. I was walking through Montreal West and just as I turned the corner to walk to the golf course a man said Good Morning; this is a community where people say hello to strangers. Maybe there is some winter left but this rather mild winter will soon be over. Unlike some, I believe in the predictable life, I like where I live, I like the people who live here, I like the most conservative, quiet, inward life that is possible in today's world.