Driving by St. Joseph's Oratory

My friend, Audrey Keyes (Veeto), used to say that wherever her mother lived in Montreal she could see the Oratory. She could walk out of her home on Oxford Avenue, or her apartment on Sherbrooke Street West, or the Manoir Westmount where she lived her final years, or even her childhood home just half a block from the Manoir Westmount, on Landsdowne Avenue in Westmount, and in the distance was the looming presence of St. Joseph's Oratory. Or even from, and maybe especially from, her window on Five South of St. Mary's Hospital where Mrs. Keyes died, and see the huge dome of the Oratory. 

On Queen Mary Road at Cote de Neiges Road

The Oratory is closed due to pandemic restrictions; meanwhile, renovations are taking place 

St. Joseph's Oratory in the distance, taken on Terrebonne just outside the rear gates into Loyola College

 

Last snowfall of winter 2020

It is not unusual to have snow in April, as we did this year on April 21. It is even possible to have snow in May which is why garden planting day is May 24, Victoria Day, the last day for frost.

The Twins' Parade at the Comedy Festival

We used to go to the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival on rue St-Denis (https://www.hahaha.com/en). During the day there were activities, a twins' parade for instance, and twins from all over the province and elsewhere would celebrate their "twinness". It was lots of fun and reminds me of twins I've seen; for instance, two old men, identical twins, who lived on Girouard Avenue and dressed alike, they even had the same white beards. I think the best show I saw at the Comedy Festival was hosted by Dame Edna (John Barry Humphries) in 2005; Dame Edna was brilliant as were the comics she introduced. There was also Whoopie Goldberg (in 2009), and others. For years they rebroadcast these performances on TV; sometimes, to great surprise, you'd see someone you knew in the audience. After the show at Théâtre St-Denis we'd go to an Italian restaurant on the same street, seating was on the second floor and it would be packed with tourists and Montrealers; doors to a balcony, where some people were eating, were left open and you'd see the heads of giant mannequins passing by from the second floor. Outside it was full of people, wall to wall people, everybody eating, talking, laughing, enjoying a summer evening, or watching someone who was painted grey and appeared to be a statue that came to life; these performances, and others, were amazing. The good news is that, all going well, the Comedy Festival returns this summer!

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..