CBC site: 1958 and now

Skidmarks on your china?

Machine washes laundry and dishes

Le Petit Journal

March 23, 1947

Mr. T.R. Reid, sales manager of the Thor-Canadian Company Ltd., gave a demonstration at the Windsor Hotel of his company's new washing machine. This machine, which can wash and dry laundry or dishes with equal efficiency, is the first of its kind to be marketed since the end of the war. Mr. Reid also demonstrated a new pressing machine that, unlike other pressing machines, is capable of ironing a shirt.

F.M. McGovern, chairman of the company also spoke a words about his company's products. In particular, he revealed that, despite an inability to estimate specific production figures for 1947, he is confident that this year will witness significant progress in the washing-machine industry.Mr. Reid added that he hopes that this washing machine and pressing machine will be commonly used by hosewives in Canada.

Quizday night quiz: What's this?

No, it IS a fair question. There are hundreds of them. Thousands of Montrealers have looked at them. They only recently became visible.

Answertime: Flow got it; see comments. It is indeed from a newly reconfigured metro car and one of "the remnants of the old poles in the center of the floor." It's one of the last traces of the old, single poles that made you (shudder) almost touch someone else's hand. Now they have the Paris-inspired triple-pole variety -- for your sanitary protection. The new poles have been installed a few feet away from the old ones, which have been removed.

Death Race Montreal!

Tom Cruise is making a movie in Montreal. Well he's producing it anyway, and there's no sign that he'll be in the $80 million Death Race that's being shot now starring Jason Statham and Max Ryan, two bodacious anything-but-brittle Brits. The feelm is a remake of Death Race 2000 starring a Carridine and I'll raise you a Stallone. This here a moment of the film.

Our set spy (Chimples the Intelligent chimp clad in a not-very-convincing people suit) reports that Ryan is a jovial guy and Statham is more on the serious side.

Hey bus driver, save up a little bit

Hats off to the patriotic bus drivers of yesteryear.

It's an almost surreal to imagine a Montreal bus driver wearing a Maple Leaf lapel pin today. But 50 years ago, they were among the world's biggest underwriters of Canadian debt.

And of all the Montreal Transit Company employees, none were bigger buyers of Canadian debt in the form of Canadian Savings Bonds than those of the east end Hochelage division. No less than three of them, pictured here, spent at least $1,000 a year on CSBs -- a gargantuan slice of their paycheques.

Besides the irrelevant rich guy in the suit, this picture shows (presumably left to right) bus driver Paul-Emile Simard, whose $16,000 investment in CSBs (topped up over 15 years) bought him a duplex -- cash. Garage supervisor Paul Saillant's $5,000 in bonds paid for his trip to Europe (surely first class!), while tramway conductor Michel Manocchio set his $4,000 aside for his daughters' education (maybe they supported him after the trams were chopped).

Nowadays, the drivers' investments are mostly handled by the Caisse de Depot et de Placement, which the provincial ADQ party would like to see depleted by propping up Quebec ownership of competitive industries.

Breaking up is hard to do -- but not as hard as it used to be

What do a prison guard, a plumber and an adjuster have in common? They were all being sued for divorce in Montreal fifty years ago.

The reason? The usual: adultery.

Getting a divorce was different back in those days. First you had to hang your laundry in public by placing an ad in a newspaper stating your reasons for seeking a divorce. Then your representatives went on to petition Parliament -- where your name and claim would be read out on a list. Only once a bill was passed approving your divorce could you untie the knot. Of course, all these steps cost lots of moola.

For starters, each of these ads published 24 October 1957 cost the respective plaintiffs about $3.50 to publish; that's the equivalent of about ten packs of smokes.

There are English ads, too, but just not online.

All this so you could get to Boucherville?

We're all for connecting Montreal island to the mainland because we need maximum possible means of escape until the flying car is invented. But countless treasures were demolished in Longue Pointe - 2,000 homes in all - for the road to be built from Notre Dame to the shoreline entrance to the Lafontaine Tunnel. The Church was from 1719. The John McVey House was 241 years old when demolished in 1963. But nobody protested or fought city hall. They just felt a little sad and left. Weird, eh?

Quebec's Hitler

We've recounted the crazy antics of Quebec's first fascist leader, JA Chalifoux, who led a labour group in the 1930s. If you were curious of what he looked like, well whoomp, here he is.

12 KIDS, NO JOB

This here happy looking man is Edgar Harvey whose wife Mrs. Harvey was an epileptic (who underwent three operations) and kept on popping out kids from her belly. They were poor in Pointe aux Trembles before they moved to Montreal North where they were poor again. Here aged 34 they had popped out eight kids and had another pair of twins die in early childhood in 1952. Eight of their dozen were placed with other parents as dad couldn't find work. They lived in a $65 apartment at 12400 Edgar in Montreal North. Mom said the kids had never received a single present in their lives.

They were - in this 1958 photo - from left to right first row Diane Harvey, 7, Christiane Harvey, 7 (twins), Denise Harvey 6 and a half, Celine Harvey, Micheline Harvey 5 and a half (twins). Top row, Hugette Harvey, 10 1/2, Jocelin Harvey (Jocelyn Harvey?), 4, Gilles Harvey, 3, Norman Harvey, 9. They had two other kids who were born after this photo was taken.

Montreal needs the world's first Dancers' Corner

This guy, this kid and this guy have been providing something the city needs desperately. Dancing fools. We've said it before (err, no we haven't - ed) and we'll say it again (no we won't - ed), but what this city needs is a designated corner downtown where people can spontaneously dance. Simply, it's a small stage that anybody can get up on and shake booty, comely vixens entirely welcome. Dancing people invigorate spectators and spread joy, (spread germs in the case of the hippies at the Tam Tams -ed.). All it would take is a stage about 30 square feet, with a couple of speakers. You plug in your MP3 Player and you're off to dancing-chickenland. There's a waiting list and a time limit. It's easy and cheap to manage. A heated transparent cylinder for winter dancing. Downtown, Metcalfe and St. Catherine should snatch up this idea before those buffoons in the Spectacle Area try to steal it.

Quiz - identify this possibly prematurely gleeful gang

These locals had their photo shot together at the courthouse in mid-September. They're suing the Journal de Montreal and appear confident in their chances of a favourable verdict due at the end of October (ie: now). Can anybody guess what far-out group they're part of and perhaps explain what the hottie Asian on the left is wearing around her neck?

Hint 1- The main person associated with the group (not in photo) is a short little bald guy with a European accent who is said to originally be from a place very, very, very far away.

Answer: They are, of course, Raelians. They're suing the Journal de Montreal over a series of reports in which a female reporter infiltrated the group and recounted details of the cult. It was a snoozer. The group is suing over the reproduction of photos without their permission. We hope they lose, as Quebec's photo laws repress free speech.

Semi celebs return

Be it noted that Vancouver-born CanCon radio star David Usher (the underfed guy putting up shelves in the photo to the left) has moved back to Montreal after living in New York for a few years. He explains why on his site.

Montreal…happy to be home!
July 22nd, 2007

So this has been the crazy week…
The plan was to spend the summers in Montreal. New york is too hot and Montreal comes to life as soon as the weather breaks, well after 7 days of creativity, friends and probably too much wine, Montreal had reminded me of all the things I missed about this place.
To make a long story short, Sabrina looked at me 2 nights ago and said ‘wanta move back” to which I responded a simple ‘yes’
20 minutes of talk later and we are Montrealers again.
Im really excited to be back in Canada (a bit afraid of winter, but fear is good right?!)
I had forgotten how much making out there is on the street corners here, that’s my kind of city. Leonard eat your heart out.

Filmmaker Albert Nerenberg has also moved back recently from Toronto. Like Usher, Albert's aim was to spend spring and summer in Montreal but strangely chose the end of that season to return. Enjoy the winter lads.

How to save a little doe

The dog's owner -- a hunter who bagged this fine deer -- wisely decided to go for a beer or twenty with his friends without having his trophy poached by some passer-by. So he stationed his trusty hound on his car roof to keep an eye on things. This shot was taken downtown in the fall of '67 on Osborne Street, now La Gauchetiere, by Windsor Station.

Quiz - who is this rehabilitated criminal?

This angry young man has lost his hair and anger, but he didn't do it in time before committing some very serious crimes. Alas he has shed his stigma and is now a prominent and well-known commentator who speaks of his wide experience which includes his views on Cuba.

Here is your answer: It is indeed Jacques Lanctot. Here is a more recent photograph of him. The earlier black and white photo failed to faithfully reflect Lanctot's unique skin and hair coloration, a factor that made it considerably easier for police to find him.

Just when he thought it was safe...

Back in the days when guys actually baited hooks instead of chugging buck-a-bottle beer in front of the Fishing Channel, the appearance of a cute little Flipper like this in Montreal's harbour tended to generate a great deal of murderous excitement. When it happened a hundred years ago this week, bloodthirsty chaps on both sides of the river were getting all fired up, and renting boats and weapons to see who could massacre the little guy first. Any wonder why you'll never see a harbour porpoise round these parts today? Here's our translation of one original account:

WHO WILL HAVE THE HONOUR OF CATCHING THE STRANGE FISH?
Friday 18 Oct. 1907
La Patrie
Pp. 1

---
It is the opinion of most that the fish which habituates the area around the sugar refinery is a harbour porpoise.
---
As La Patrie has been saying for the past three or four days, a fish that is believed to be a fine example of the harbour porpoise (or of a related species), is causing a stir among amateur fishermen and hunters in Longueil and Montreal.

Again yesterday, Mr. Joseph Simard, a hotellier based on Notre Dame Street, along with Mr. Louis Berger and several friends, boarded the yacht of Mssrs. Clark and Vincent of Longueil, to capture this remarkable specimen.

Despite all their efforts, the devoted hunters were unable to harpoon or kill this valiant and brave son of the sea.

It is in the vicinity of the sugar refinery that this would-be shark, whale or habour porpoise seems to enjoy himself best.

NOW AND AGAIN

he can be spotted but just as soon, he vanishes.

Nevertheless, the brave nimrods haven't given up despite yesterday's poor showing, and they set out once again this morning, as driven as ever to land this evasive cetecean.

The general opinion is that it is a kind of harbour porpoise, which we shall describe in brief.

The habrour porpoise is part of the Phocoenidae family. These are small dolphins, with round heads and short beaks. They are commonly seen in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean, etc.

The common species that is most often seen are those that travel in large groups that follow ship to poach bait. It is a voracious fish that greatly disturbs other acquatic animals and is excessively agile.

These small cetecans are also hunted for their oil.

Now who will be the happy conquerer of this skilled swimmer who averts the guns and harpoons of our passionate hunters and fishermen?

Quiz of the day - name that person, or at least the moustache

Chimples the Intelligent Chimp laughs at the office rule here stating that all employees must shave on their lunch break (yes, women as well.) He thinks we`re primitive as hell for slavishly following this bizarre and pathetic ritual. This man in the photo, however, hails from an era which refused to practice the polite ritual. He threw caution to the winds and let his upper lip get hairy as a Greek`s butt. So who is this exceptional man, and why is he smiling... if you can nae answer that, please offer a description of wondrous man hair. The winner gets a T-shirt of Chimples playing ping pong while smoking a cigar... oh, well cancel that, the shirts were stolen from a truck outside of Coolopolis Towers.

Answer: We have a correct answer. This is John David Kahibaitche, an Algonquin from PEI who changed his name to John Chabot (possibly in honour of another Algonquin chief from Maniwake). This photo was snapped after he scored what turned out to be the series winner against the Quebec Nordiques, assisted by Naslund and Lafleur. It was as good as it gets for John who would record an impressively bad -37 for the Pittsburgh Penguins the next year before eventually moving to Germany and playing for the Berlin Prussians. He is now assistant coach in Long Island with fellow native Ted Nolan. Chimples says Chabot would have been remembered better had he played with a Dali moustache.

1962 prision riots - nothing but fond memories

45 years ago the Canadian Army was brought in to St. Vincent de Paul in Laval (now reduced to a mere minimum security joint) to quell a riot.

Panty snatcher nabbed

In June 1963 Montreal police made a major breakthrough in their battle against chronic panty snatching plaguing Ahuntsic and Cartierville. They nabbed Gerard Racette, a mechanic and ex-con, in possession of stolen watches and panties. He confessed that the jewelry was just a byproduct of the search for his real target, ladies panties! Chimples the monkey claims that he can tell from the photo that it was a frame-up and has been trying to arrange a retrospective phone interview, but he insists on leaving the human voice synthesizer at the Shirley Temple setting and nobody is taking him seriously.

BILL vs. bill

These two receipts, which were issued this past summer, offer about the same amount of information but tell very different stories of habitual paper consumption. The big one is from a restaurant in Montreal. The wee one is from a cafe in Instanbul, Turkey. Both are typical receipts from the two cities and accurately demonstrate their relative scale. Maybe we all need to go the movies.

Ketching up with a new game crowd

This special-edition Heinz Ketchup packet, which turned up today in a local souvlaki joint, is one of 200 million featuring questions and answers from the new Trivial Pursuit Totally 80s edition. Trivial Pursuit, for those of you who slept through the '80s, is a board game that was invented by two Montreal guys as they were playing a game of Scrabble on Dec. 15, 1979. Their idea became a sensation and went on to make them millions of dollars. Guess they're trying to scramble their way back to the top.

Win $50k? Not in Quebec

What would you do if you won? Forget it if you live in Quebec. The provincial government "protects" us against things like that.

Desecrated Roslyn turns 100

Roslyn School in Westmount turned 100 years old this month. It was built to withstand fire, earthquake and flood. But it didn't stand a chance against Bill 101 and the cowering school-board types who had its proud name filled in with concrete.

Break out the chisels, boys, and easy on the typeface!

Quizzermania!!!

Who is this myopic prick? He settled here from Western Europe to work in a respectable profession, got some attention by introducing some bad ideas in Montreal in the early 60s before disappearing overseas, his departure doubtlessly encouraged by Canadian governments. His post-Montreal whereabouts and ultimate fate remain a mystery.

Hint 1: He was Belgian and was involved in the Belgian resistance before moving here to a university teaching post.

Answer: Looks like Coolopolites were stumped for once. This king of the dorks is FLQ co-founder Georges Schoeters. He spent three years in prison in relation to the murderous attacks on innocent people in 1963. Upon his release in 1966 he took off and never returned.

Chinese residents stage parade for famine relief in '21; First of its kind in city

Montrealers had never seen anything like this before. On 11 September 1921, members of of the city's ethnic Chinese population marched in the streets to raise money for famine relief for the north of China, where the harvest had failed. One newspaper described the scene:

The Chinese of Montreal yesterday paraded a symbolic lion in their neighbourhood amidst the noise of drums, gongs, bells, etc. The procession was staged in order to appeal to the generosity of the public to support aid work in the north of China.

The streets of Lagauchetiere, Chenneville, Dorchester, Clarke and St. Urbain were crowded with western bystanders. Mounted police rode before the procession, which featured remarkable, old-fashioned costumes and uniforms, as well as banners and flags. The parade resembled a huge, multicoloured serpent winding through our streets. It grew even louder and livelier with the arrival of the three (papier-mache) 'lions,' which danced and made all sorts of grimaces. It took several men to complete each lion, and the bystanders enjoyed watching the head run after the tail of the 'beast.' There were the sounds of roaring lions, drums, Chinese violins, noisemakers, etc. It was a new kind of spectacle for our population and was extraordinary. Above all, it appealed to generosity, and the Chinese Famine Relief Fund profited substantially.

So you want a quiz?....

Who was this comely wide-eyed woman? She was born in 1910 and perished in Montreal in 1953 of unnatural causes. Don't be fooled by her seductive Quebecoise-style joie-de-vivre. She made Karla Homolka look like Mr. Rogers. The adjacent photo (where she's welcomed by fedora cop Maurice Healy on the right) remains the last known photo of her. She barked at the snapping photog: "They have no right to do this to me!"

Answer. This was indeed Marguerite Pitre, aka The Crow, of Quebec City. At the behest of a friend, a jeweler named Joseph Albert Guay, she brought dynamite to the airport where it was planted on a CP Air DC-3 plane and killed 23 people a half hour east of Quebec City on 9 September 1949. It was the first bombing of an aircraft in the western world. It was also the biggest mass murder up to that date. Guay's wife Rita Guay (nee Rita Morel) was aboard and her husband Albert wanted her dead. He also wanted the $10,000 insurance policy he had on her. After trials in the provincial capital, Guay was hanged and so was Pitre, a couple of years later, on 9 January, 1953, 12:35 a.m. at Bordeaux prison in Montreal. She was the last woman killed by capital punishment in Quebec. The list of victims (22 of 23, one missing). 1-E.Tappard Stannard, 66, of New York, President of Kennecott Copper. 2-R.J. Parker, 52, New York, VP Kennecott Copper and President of Quebec Iron & Titanium of Montreal. 3-Arthur Storke, 54, New York, a big name mining expert who was slated to take over from Stannard as president of Kennecott Copper Corp. Kennecott was planning a $25 million titanium development before the top brass was killed. 4-Lionel D'Allaire, 24, garage owner, Chute-aux-Outardes. He was going to visit his sister in Montreal. 5-E.J. Calnan of Ontario Paper, Saint Catherines Ontario. 5-William Schoulae of Ontario Paper. 6-Beatrice Firloppe of Broadlands, Quebec, returning from a visit to Montreal. 7-Mr. Bouchard 8-Mrs. Bouchard 9-A small child accompanying the Bouchards. They were from Baie Comeau 10-C. Humphries, Montreal, Inspector Bank of Montreal. 11-A.R. Keller, Montreal, Inspector Bank of Montreal 12-H. Pye of Quebec City 13-R. Durette Baie Trinite, Quebec 14-Mrs. J.A. Guay, Quebec 15-R. Chapadeau, 37, Baie Comeau 16-Miss F. Chapadeau, 14, Baie Comeau 17-Mr. C. Chapadeau, 13, Baie Comeau 18-J. Chapadeau 11 months. 19-Flight Captain Pierre Laurin, 30, father of a two year old son. He had moved from Quebec City to Montreal and his father O.A. Dufresne was provincial Sub-Minister of Mines. 20-First Officer Gordon Alexander, Montreal. 21-Flight Engineer Emile Therrien Montreal 22-Hostess Gertrude McKay of Edmonton and Montreal.

The blind streets of Westmount

This sign stood at Claremont and Windsor in the 50s. It was near the Louis Braille Institute but apparently was not put up in reference to that fact. Anybody have a clue of what a blind street was?

Jean Way former resident of 1850 Lincoln near Guy

Here's a photo of Jean Way. We found it today. First time we've seen what she looked like. Do you know who Jean Way was? Her undeserved fate was unspeakably awful and unjust so we'll save the downer details for another time. But she's remembered by many with fondness and sadness.

Mel Giustini - what a guy!!!

Mel Giustini (aka Mel Deutsch) was a visionary.He and his wife Esther Deutsch had a topless restaurant with a strip club upstairs in 1975, in St. Leonard, 6657 PE Lamarche to be exact (think Langelier & Jarry). It was legal thanks to the Monique McCutcheon case in Quebec Superior Court. That ruling made such establishments certifiably okey dokey. However the cops kept raiding the Giustini Steak House, apparently 70 times just for good measure. They'd haul the girls in and make them sit in jail cells for a couple of hours before freeing them. Let's salute those fabulous bikini ladies! When not straddling '72 Pontiac Parisiennes (see photo) they kept coming back to work. Err, until the joint shut down anyway.
In other Montreal stripping law news, Jack Christiano, aka Jack the Stripper, was busted at the Cafe Caprice (now the Diable Vert hipster bar) for Indecency May 27, 1975. The American was a star, earning $700 a week touring cities. Our local constabulary wasn't too happy with his stripping cop routine.

Quiz: What WAS this building?

The newly fancified Chinese Community Centre on Clarke between Lagauchitere and Dorchester was built in 1932 for a very specific purpose. Guess what.

Answer update:


We have a correct answer in comments. It was built as a municipal stable. The ground floor included a recreation room and dining hall for the enjoyment of horse drivers and stablehands. The four-legged functionaries were pretty well off, too. The second floor could accommodate 75 horses. The top floor was set aside for grain and hay. It featured a high-pressure water system, automatic feed-distribution technology, state-of-the-art ventilation and an ingenious system for passively disposing of manure. Its skylights ensured it was bright. It was billed as fireproof, floodproof and smellproof. While the stable's cost of construction isn't handy, the city was coming under scrutiny for building vespasiennes (public toilets) as a make-work project, which, at $60,000 a plop, seemed a bit on the expensive side at the time.

Mo' demolitions

In January we predicted that this building at Girouard and St. James might get demolished. It was.

Another Green-ish space getting lost

The spot where St. James and Upper Lachine meet is marked by a green spot with a sleepy overpass and underpass allowing traffic to figure out whether they want to go one way or the other. This will end. But don't pop the sparkling wine quite yet. The area will not become a much-needed green space. Nope. It is getting transformed into 300 housing units.

We've asked to see the plans but you've got to go up with $46 and fill out some triplicates.

But knowing NDG/CDN Borough Mayor-slash-realtor Mikey Applebaum (who rumour has it is pondering retirement from political life) it'll be covered with "affordable housing." This, of course, is a code word for "crap slum housing." Chimples says that the same sneaky stuff would happen in monkey politics back in the Borneo jungle. Chimples says that humans should always be on top of manipulators who use crafty semantics to wreck a neighbourhood. The Tremblay team recently allowed a huge and disastrously awful project built on Upper Lachine and Wilson. Don't get us started on that.

So if you want to lie down on the grass at this particularly neat verdant corner, do it soon because soon it will snow and then it will melt and the grass won't be there much longer.

Fuglifying Lower NDG

This hideous highway motel-style sign has been perched on the corner of Oxford and Upper Lachine for a few weeks. The city has at least one complaint about it.

As promised...Richard Blass dead.

We know all youze cheapskates love freebiez...

Nice freebie opp at the Bain St. Michel next Tues and Wed, a play by the legend-in-his-own-time Guy Sprung. You've got to call up and let 'em know you're coming though.

Breakthrough in home security

This sophisticated doormat does more than buff soles on east end Gilford Street. It also protects the house from unwanted callers and sneak thieves, and defends itself against Mat Night pillagers.

Snow, reign o'er me!

Please don't tell the owner of this vintage Vespa that Ace Face (Sting) is actually a bell boy. Chimples would hate to see it fly off the White Cliffs.

The faces of the Gargantua victims

Coolopolis has displayed how the acts that occurred on January 21, 1975 were the most evil things ever done in Montreal. We've also demonstrated that the months that followed were among the most hellish in the city's history with an unprecedented wave of violent crime sweeping across the city. The murder by fire of 13 people (10 men and three women) by maniac prison escapee Richard Blass and accomplice Fernand Beaudet at the Gargantua bar occurred when they duo locked these people in a closet and torched the joint. The blaze claimed the lives of these people among others. May they rest in peace. Blass's two brothers, Mario Blass and Michael Blass were also suspected of involvement in other criminal blazes, including one a few months later at the Brasserie D'Iberville. (The top two here, Raymond Laurin and Roger Levesque didn't die in the blaze, in fact they were shot dead at the Gargantua October 30, 1974. They had been Blass' accomplices in a 1970 bank robbery.)

Quiz of today

Meet: Rene Fournier, 24, Michael Senick, 23, Francois Belanger 21, Michel Briere, 21, Jean Miville-Bois, 20, Guy Godin, 19, Yvan Beaudry, 18, Daniel Raymond, 18, Gilles Briere, 18. (not necessarily in that order in the photo). In the mid-70s they attained some level of fame, or notereity anyway, in Montreal. Were they a) the world's most funky monkey trainers? b)The opening act for the Ville Emard Blues Band? c) Inventors of the Quebecois pre-internet (ie: elaborate hand signals that you show from your window). or d) bank robbers?

Answer: These lads (along with a 15 year old girl whose name cannot be mentioned here) allegedly robbed 26 banks and five other businesses between Feb and Aug 1975, or so says the Photo Police of August 15, 1975. Their efforts fueled a mutual cocaine habit. As one Coolopolis commenter rightly pointed out, Miville-Bois robbed a South Shore bank in July 2007 in an orgy of confusion that led him to hold eight people temporarily hostage. News reports suggested that he had no prior record at the time. So perhaps those dozens of charges against the group as youths never stuck.

Via Memoria: a walk with Howie and the Pav

Prison guard murdered at St. Mary's Hospital

27 June 1975 was the date of a horrendous, pre-meditated crime at St. Mary's Hospital.

Prisoner Gilles Hebert was the culprit. He was serving 27 years at Archambault in St. Anne des Plaines (although when you're in prison it doesn't really matter what town you're in). Hebert's speciality was violent robberies. For example Hebert, in 1967, robbed the home of Marcel Nichols in Drummondville. Nichols was a bad target. He was a crown prosecutor and soon became a judge. Hebert went to jail and escaped in 1971. Hebert was only found the next year, such antics tacked years onto his sentence.

After constantly whining about stomach pains, the prison authorities sent Hebert to St. Mary's Hospital. He asked to go to the bathroom and his two guards released him from his handcuffs. Hidden inside the hospital bathroom ceiling vent was a gun. The guards heard some clanging and Paul Gosselin, 34, entered. "I won't miss you!" said Hebert as he shot Gosselin in the throat thrice, killing him instantly. He also shot guard Fernand Gravel, 43, in the abdomen. Gravel suffered a heart attack but survived. It didn't hurt that he was already in the hospital. A third guard, Sylva Avoine was unharmed.

Hebert ran outside with his leg clamps still on, where an accomplice awaited. The duo motored off. It's unknown when and if Hebert was found and returned to his proper place in prison.

Gosselin left a wife and two children, Eric Gosselin 9 (now presumably) 41 and Nathalie Gosselin, 2.

The night the aliens either landed or didn't

Mrs. Florida Malboeuf of 6420 Casgrain Ave. could hardly believe her eyes when at 1:30 a.m. on 6 January 1977, she saw a 15-foot-wide flying saucer land on the roof of a building across the street (6300 Casgrain).

The 58-year-old described it as silvery-grey with lights on the bottom. She watched as two figures, standing about 6'5", emerged from the craft. The tight outfits the wore were pale and beltless.

That was her story and she was sticking to it. She further recalled that the aliens stepped every so gingerly -- she estimated their weight to be no more than 25 pounds each -- as they approached the edge of the roof, looked down at the avenue below and then up at the night sky whence they came.

Just as suddenly, the spacepersons climbed back into their flying saucer and zoomed away as quickly as they had alighted.

Throughout the whole episode, a neighbour's dog was barking uncontrollably.
Their visit had lasted scarcely one minute.

"I'm not interested in flying saucers," she told a reporter from Le Petit Journal. "I didn't believe in them at all. This incident has been so devastating that I would have preferred that it had never happened." Days later, she said she could hardly sleep a wink.

Her 25-year-old son, Andre, paid a visit to the rooftop a few hours later and found a circle of 15 feet in diameter melted into the snow and ice on the roof. Incidentally, a decade later, Andre would make headlines of his own as a convicted, English-sign-protesting arsonist.

Mrs. Malbouef even called the authorities at Dorval Airport, who admitted that they had picked up the traces of a strange object in the sky of east-end Montreal. They told her its speed was about 800 miles per hour. They said hers was not the only inquiry they had received. Four or five other people who were waiting for the last bus at the Rosemont metro station had likewise reported seeing the phenomenal object racying across the sky from west to east.

The police of Station 18 said they belived it to be a hoax, but of course the story splashed all over local papers. One enterprising teenager, Howard Gontovnick (who is today an established psychotherapist who is based in Laval) paid a visit to the site and went up on the roof. Along with a representative of UFO Quebec, he cut out an 8-inch section of ice which seemed to bear a footprint. Could it have been caused by one of the aliens?

Reached by phone this week, Gontovnick remembers the media circus and sense of excitement that was building around the alleged sighting. He says that, while he can't rule out the appearance of aliens, the fact is others -- including Andre Malbouef -- had already walked on the roof, undermining the reliability of any evidence obtained. Meanwhile, said Gontovnik, the 15-foot circle melted into the ice could also have been the result of a nearby air exhaust or even the fact that a warm bathroom was located below. Still, who knows?

The girls of Le Petit Journal

With saucy mamas like these on regular parade, is it any wonder Le Petit Journal (1926-1978) was the most popular French-language weekly in Montreal for years?

LPJ was one of three weeklies -- including La Patrie du Dimanche (founded in 1935) and Photo-Journal (1937) -- which reached a weekly circulation of about 500,000.

Kwizzzz! Name dat laydee

A Westmounter true and true. She had a lazy eye. Who is she?






Answer update: It is, indeed, Norma Shearer. She had a 20-year Hollywood career with five Oscar nominations (winning it once). Her grandfather once owned a lumber yard at St. Patrick and -- you guessed it -- Shearer streets. She comes to mind because of this neat stunt (see video).
The first correct answer was provided by Protogenes, that "student of history, art, philosophy, music, astronomy and sheep," who sure wasn't counting instances of the latter when this quiz was posted.


Norma Shearer taught me this in 1935. - YouTube video:



Here, courtesy of Alan Hustak and the Gazette, is a bit o' juice about the Oscar-winning actress whose name you can step on if you stroll in Hollywood:

The actress was born Edith Norma Shearer in Montreal on Aug. 11, 1902 - not 1904, as she claimed. Her father, Andrew Shearer, was a hockey player turned prominent Westmount building contractor. She grew up in Westmount in a house that still stands at 507 Grosvenor Ave., and later the family leased a house at 51 Clandeboye Ave.

Shearer enrolled in Westmount High School, where she became the first girl in her class to bob her hair. Her father's fortune dwindled after World War I, and Shearer dropped out of Westmount High to help the family through hard times. She briefly played a piano in the window of the International Music store that used to be on St. Catherine St.

Norma's mother - who was "bored with her husband and unfaithful" and rumored to be a heroin addict to boot, according to Lambert - abruptly moved with her three children to New York.

[Lots chopped]

Shearer came back to Montreal in June 1941 during World War II to spearhead a Victory Bond drive, and 60,000 people turned out to welcome her.

Speaking to the hundreds of uniformed soldiers in the audience, she said they reminded her of "one of the most pleasant things of her childhood in the city. But I won't mention his name, because he is married now and has a lot of children." [A biography about her] identifies her first beau as Jack Gardner, "the handsome and athletic brother of the principal of the Montreal High School for Girls," who went off to fight in World War I.

And cetera.

The old debate on crime - what causes it to rise and fall? The case of Montreal 1975...

In 1975 men were being advised to wear hardhats in public as a style statement. It wasn't a bad idea for reasons of personal protection. After a relatively peaceful 1974 - (the year we're constantly reminded offered the lowest unemployment rate in recent memory) - crime exploded in Montreal. As these articles indicate, the 1974 total of 66 murders (which is around what we get nowadays) had already been surpassed by early July 1975. Other violent crimes were suddenly soaring as well. Don't blame poverty, the province was pumping in massive amounts of cash that summer for the Olympics. Authorities blamed the plague on the drug trade. Click on the stories to read 'em.

Hittin' and missin' on Like Young

Can you spot yourself -- or maybe your granny -- in this 1963 studio audience of CFCF's Like Young? Click picture to see clip of hosts June Mack and Jim Mckenna putting musical democracy to the test. Plot spoiler: according to contemporary hit charts, the crowd's wrong about the first song and right about the second.

Kwiz!

Unsure if this guy, err.. chick (does my ass look fat when I dribble?) has ever been to Montreal. She lives in LA and is a member of the US Women's Basketball Hall of the Famous Sportswomen or whatever it's called. A lamentable event happened July 3, 1993 in room 2518 of the Sheraton Centre Hotel on Dorchester and Drummond that profoundly changed her life and shocked a few people. (And no, please don't guess that she left the iron on those beautiful USA shorts, leaving her unable to play in the championship).

Hint 1: She was married to a man - a rather famous one at that- at the time.

We had a prize for the winner: T-shirts of Chimples playing ping pong while eating a banana. However the damn monkey disapproved and hid the box.

Answer: indeed, this is Don Drysdale's second wife Ann Meyers, who he married in 1986 after divorcing Ginger. Drysdale threw hard and had a chisel chin, a combination that allowed him to star for the Montreal Royals in the mid-50s before launching a 14 year Hall of Fame career as a Los Angeles Dodger. The duo spawned three children at 1084 Linda Glen Dr. in Pasadena California. Drysdale did indeed do a bit of TV colour commentary for the Expos and died here on a visit as colour commentator for the LA Dodger broadcast team. According to the coroner's report, obtained by Coolopolis, Drysdale was found on the hotel room floor at 7 p.m. with a bottle of Nitro Spray heart medication at his side. He had suffered a bilateral conjunctival hemorrhage a result of severe arteriosclerosis (possibility of bad technical translation here) but had not suffered any previous serious heart trauma. He was a mere lad of 56. So the lesson is take care of your ticker and make sure you know what's going on with your strawberry alarm clock.

Here he is in a photo from his famous appearance on the Brady Bunch where he wears baby blue cotton pants and looks authoritative.

Blame Montreal!

These musical artists first made their names in Montreal. We're sorry. Really, really sorry.

50 years ago - Montreal Herald goes broke

Text on most of these pages from the Montreal Herald - Montreal's only English language daily tabloid from its final edition on October 18, 1957 - can be read with a little click. They include farewell columns from Al Parsley, Elmer Ferguson, Howard Huston (real name Ted McCormick) and others.

The Expo that got away

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Expo 67. But if a visionary Montrealer had had his way more than a century ago, we would be celebrating its 111th birthday instead.
Seventy-one years before Jean Drapeau opened the World Exposition of 1967, a guy called M.A.S. Brodeur proposed the same idea for the very same St. Helen's Island site. These are night and day sketches of the concept by Brodeur himself. The night ones show the site aglow, just ten years after the city was itself electrified.

Notice the tall tower in the middle of the site. Drapeau also wanted a tower for Expo 67 (an awful-looking, inclined-hockey-stick affair), but he had to ditch the plan for budget concerns. Brodeur even pictured an amusement park envisaged for the western tip of the (pre-landfilled) island, where the Biosphere and swimming pool stand today. There would also be a huge lighthouse and other attraction, such as a ferris wheel or a captive hot-air balloon that would take visitors high in the sky.

This aerial photo, taken just after the Expo 67 site was officially chosen in 1963, shows you just how much smaller St. Helen's Island was before it was connected to Ile Ronde (which Brodeur had also proposed in his plans) and expanded with thousands of tons of landfill. That's the old Harbour Bridge (Jacques Cartier) straddling the island, thanks to comments for pointing that out.

Quiztime! Look up and I'll call Rusty

Forget that she's guesstimating the impossibilities stemming from his shoe size. She's lost to history. But you can still save him from obscurity. Who is he? Clue: He's dead now and this picture was taken in '72.

Answer update: Yes it's André René Roussimoff -- a.k.a. André the Giant and before that, Giant Jean Ferré -- the 400-plus-pound French-born wrestler who took the advice of his colleague, Edouard "the Aristocrat" Carpentier, and came to North America. The 7'4" André, whom legend has it removed the front seat of his car and drove while sitting in the rear, moved into the Windsor Hotel on Peel Street in 1971 and stayed there until he was lured to the States in '73 with promises of fame and wealth that would be fulfilled.
Here's a picture of him sitting on his beds -- the single cot on the left-hand side was added to accommodate his feet because he was too tall for the regular double. Congratulations to Haroldro, who answered correctly less than an hour after this puzzler went up. By the way, the girl has been identified as the journalist Colette Chabot.

Windsor Market still waiting to be born

Shhh! Do not disturb the silence. Such was the scene at 11 o'clock yesterday morning in the courtyard between the old Windsor Station and the [Corportation Name Here] Centre, home of the hockey Habs. Quiet it may be but quaint it ain't. Where are the crowds ambling by the dozens of market stalls, eating cotton candy and haggling over T-shirts, crafts and T-fal pans? A dead zone like this Montreal needs as much as Kennedy needed a hole in the head. When will the Windsor Market become reality?

Olympic Stadium gets built

It's beginning to make sense
Workers fill in Olympic Jigsaw
Montreal Star
Richard Low
July 9, 1975
Like ants hurrying to build a nest before winter sets in, 2,400 Olympic construction workers are toiling through the fourth week of one of Montreal's longest heatwaves to finish $500 million worth of sports facitliies before the onset of summer '76.

Their sweat does not come cheap. The 1,600 working on the stadium-pool-velodrome complex in a frying pan called de Maisonneuve Park will soon begin working through their usual two-week holiday period.

In recognition of the builders' qualified waiver of their summer holiday following anb amendment to the construction industry decree, the City of Montreal will have to pay the double time.

For the two weeks beginning Monday, a carpenter will get $15 an hour, a crane operator $14.16 and a day labourer $13.18.

Employees will be able to take holiday slater, if they want, at staggered times so that the site will not be shut down.

The pace of work is brisk but hardly breathless. The site is still operating 10 hours a day, six days a week, leaving plenty of leeway should it be necessary to push the panic button.

Virtuall all the $360-million stadium's 34 pillars, standing in a forest of cranes, have been completed, and many are topped by the first sections of the ribs that will reach out across the field to suppor the roof.

At the northeast end of the complex, workers are preparing to pour the concrete for the swimming hall ceiling, which probably will begin in early August, said Bernard Lavallee, a city architect at the project.

Then work will start on the controversial 18-storey mast, which is to tower 540 feet over the Olympic field and which, many stadium critics insist, is unnecessary. Mr. Lavallee estimated the tower will be completed in January.

Stands and entrance archways are being installed in the velodrome which is to hold 6,000 spectators for Olympic cycling and judo.

Montreal's long-suffering skaters will be hearted by the possibility that the proposed rink for the velodrome may be used afterward exclusively for pleasure skating, whiith figure skating clubs perhaps getting a chance at some badly-needed ice time.

On Boulevard Baron Pierre du Coubertin, until last week known as Boyce Street, outer construction of the Viau Metro station is complete. (For the record, de Coubertin founded the modern Olympic movement; Michael Boyce once owned a large tract of land in the area.)

At the opposite, western end of the Olympic park, work continues on the 1,500-car, four storey parking garage and on the Pie IX Metro station from which passengers can enter the stadium through a tunnel.

In Viau Park, the Olympic Village is going up so fat that the contractors expect to have the shell finished by September, about five months ahead of schedule.