He burned for his baby

Walter Ollig's love for Marguerite Pacaud was like a burning flame. But when the pretty resident of 256 Esterel in Laval spurned his advances in 1967, the divorced German immigrant (yeah, that's what's left of him) poured a container of leaded gasoline over his head and set himself on fire -- before her very eyes.

She couldn't go on

Here's a pen-and-ink rendition of May Hall's suicide, which she committed 75 years ago this week, at the northwest corner of Stanley and St. Catherine.

Hall, a 47-year-old unemployed domestic worker, threw herself from the seventh storey of the Castle Building as hundreds of people were watching and walking by below.

The building now houses the Chapters book chain on the ground floor.

Can't hurt to look up next time you shop there ... just in case.

Up in schmoke

Romulus Elie's woodyard at Maple and Carrieres caught fire 55 years ago this morning. Lotsa planks went up in smoke. The pony, a horse and a bunch of carriages were saved. But the offices were a write-off.

Tam-tam's 2008 kickoff: If a hippie drums on a snowbank, can anybody hear?

Gotta hand it to the rhythm freaks, it was unusually chilly for the second-to-last day of March, but there they were, at their tam-tam stations.

Verdun 1980 - 1982

O.K. she's no Mona Lisa, but she's all yours if you scratch your nose at the wrong time

Sure is nippy ... all the more reason to predict this will be a good weekend for buyer and seller alike at Patrick Blaizel's auction house, la Maison des Encans, up there on The Main at Bernard. Go ahead, spend the weekend transfixed by the goods. If you play things right Monday night, Blondie here is all yours to take home.

Speaking of homes, here's a vintage, twentieth-century clip of the dashing Blaizel talking about auctioning off the contents of a legendary home -- guess whose, you Panasonic Genius. (Omelette baveuse anyone?) The interviewer is Denis Trudeau in a double-breasted suit (remember those?). In case you don't recall, and why should you?, Trudeau is a CBC staffer long-knived out of his overproduced gig. He can now be heard duking it out on radio's lean-and-mean AM 940 News in the morning.

Montreal: Bad-Design City

So Montreal has been a UNESCO-designated "design city" since May 2006. Then why can't we get the simplest designs right? Take -- please! -- these bike-lock hoops. Shoddily improvised and slapped onto thousands of parking posts, they were supposed to enable cyclists to secure their rides, like so. No problem, right? Wrong! One winter later and hundreds of them are bent, ugly, rusting and useless. The reason? Those fun-to-drive, hot-dogging sidewalk snow-clearing vehicles. (I do that part-time. -- Chimples).

The verdict: Design Failure. The hoops protrude too far forward. A "D" shape would have spared many and saved thousands of taxpayer bux. Better yet, those eyesore posts should have been narrower in the first place so bike locks could be wrapped around them.

Bang-up marketing

Is it just us, or does it look like the fine folks on Nun's Island are targeting the suicide-bomber demographic?

Quick ... somebody ... dial 9/11!

This building may be gone before you can snatch the pebble from our hand

Swatow Import-Export is thinking big, if these plans to replace one of The Main's less noticeable retail palaces gets the unlikely go-ahead from city authorities. But before you chain yourself to a concrete block out of protest, consider this: the proposed Plaza Swatow shopping centre will have a food court, underground parking, and big bag (if not big box) stores. But wait. There's more! A panoramic viewing platform will answer a pressing need for space, right here in the middle of Chinatown, to view the very important fireworks crickety-crack of which some Montrealers apparently still haven't tired. Now are you starting to feel the need?

Look up. Uh, nix that -- don't

With warnings like this, why not give out iron umbrellas instead? (Fact: The English text is half sized because Anglos are amazingly fast with their reading glasses.)

Come rain, come sleet, come ice or snow

Linemen get called out to service cables in all sorts of conditions. This truck was recently parked near the IBM Marathon tower. But they might just as well have been working on the frozen St. Lawrence, what with their trusty job-issued snoweshoes, stowed in the back seat.

Dead white men in dresses

Chimples got his hands on the Ouija board again. This time, he spelled out: "As equal opportunity pundits, Coolopolis should post a preview of floats planned for the 2008 St. Jean Baptiste parade." You're right Chimps. Here goes.

The monorail we never got

After decades of daydreaming, Montreal was getting pretty serious about building a Metro system back in the '40s. But not serious enough: the concept stalled before it reached the planning stage. Soon, Toronto would be basking in the glory of having Canada's first subway line running beneath sidewalks that still rolled up at night.

But in the early postwar years, members of Montreal's Executive Committee kept receiving strange notes outlining an idea to replace the tramway system with a suspended monorail. The futuristic mass-transit system was supposed to be 14 times cheaper to build and run than the city's tramway system and vastly more efficient. Eventually, a guy called Leonard A. Peto submitted a fleshed-out proposal to city council members describing the construction of these suspended, single-rail monorail cars that ran from station to station.

The monorail proponents claimed that while a New York-style, double-track subway would cost $14 million a mile -- complete with stations, the monorail would top out at $1 million a mile, all extras included. It foresaw an initial network of 30 miles of track that would take two years to construct. The pro-monorail folks also figured it would improve the traffic situation on the ground.

Sure, the whole thing might have turned out to be a white elephant. But at least we could have given Hogtown a fright until the real bills rolled in.

Verdun IV

Jesus of Montreal

Bet you didn't know the Son of God visited Montreal in 1910.

Shooting the rapids

Yeah it's a bit long, but here's an unedited 1890 description of a lost Montreal tourist attraction: shooting the Lachine Rapids. It's from J. McConniff's Illustrated Montreal: The Metropolis of Canada (1890). The picture shows helmsman Big John Canada, a famous Mohawk river navigator in his day. He's the Indian mentioned in the article.

Lachine Rapids

When La Salle, the great explorer, who discovered the Mississippi and was treacherously murdered by his own followers in a wilderness as unknown in those days as the heart of Africa is in these, started on his expedition to find a northwest passage to China, his point of departure was from the village thence known as La-Chine. Now, however, it is the spot from which many thousands of tourists every year take boat to enjoy the unique sensation of running the Lachine Rapids. Those travellers who come to Montreal by the steamboats through Lake Ontario and the fairy-land scenery of the Thousand Islands, enjoy the sight of a panorama unequalled for beauty and variety in any part of the world, including the descent of these rapids -- the most delightful, exciting, and withal perfectly safe adventure any traveller could undertake. Many able pens have attempted to describe the sublimity of the scene and the bated-breath sensations of terror and delight felt by all who make this trip.

Those who do not come to Montreal by boat from the West may, during the summer months, take the train for Lachine village any morning. The boats put in there for the purpose of accommodating such visitors. Having got aboard and taken a position on the upper deck, the tourist feels himself gliding out on the stream amid a peculiar silence, as if the awe of a fearful expectation had its effect upon the waters as well as the human beings by whom he is accompanied, and which is reflected in the countenances he sees about him. Gradually the banks of the river on either side assume a wilder, more grim and savage aspect. The rocks, clad with trailing creepers and the banks crowned with their lordly elms, rise sheer from the river, which now seems to seize the vessel with a giant grip from below and hurry it forward with ever increasing speed. In former times the steamer used to lie-to off the ancient and historic Indian village of Caughnawaga for a few minutes, to take on board the Iroquois pilot, who, in the full costume of his tribe, would come off in a bark canoe to guide the vessel in its perilous descent of the rapids. But the old Indian who, for many years, performed this interesting ceremony, whose portrait always occupied a place among the souvenirs of Montreal, has been gathered to his fathers, and the more prosaic, but not less capable, white man has taken his place, and the boat goes on its way, without stopping as of yore at Caughnawaga. Indians are still, however, employed, for they have a knowledge of the river, its moods and seasons, which mere steamboat hands never entirely acquire.

Passing onward the vessel begins to sway in the might throes of the great river, here tortured in a narrow channel hemmed in by rocks, presenting a scene of weird, wild grandeur. Rushing over huge obstructions, the waves are lashed into fury, and clouds of spray ascend from the abyss, arched by a thousand rainbows, as the vessel plunges madly forward, apparently doomed to inevitable destruction on the ghastly crags that raise their abutting edges right ahead. Amidst the roar and tumult of the waters one feels as if escape was impossible; but though the vessel rushes with headlong speed to within a few yards of the rocks, it glides past them with swift security. The passage seems truly miraculous, for, should the helm have wavered to diverge the boat from the precise channel, one touch of those rocks would have reduced her to splinters and her living freight churned to instant death in that terrible whirlpool. It is not alone that the vessel must be kept straight with the course of the rapids, she must actually descend a precipice of waters in the midst of a chaos of breakers, above which the jagged crags appear on every side. In an instant we topple on the summit of the avalanche, with a plunge that takes away the breath and sends a quick thrill through the heart, we rush down into the yawning deep beyond -

"Like disunited spirits when they leap/ Together from this earth's obscure and fading steep."

But not into the arms of destruction do we go with that dismal settling down of a sinking ship, which only those can know who have felt its terrible spell. Trembling, like one who suddenly contemplates escape from deadly peril, the vessel rights herself on the placid bosom of the now contented, tranquil river. No one who has made this passage can ever forget the novel, thrilling and inspiring feelings it induced. One feels that he has had a wonderful experience, a hair-breadth escape; yet it is a fact, reflecting the highest credit on those who navigate these rapids, that no accident of any consequence has ever befallen the vessels that make the descent, nor has a single life ever been lost of the vast number of people who have come from all parts of the world to make this short but wonderful voyage. Now bursts upon the eye the unequalled panorama of the city and harbour of Montreal. It is as if one had passed through the fabled experiences of the spirits in old mythology, and having descended the river of doom, emerged in sunlight and glory before the walls of the golden city.

Poor kids in Montreal - from an early 70s book somewhere in a pile here.

Souvenir of the day - nightclub photo mount

Verdun Part 3

Quizzle: Name that intersection

You'd think it was the Millennium Bug or something. Three times the usual contingent of traffic cops were on duty the morning of Friday, September 23, 1966. They were expecting armageddon -- if newspaper reports were to believed. That's the day St. Catherine went one-way-east at seven a.m., except in Westmount. Eight hundred one-way and no-turn signs were unveiled in the overnight hours.

DeMontigny/Burnside/St. Luke went one way, too -- west. (Those strips are called De Maisonneuve now).

But the traffic-fixin' changeover -- just like the big millenium swap almost 34 years later -- was just a disappointment to the hand-wringing worry worts. Barely anybody drove the wrong way, and the new light-synchronization meant that motorists were crossing town in record time.

Const. Gilles Mercier at St. Catherine and Stanley said, "We've never seen it so good!" Only one car went west on his watch, he said.

Question for yuz: What slice of St. Catherine is shown in the Montreal Star picture at top?

Answertime: We have a lucky winner. It is the stretch looking west from Guy. Best guess is it was shot from high up the white block at the southeast corner of Mackay. Way in the distance you can see Alexis Nihon going up. The other two towers are giveaways. The bowling alley never mechanized: teens -- oftentimes truants -- were hired to reset the pins. The Toe Blake Tavern was in there too.

The handyman

Hope it's his wife. (Outdoor ad at Sherbrooke and St. Urbain.)

Rubber herringbone

Here's the right way to stack tires, as seen at Sherbrooke and Decarie.

Cote St Paul and St Henry gettin a temporary separation

Cote St Paul and St. Henri are linked by the massively underrated St. Remy Tunnel which unites the two neighbourhoods under the Lachine Canal. It's a long and often ambitious walk - watch out for ice and puddles at the best of times - but it's an easy drive, of course, a great speeding op. They should build a people transporter of some sort, a little train for pedestrians who want to travel the route. Alas the tunnel will be closed for at least 90 days this spring, which will make it almost impossible to walk from one place to the other, drivers will just have to zoom over to Monk a few blocks west.

More Verdun...

Theatre review - Zarathustra Said Some Things, No?

If you like your plays all loaded up with sex, dirty - real, real dirty - talk, fantasies of self-destruction, S&M, incest and a couple of zooper intense performances by Brett Watson and the ultra-hottie Lina Roessler, then Hudsonite Trevor Ferguson's play Zarathustra Said Some Things, No? will make your engines roar. The duo is hanging out in a Paris hotel room feeling quite mopey about their terrible lives. They discuss their issues and play word games - he quotes Neitzsche which turns her on and re-enact their days of drug therapy while waiting for the moment when they will perform the ultimate act which involves a balcony overlooking a sidewalk. This wild ride, with some solidly professional writing and soaring performances plays the Theatre Lachapelle (on St. Dump near Pine and St. Lawrence) until 30 March, costing a lousy measly 20 bucks. Buncha good people involved in this very naughty effort that you won't soon forget, including Guy Stragglebeard Sprung who staged the darn thing.

A squeegee's view

Berri Square heat-and-food tents, shot by self-described squeegee punk. She's a face-pierced, animal-loving, panhandlin', committed documentarian with 70 or so videos and eclectic musical taste.

Dogcatcher needed...yesterday outside the Verdun metro...

Disoriented German Shepherd walking in front of the Verdun metro in traffic, hind legs low, drops a little souvenir on the road before he takes off. Many try unsuccessfully to gently corral him.

2008 vs 1973

Verdun

Here

Here
Here

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Here

No snags for 'night Mother

When the proverbial curtain rises on 'night Mother this evening, local Renaissance man and veteran stage director Jesse Corbeil of the Point will mark his graduation to the professional stage with brand-new company, Altera Vitae. And this two-hander has an axe to grind with the present rate of suicide in Quebec.

Back in the '80s, this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, which offers a constructive tone to the discussion of self-destruction, was made into a movie starring Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft. Despite his natural curiosity, director Corbeil avoided watching the film before staging the show, so it would be interesting to see how his rendition differs from that of his film counterpart, Tom Moore.

It's on stage through March 30 at Mainline Theatre (3997 St. Lawrence, near Duluth), every night at 7:55 p.m., with 1:55 p.m. weekend matinees (two for one this weekend). Tickets are $18, less for students. Check out 514-823-8823 www.alteravitae.com.

Welcome to Lunch Coca-Cola Cigarettes

Give it up for Montreal's newest fashionable downtown jet-set attraction: Lunch Coca-Cola Cigarettes, which may have just sort of opened to serve the parkers of the city's newest hockey profit-takers, the Stanley Autopark. There: see the red sign through the window?

Here it is close-up. As they drive the cost parking for Habs games to the incredibly competitive rate of $8 a car, this fantastic new business enterprise corporation makes one wonder -- do they know that their multi-storey parking franchise actually sits atop the site of the world's first organized hockey game?

It just goes to prove that Montreal is still the world's capital of parking lots. Kinda brings a tear to your eye.

Rhetorical Quiz: Dow Planetarium

What ARE they standing on?

Way under the stars

You know it as the Dow Planetarium, an all-but-forgotten place in a neighbourhood of condemned public spaces and grey new buildings. Forgotten by everybody except the daring homeless chaps who sleep here.

They remember it because it's warm. Scratch that: it's hot and damp from the forced-air exhaust that blows out the planetarium's heat. The vent louvers clatter and groan, but what's a little annoyance like that when compared to a near-certain death under the wintertime stars?

The book? Not sure if it's for reading or something else. The Japanese used to use wooden blocks as pillows, after all. Anyway, it's an appropriate choice -- a book about the post-9/11 anti-Utopia. Funny, though, things have changed less for the homeless than for the rest of us. Who cares enough about them to scan their retinas? For now... .

Corner Woodland and Verdun 1940

Northeast corner of Church and Verdun Aug. 1942

Photo of the day...needs no further explanation...

Montreal's connection to the Great Train Robbery

Recognize this house in the Mountain Ranges area of Rigaud? Is there a secret treasure hidden in the basement? We're not saying there is ...but we're not saying that there isn't either.

Forty years ago Charlie Wilson was apprehended here after living in the then-expensive $40,000 home since 1966 with his wife Patricia Osborne and four daughters, five years after he took part in Britain's Great Train Robbery, which saw a massive supply of cash get nabbed, most of which was never recovered. Wilson screwed up by inviting brother-in-law George Osborne to visit from the UK for Christmas. Cops waited three months before busting Wilson, who was living under the name Ronald Alloway, a monicker borrowed from a Fulham shopkeeper. Cops were hoping that Wilson would lead them to the last unapprehended suspect, Bruce Reynolds, the brains behind the 15 member gang, who was the last to get caught. Of course Ronnie Biggs eventually took off to Brazil but only after he'd escaped from prison.

Wilson had joined a prestigious golf course in Hudson and many in the community signed a petition urging authorities to allow his wife and children to stay in the country.

Did fire push Machine Gun Molly over the edge?....

A tragic fire involving one of the city's most famous personalities claimed the lives of four children 50 years ago last month.

You're surely familiar now with Monica Proietti, dubbed by Tim Burke as Machine Gun Molly, Montreal's most famous female bank robber. She had a couple of kids with a Scottish bandit, Mr. Smith, 17 years her senior. He was deported to Scotland in '62, leaving poor Monica alone to raise 'em. She turned to crime and was shot down by cops in a high speed chase in Sept '67. In recent years her son Anthony - who served 11 years in prison for armed robbery - and daughter Ginette refused offers to have a film based on her life. They needed cash but refused offers nonetheless. Eventually the daughter gave in and the film got made. A little while after the movie came out, Anthony committed suicide. Monica's sister Rita told reporters that cops were right to shoot Monica before she killed more people. Her daughter Ginette strongly disagreed.

Fifty years ago last month three of Monica's seven siblings died in a fire. Monica, 19, survived as did Lisette, (born circa 1945) Mario (c. '42) Rita (c. '43). Not so lucky were Giovanni, Marcel, Michel and Ginette. Monica tried to rush in to save Giovanni, 6, but it was too late.

The fire occurred at 1662 St. Elisabeth, which had - like the entire neighbourhood - been bought up by the city of Montreal prior to demolishing it for the ill-advised Habitations Jeanne Mance. Perhaps as owners of the property, the city might not have cared if the house was safe.

Q -

Who is this and what massive cultural contribution did she make to Montreal and the province of Quebec - bonus points if you can beat our six degrees of separation with her. Yes. We have a winner! This is Sylvia Kristel, whose sex appeal fuelled the TQS TV network's Bleu Nuit. Unlike its competitors, TQS has no Canadian carriage rights, which means that other provinces aren't forced to put it on their cable systems, which meant that TQS had fewer people to offend, therefore were able to show edgy Emmanuelle movies, and many others.

Our six degrees of separation to Kristel? Cousin Pamela was married to writer Nik Cohn who interviewed Grace Jones (in a New York magazine article where the famous leg-in-the-air photo first appeared). Jones hired actor Ian McShane to do the beginning narration bit on Slave to the Rhythm. And of course McShane was boyfriends-girlfriends with Kristel. Chimples claims to have 3 degrees of separation with Kristel but won't explain how.

Shoveling your roof? Watch out for frozen, hacked-up corpses

On January 22, 1928, a bachelor called Coulombe was fined $40 and jailed for running a particularly messy blind-pig (i.e., a house where alcohol was served without a license), at 1443 Sanguinet. The green arrow marks the spot on the map. Ten days later, the woman taking care of the place, Mrs. Adolphe Roy decided that there was too much snow on top of an extension at the rear of the house. She hired local handyman, Charles-Auguste Archambault, to get up there and shovel it off.
While he was working, his shovel hit something unusual: a rock-hard, frozen human leg. He then found another, then a pair of arms, and the rest of a naked body -- minus the head.
A whole bunch of cops and detectives and doctors were called to the scene. A crowd gathered outside. Pictures were taken.
A cop told a reporter it was the grossest crime he'd ever seen and was probably a murder inspired by jealousy or sadism -- because of the horrible mutilations the body had suffered, including a sliced-up abdomen.
Inside the house, there was blood on the walls, a bloody mattress and a human head in a "salamander stove."

Green Dow day

This picture of the St. Patrick's Day Parade of 1957 was taken from the roof of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel as the the procession passed along Sherbrooke St.

Quiz - what is this famous moment?

We have a correct guesser. It's Ivan of Men Without Hats doing Safety Dance for the cameras. I'd be curious to see the negotiations that saw him being the only one in the group to appear in this famous video, likely the biggest pop Montreal hit of all time (if you exclude the Titanic thingy by Celine Dion). The other bandmateys are apparently standing around in front of a building on the English set where this was shot but you can't even really see them in the vid. One of those Hats, Alan McCarthy of Westmount High class of '79 died of AIDS a few years later and there's some speculation that he deserves much of the credit for getting the sound on this megasmash, as he was a total whiz on the keyboard and could lay down a wicked beat with two hands tied behind his back and earmuffs on.

Boon time for diggers

Shovels have been swinging on rooftops ever since three Morin Heights women were killed in the collapse of the snow-burdened building they were working in on Wednesday. But the pace of digging really picked up yesterday, when Quebec's building safety watchdog said owners are responsible for the safety of their structures. In this typical scene, at least three men were busy removing snow from atop the Pascal's Hotel Supply store on La Gauchetiere today. They didn't look too happy about being photographed -- but what could they do about it, throw snowballs?

Death row

If you love trees, come say goodbye to these.

There are 100 of them, majestic and proud, where St. Antoine and Notre Dame meet University Street. They lend shelter to countless birds in search of mates. Their rustling leaves provide shade, and a touch of nature, to stressed-out pedestrians below. They have survived pollution, noise, all-night street lamps, smog and the great ice storm of 1998. Even the parking lot they surround has been kind to this urban forest. But nothing trumps "progress."

These trees are on death row. Enjoy them while you can.

Eat Cottolene or die!

Nothin' new about diet fads -- not even manufactured ones. Companies have been taking advantage of people's fear of eating badly since well before this ad was published in 1896. According to food expert Alice Ross, the manufacturers of Cottolene, a Crisco-like lard substitute, made their product out of two kinds of cheap industrial waste products -- cottonseeds from the cotton industry and beef tallow from the meat-processing industry. They used ads like this to ram the stuff down your great-grandparents' throats. Based in Chicago, the N.K. Fairbank Corporation made Cottolene for the Candaian market in Griffintown at 185 Wellington St. at the corner of Ann St., west side. Ads like this convinced many people to turn their backs on scrumptious, wholesome pig lard. After all, who wants to become dyspeptic?

Fixin potholezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

City workers demonstrate that it is possible to take turns snoozing while filling potholes on Craig (now St. Antoine) Street in March 1957. That inspector in the white car behind them, parked in the City Hall lot, is cuttin' his share of Zs, too.

La guerre des stickers....

Spotted on St. James West, a sign with a sticker affixed, "Before Bill 101 this sign was legal vote to make it legal again."

Lower Main was 'gunfire central'

Focal Point -- The Lower Main

by Al PalmerThe Gazette, Saturday, Nov. 26, 1960

Much of the city's crime generates from a strip of St. Lawrence Blvd. generally referred to as the "Lower Main."
The strip runs from Ontario St. south to Craig St. and along it will be found, at one time or another, almost every criminal active in the Montreal area.
When the port is open, sailors and merchant seamen flock to the garishly-lit thoroughfare with its sleazy grills, girly shows, tattoo parlors and stand-up snack bars.
During the navigation season the Main looks like a lot of other streets in every other seaport in the world.
But seafaring men contribute little to the crime situation of the Lower Main. This is left to a certain element that lives in the immediate area or habituatally frequents it.
The blackest section of Montreal, an analysis of crime will show, is bounded by St. Denis, Craig, Ontario and St. Lawrence Blvd. This area has heard more gunfire than any other district of the Metropolis.
Youthful amateurs set out from this district on apprenticeships of bank robbery, safe-cracking, mugging and armed holdup. It is to this area that the professional returns to celebrate a successful job and to plan a new one. It wasn't always like this. Until a short time before the Second World War, the district boasted the city's finest night clubs, which drew citizens into the colorful section from all parts of the island and beyond.
It was then considered a "tough" district but not so tough that fun-seeking suburbanites couldnm't circulate through the restaurants and cabarets without undue risk.
It was tough, but not vicious.
Many claim the district took on its aura of viciousness with the creation of the so-called "protection racket," a form of extortion levied on club employees and prostitutes earning their living in the district.
Whoever controles the protection racket automatically is crowned the "King of the Main." Several reigns have ended through violent death and at least one former monarch just disappeared. There are not abdications on records.
Today the racket is credited with the outbursts of violence that have marked the Lower Main in recent months.
On one occasion two men were shot and a third stabbed in a wild melee inside a night club; on another two groups shot it out on the street to climax a gang war.
Where will it all end? Said one hanger-on. "In the ground."
He meant the cemetery.
Politicians and businessmen of the area deplore the situation. So do the bartenders, waitresses, show people andothers who work there and who see customers scared off by the headlines.
All wish the feuds were over and the violence ended and the district again one to visit, rather than shunned.

Boom Boom's lounge found...

Chimples had fallen into a deep wistfulness when the collective brains of Coolopolis couldn't figure out where exactly Bernard Geoffrion's lounge was to be found in the early 60s Montreal. Chimples drove all the way up to Value Village on Gene Tallin and his temporary secretary bought Geoffrion's autobiography only to find there was no mention of the place. All hope was apparently lost until Kate McDonnell came up with a miraculous answer:

"I dug out my 1961 edition of "Dining in Montreal" (published by Metropolitan Guides Inc.) to look up something else, and noticed:"

LE BOCAGE
Taschereau Blvd., St. Lambert
An ultra sophisticated motel with a reputation for good food, and a bright cosmopolitan air. One of the owners, "Boom Boom" Geoffrion (great left winger with the Montreal "Canadiens" Hockey Club) is often on hand to welcome guests, and on occasion strolls genially through the beautiful cocktail lounge.

tears at 4674 St. Dominique

This shot was taken at 4674 St. Dominique in May 1938, Ferdinand Baron, bowling pin setter, his weeping wife (hiding her face) and 16 month old baby had been kicked out and had nowhere to go.

Montreal '67 inspired split scene film technique

The first film to use the technique that shows multiple shots in the same frame was the Boston Strangler, 1968, starring Tony "The Wig" Curtis. The technique was difficult to master and required a lot of extra filming and elaborate storyboards. And where did Richard Fleischer (glasses) and the other guy pictured here get the inspiration to do this? Well they were at Montreal's Expo 67 where one of the pavilions had a bunch of screens next to each other on the ceiling. The visual effect was new and quite remarkable. The moviemakers rushed back to Boston, (or Hollywood pretending to be Boston) and duplicated the technique.

Mtl kid faces a Letterman booking

How many Montreal high school kids have been specially-invited guests on the David Letterman show? Not freaken enough - sez us! Enter the fully-deserving Marco Facciola, whose entirely-functional wood bicycle that he made for a class project at Autumn Kelly High (-err..I guess they're still calling it St. Thomas High out in the Wasted Island -) has been the splintering toast of sawdust lovers the world over. The date on Letterman hasn't been officially confirmed but the producers are supposed to be getting back to him within the next couple of weeks. Hope he doesn't have to ride all the way to New York.

Here's the Main from La Gauchetiere looking North '60

The Rodeo Cafe would have been just to the left of this block which became increasingly part of Chinatown. Today's vista of Lower St. Lawrence Street would feature the gaudy Chinese arches but subtract the big water tank that's in this old time photo. There's a Wing and a Wong and a fruit store and all sorts of other commerce on this formerly two way, one time infamous street.

Q-who is this vicious lifelong (..or mebbe not...) Habs fan?

Yep. It's Sid the Kid Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguin Captain and last year's scoring champion. He was a big Habs fan, at least he was... until the local crowds took to the habit of lustily booing his every step on the ice.

Quote of the day....

Morton Rosengarten sums up the post-gentrified Plateau (from my article in today's Gazette): "It has become a machine that caters as an entertainment sector for the rest of the city rather than a local scene. It's a repetition of what happened downtown."

When ambulances laid down the law

Back in 1960 our highway cops did double duty as ambulance drivers. This vehicle with both POLICE and AMBULANCE painted on it, had a V-8 engine that could easily hit 100 MPH on the Laurentian autoroute where it patrolled and did ambulance duty.

Genetically modified goats - $1.5 million each

In April 2000 Montreal biotech company Nexia announced that it had cloned triplet goats in the aim of creating one that could make super strong spider webs in its milk. They were going to biologically engineer these little critters to make BioSteel with a capital B and S, right in their milk! According a NatPost aricle by the ever-excellent Sean Silcoff, the company raised $67 million between 1993-2000, giving us 40 genetically-designed goats who disappointed us by not giving us a material stronger than Kevlar in their milk. In 2006 Nexia was bought out by Calgary lawyers Dave Tonken and Gregory Matthews, who turned it into an oil company, possibly hoping that goat milk could fuel cars. The goat hugger? James Turner, company chief at the press conference, where it was announced that it was the fourth mammal to be cloned.

Bank robberies of 1960 - click to see details....

The early 60s were a swinging time for Montreal bank robbers. Bandits employed a series of methods, including hiding a gun in a newspaper or a handkerchief, or blitzing with a series of masked men, or even forcing employees into the vault, tactics they employed while committing the 53 robberies in the 11 first months of the 1960.

Some, such as the BMo at Marcil and Sherbrooke and the Royal Bank in the Point were held up twice.

BMo bank manager Royce O. Smith was killed on a May 20, a day that saw four bank robberies, while a female customer was killed in August on Henri Bourassa when an offduty cop led a shootout with bandits.

The biggest haul was of $56,000 on March 7 at Pie IX and Jean Talon, money which was quickly recovered after a shootout, while $50,000 was grabbed from a BMo in TMR in late October.

The female robber that is mentioned a couple of times might very well be Monica "Machine Gun Molly" Proietta. Judging from this article, the thieves usually got away with the cash.

Photo of the day - St.James Street West - c. 1978 taken by JD Gravenor

March.....

The averages for the last 15 years according to this site

Name that plant

No it's not a hibiscus. What is it? What do they do/make/produce/import/export -- if anything? Hint: the tanks are full of something that ends up in people's hands.

Later... Yep, Molson's Brewery. It's the oldest operating brewery in North America -- since 1786. Here's a newspaper ad from 1922.

'Nuther Quiz...who were these Montrealers?

Quiz answer: As Dayton correctly replied these were radio personalities from CFCF radio in the early 60s.

Coolopolis editorial: Replace Garfield with Mitsou

Chimples goes into a violent rage whenever he sees that orange cartoon cat Garfield. He suggests that Garfield be replaced by the Montreal singer Mitsou. We tend to agree.

Nov 1, 1960 candidates for Pajama Pattie

These Montreal women were in a fierce competition for the job of Pajama Pattie, whose role was to introduce the late night movie on CFCF. Left to right Geraldine Arsenault, Montreal, Sandra Scoville NDG, Gail Preston NDG, Sam Pitt (Executive Producer CFCF TV) Leslie Larocque Dorval, Liane Marshall Lakeside, Pat Flanagan Ctoe St. Luc, Seated: Sidonie Kerr NDG, Joan Ekdahl St. Laurent, Gail Allard Dorval, Ann Snow NDG, Christine Donaghy Lachine. Heather Sutcliffe was not present.

Christine Donaghy (bottom right) apparently won, as she became the host of Pyjama Party. Kerr (bottom left) went on to have a distinguished career making feminist movies at the NFB.

WhoDaMan

Coolopolis WhoDaMan of the Year, scored straight As in Engineering course at a tough school when he couldn't even speak English. He plays a guitar and flies a plane. Now devotes his life to helping native children up north, even moving to Kuujuaq with his family. Give him an Order of Canada. Make him PM. Name a metro after him. On top of this, he also holds the all time record for assists by a left winger in the NHL. He's a retired Hab but doesn't spend his life playing lamer old timer games. Joe Juneau.

Va va voom!

Ad from August, '67. One of the bars from the early Johnny Vago days. Northeast corner of Drummond just above de Maisonneuve.

Guess the busker

Who can guess the identity of this phoney busker, photographed yesterday on Cote Des Neiges while strummin' for a video crew?

Give up? It's veteran comedian/actor Marc Labreche.

Labreche has done standup performances galore and 30 or so TV and film gigs, including a starring role in the last Denys Arcand flick, Age des tenebres (Days of Darkness), La Petite Vie, and his most recent small-screen spoof, 3600 secondes d'extase. But most important, he does the voice of Krusty the Clown on the French version of The Simpsons.

This picture looks like he's just read Gazette critic Gaetan Charlebois's comments about his latest show, starting on paragraph four here.

(Clickque here to see the answer to our previous unanswered quiz).

Can Marcel Jeannin survive the Mongolian beef effect?

Coolopolis loves local TV personality Christopher Hall. He's funny, clever and is the nicest guy you'll ever meet. Thing is though, we can't seem to forget the commercial he did at the beginning of his career where he exclaims, "I love the Mongolian beef!" ... the ad touted a South Shore Chinese buffet restaurant which actually isn't very good. Fifteen years later, the St. Henry resident and new father accepts any ribbing about the commercial with amazing restraint.

Now Marcel Jeannin, an excellent rising local actor who has starred at the Saidye this year and is currently a main guy in the Centaur's yawnariffic Relative Good might have to deal with the same sort of issues. He plays the highly-dissatisfied restaurant customer in a commercial for Scores restaurant. (He also plays the monkey experiment scientist in a highly-dechimpanizing episode of Prank Patrol - Chimples). In one scene of Jeannin's Scores commercial our beloved thespian looks bitterly irked at the small portion of ribs he receives at a restaurant, but in the commercial's finale, he lustily munches away on a plate of Scores ribs. What a great ad! What imagination! If anybody gets a chance to post that 'mercial, please do it and we'll provide a link, undoubtedly to his eternal regret.

You'll find it all at Jean Coutu -- even a friend! Here's why

Coupons from 1973, when J.C. anchored the four-store chain from this east-end location.

It worked for Camille Laurin.

The other Gillette foamy costs $9 a cup at the Bell Centre.

Useful whenever an overpass collapses.

Back ordered for ex-Montrealer Conrad Black.

The opposite of sex.

Another cold St. Paddy's?

Keep track of it here.

Lock up your daughters! Tokio Hotel luvs Mtl's hübsche Frauen

Quiz: What (in)famous deed happened here?

Another giveaway for the winter-weary, brain-addled among us.

Yer ansher: That's right. It's a shot looking south on Murray Street in Griffintown. The snowbank is where Susan Kennedy murdered and decapitated her pal Mary Gallagher in a fit of jealous, drunken rage on June 27, 1879. It's said that Kennedy's ghost returns to the spot in search of her noggin every seven years. She's due back in 2012.

Chaboillez Square is just hiding

The human in the upper picture demonstrates that painstaking urban planning has saved Chaboillez Square, shown below in its parochial 1910 form. Can you save Griffintown, too, Mr. Tremblay?

The great Pepsi spill of 1951

Lest we forget the scores of Montrealers who perished in the great melee following this Pepsi spill at the corner of Sherbrooke St. East and Panet (map) in June, 1951. Amen.

Quiz: Here's then; your answer is now

Anybody recognize this recognizable building? It's out there. Post yer guesses in comments. Winner gets a coveted mothballer apprenticeship in the Coolopolis Tavern can!

Answertime: Good thing you've been renewing your decoder rings. Yes, it is the building occupied by the sad sacks at Baron Sports. It used to be the J. Leduc and Co. Pharmacy (No Air Miles). Here's a shot of the pile taken today.

60 years ago... small article: 27 horses die in fire

Fire took place here.

Cypress then and now, but not in that order

Today it's part of The Le Windsor, whatever that is. But this imposing structure on Cypress between Stanley and Peel used to be the north wing of the celebrated Windsor Hotel. And before that, there was a church.

In 1913 a local newspaper printed this illustration of a planned "palatial" hotel featuring a terra-cotta exterior and steel-and-concrete construction. The architect for the $500,000, ten-storey building was identified as Montrealer James E. Adamson. But advance plans usually get it wrong: they threw out the rococo look and feel and brought in the Second Empire instead.

And that's a 1910 picture of the Stanley Street Presbyterian Church, one of the buildings that was demolished for the project.

In its early years, the Windsor was Montreal's leading hotel as this travel account attests:

"Last though not least among the attractions of Montreal, is the number of its commodious hotels, among which the Windsor stands pre-eminent. It is built at the highest point of the city, under the shadow of the mountains, and for comfort and luxurious appointments is second to none, either on this side of the Continent or on the other. The charges here, as in all other first-class hotels, vary from two and a half to five dollars per day, inclusive, according to location of rooms. This is most moderate when compared with our [British] home charges, where the extras and sundries swell the bill till it is ready to burst with its own extortions." -- Duffus Hardy, Through Cities and Prairie Lands (1881).