Q-what very bad thing did Archbishop Paul Bruchesi do that seriously screwed up the city?

Clue 1- He refused a gift not from above, but rather, from Pittsburgh.

We have some correct replies. Bruchesi was the lynchpin of opposition against the donation of free libraries by the great American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the greatest man of the 20 th century.

Carnegie ended up opening over 100 libraries in Ontario and 1,600 in the USA. None in Quebec even though there was a standing offer. He pays to build them and we just have to maintain them.

In 1901 Montreal Mayor Raymond Prefontaine agreed to take $150,000 to build a big city library on the condition that the city pay $15,000 per year to stock it. But Bruchesi went on a rampage, saying that we would be funding something ...1,000, 100,000 times more infinitely dangerous than the most malevolent smallpox virus.... he was talking about a library.

Goodnews Quiz - what very cool thing is going to happen to this building in 2009?

Yes we have a correct reply thanks to Wayne Dayton of MiM. After visiting about 30 possible locations, the Fraser-Hickson Library braintrust has opted to relocate to this church and its 14,000 square feet near Decarie and Sherbrooke. Renos of several - something like $3 mil - will be underway as soon as the funding is in place. If all goes according to plan, they will build a new wing onto this building in a couple of years. Great news for all NDG and that area in particular. Both the library and church welcome your support.

Quiz- anybody know where or what these Mtl buildings are/were?

We have the correct reply. This is the British Munitions Factory in Verdun, built in 1916 and laboured at by a largely female workforce who made make bombs and detonators. Prior to these photos, there was also another big part sized 550 x 730 feet that was later used by Dominion Textiles to make fabrics, and demolished in 1980 following a fire June 1 1979. The federal government owned the factory until Aug 18 1954, then Richard Slaven bought it December 13, 1963 for $500,000, then the Morgan Trust bought it 23 May 1965 for $700,000, then Place Champlain Corp bought it 11 May 1973 for $800,000 and then Capital Funds IAC ltd bought it 14 March 1978 for $700,000. Years later Verdun bought it for $2 million and then sold it 2 Aug 1984 to Village de la Poudriere Ltd for $467,813 with the promise it would revert to them if housing was not built. It was not built and the city got it back 18 June 1990 for $1.

It was mostly destroyed by fire in 1990 and housing was subsequently built thereafter, with only a little slice of the building remaining. The really cool looking row of slanted roofs were built to withstand explosive accidents. Shame that the building is largely gone but the tower still looks pretty amazing.

Giving the finger to Montreal

No it's not the Egg Man. Not the Walrus. That's the image of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, trolling Montral for a few spare souls to pour into the bloody trenches. This World War I recruiting poster refers to the barracks of the old high school that was on Peel St., a block north of St. Catherine. It would be torn down for the Mount Royal Hotel a few years later. Lt. Col McRobie, the local agent, was with the Victoria Rifles (renamed the Maisonneuve regiment in 1920), still based downtown on Cathcart St.

 According to this, privates, corporals and sergants were being offered between $1 and $1.25 a day over at the Highland Regiment on Bleury. The wives of ordinary married soldiers received about $20 a month in separation pay.

The Montreal recruiting poster, which is archived on the U.S. Library of Congress website, was inspired by the original poster of the Hero of Omduran (see the sepia walrus 'stache), which was influential in the propaganda industry, as witnessed by the Uncle Sam knockoff. 

Lower Greene Avenue - wrecking ball awaits?

Not sure if this is absolutely set in stone but I was told that this lovely building on Selby at Greene was slated for demolition due to the dumbtastic Turcot Interchange remake (uh... just repair the highway please, forget the rebuild). The highway will be somewhat lower at this point, which will make the front lawn into a swarm of speeding cars. The province also wants the one way section of Greene to become a two way deal between St. Antoine and Selby. But Westmount can block that and most likely will. The person who lives there now is - I am told - a Westmount City Councillor named John de Castell, who is a widely-liked and respected guy in spite of his biker ponytail hairstyle. A tenant in the building is a Juno award-wining rockheadliner born October 1974, a few years after the last highway project forced heartbreaking demolitions in that pretty. The newly-elected ProvCabMin Weil lives very nearby so maybe she can stop this sucker. I ll spread more information (disinformation? - Chimples) when it becomes available. (Thanks to Montrealicious Chris Erb from the excellent Spacing Montreal for the link to the overhead view thingy and thanks to the guy on Flickr whose image I borrowed).

-Q-u-i-z---- who is this?

This photo of a well-known Montrealer was published, alongside several others like it, in the German tabloid Bild on August 9, 2001. One of the yacht shots shows him eating on board. I mean really eating. Anybody care to venture a guess as to who it is?

Clue 1. He is a massively successful international entrepreneur.

We have a correct reply. It is Cirque de Soleil founder, Guy Laliberte, having a pleasant time on David Coulthard`s yacht. Laliberte was divorced in 2002 from his wife Rizia Moreira.

-Q-who's this guy and what'd he do?

This fellow to the left is now a successful Montreal investment guy but he was involved in a famous incident in one of the poorest areas of the city while young and less wise. It involoved him setting a fire, many sympathizers not only watched on and some even cheered as he perpetrated the deed. The act set off a series of events which troubled Montrealers for years to come. Can anybody name this man and what he did?

Clue 1: He shares a name with someone relatively famous who was supposed to come to Montreal but died in a car crash.

Clue 2: He was wearing white shorts and a white T-shirt at the time and was accompanied by a young woman in similar attire.

We have a correct answer.

Montrealer Stephane Prefontaine co-lit the Olympic flame at the Montreal Olympics. Prefontaine was a promising swimmer whose career was cut short, unlike his hair, which looks like a chia pet mushrooming above a white candle.

The transportation of the flame was done with some panache, it was transformed to a radio signal and then sent to Canada via satellite and triggered a laser which re-lit the flame.

Olympic games opening ceremonies usually make a pretty big event out of the lighting of the cauldron. In Barcelona they shot an arrow, in Atlanta they hired Muhammed Ali, in Sydney they ran through a ring of fire. But in Montreal we just lit that sucker up like a Du Maurier King Size.

The clue #1, btw, refers to Steve Prefontaine, a promising American distance runner who was expected to do well here until he died in a motor vehicule mishap. They made movies about that Steve Prefontaine. Sadly they haven't made a movie based on the life of Montreal's Steve Prefontaine...yet!

Common lawlessness in Quebec - the land without wedding rings

There's a case in Montreal court these days about the billionaire and his Brazillian girlfriend/common-wife.

She wants a big settlement but according to Quebec law, she is not entitled to one because she is not officially married, although in practice she is.

Quebec has a lot of such unmarried couples. According to Statscan figures from 2005, 34.6 of women in Quebec are living in common law relationships.

Quebec's rate of couples living together out of wedlock is almost triple the rate in the rest of Canada, where only 13.4 percent of women are in unmarried cohabitation fake-marriage situations. Other countries are all far lower than Quebec. Britain, which studies show is the most sexually active country in Europe sees only 15.5 percent of couples in common law relationships.

After 30 years about half of all married couples get divorced. That's well higher than anywhere else in Canada and roughly double the rate of the Maritime provinces. Divorce, of course, leads to poverty and psychological damage on children. Traditionally the separation rate for common law couples is even higher than the divorce rate. 

Quebec has Civil Law, the Napoloenic Code, as it's known. We do not practice Common Law here, so Common Law relationships is a misnomer. There's no such thing as a common law relationship, so there's no compensation for women splitting up from such a relationship.

So living in Quebec is a great deal for rich men. Sure, they'll be on the hook for child support payments but beyond that it's zilch. And even those child support payments might be a bit tricky to get. To get a good deal, a separated woman with children often has go to weeping in front of a judge, claiming that she's too psychologically shattered to get a job on her own.

These women are entitled to less than women elsewhere, as the anonymous common-law wife-of-a- Montreal - billionaire has learned recently. The woman, who cannot be named due to a publication ban, has three children with a Quebec billionaire who cannot be named either. The woman, from Brazil, has hired a lawyer in an attempt to overturn the provincial law and get a big settlement for herself. 

Feel free to guess who the people involved are. Canada's 23 billioanires include seven from Quebec. They are, according to the Globe and Mail: Paul Desmarais, Robert Miller, Charles Bronfman, Stephen Jarislowsky, Emanuele (Lino) Saputo, Jean Coutu, Guy Laliberte. So proceed by process of elimination. The names involved in this case are mentioned elsewhere on the internet if you're determined to find out.

The policy which seems unfair to women is, strangely, just fine with the Quebec Council on the Status of Women. In the 1980s there was a debate on the subject of what unmarried women should get upon separation and the feminists decided that palimony should not be doled out here. I can only speculate on why they decided this, perhaps they felt that women should get out into the workplace and apply some of their ambition to the workplace. I rang them up to see if their policy had changed and no, it has not, according to rep Beatrice Farah. She declines to comment on this case because it's before the courts.  

Aprox. 170,000 women in Montreal are living in unmarried marriages with no right to support money upon separation. Only about 72,000 such women live in Toronto, where - like the rest of Canada - they are entitled to sue for support regardless of whether they have a ring on their finger or not.  

I'm dubious that this new initiative will succeed and assuming that it does not, this could be a great way to attract potential wealthy people to Quebec who don't want to get shafted in a marriage gone wrong.

Snowshoeing on the South Shore

On March 6, 1900 Ubalde Longtin travelled by sled with his father from his home in Saint Constant nine miles to a notary`s office in St. Remi on the South Shore to deal with some official documents. The wind and snow started whipping up and dad realized it would be wise to stick around the office until the weather calmed. Ubalde, however, wanted to see his wife and kids so he trekked back on snowshoes. His ended up walking in circles and dying of cold, snowshoes laid out carefully next to his body in a field not far from where he started. His body was only discovered about one month later.

Kid walks 500 miles to Montreal to find ma...

Back in the day, confused kids walking massive distances was big news. The small-sized Idola Fillion who measured under 5 feet made it all the way from Lac St. Jean to Montreal, apparently 500 miles (it's only 300 miles, but apparently he took the long route) to find his mom. He hopped a lot of trains and begged a lot of meals before getting to the newspaper office where he plead to readers to help him find his mom, who - like his father - took off on him and his 4 siblings.

Curator auction goes weekly Wednesdays

The Curator of Quebec - which is a provincial government agency that takes care of unwell people who have nobody else to tend to their affairs - now has a weekly auction of stuff they end up with when people die. They stuff was previously sold about four times a year on Bellechasse but since last week it gets peddled at auction every Wednesday evening at 7 pm at 4041 St. Catherine, corner Pie IX. The items range from old tools, fridges, artwork, furniture. Gems can be had.

-Q-What Montreal company built and sold this thingamajig?

The answer is: the same company that built this thing to the right. Well, sorta... the thing was made by a Belfast-based Bombardier subsidiary named Shorts. It "protects against aircraft and helicopter attacks." (p. 102 Bombardier: a dream with international reach, Montreal: 1992).

-Q-Where in the east end, 1941, was this?

Someone in this Montreal photo - (well sorta in it) - was such a big shot that there's a port city named after him. A city that now has more residents than Montreal. Anybody have the answer?

Hint: The urban area named after the well-travelled individual buried in (the tall grave) is in sub-Saharan Africa. The remains of that particular notable remain on Montreal island but have been moved west. The monument remains the same in the new spot.

Answer: Yes we have a correct reply. It`s the Benjamin D`Urban gravesite which was once in a small but lovely cemetery at Papineau and Logan. The last body was buried there in 1869. I`ve got some more info on the cemetery which I will post in the morning.

The cemetery was one of the oldest spots on the island and measured just 150 feet by 400 feet. But the city wasn`t so keen on this spot for fallen British soldiers and tried to expropriate it no less than five times, including one initiative in 1876 when the sought to build a hospital for contagious diseases on the site. In 1900 they wanted to take it over to make a park and following that the city sought to build a street over the bucolic urban spot.

In 1942 the city finally managed to get it, paying $35,000 for the property so they could extend Logan street.

In the middle of the cemetery was a headstone for Lt. Colonel R-P Holmes, 1789-1849. Holmes lost his right hand fighting against Napoleon in the battle of Badajoz, a town between Portugal and Spain. The skirmish allowed Wellington to get a foothold in the region. He was later seriously injured in the head at the Battle of Waterloo. He commanded the 23 rd Regiment here and died of cholera in 1849.

George Jenkins had his tomb nearby. Reverend Jenkins was chaplain of Wellington`s troops in Spain and France. He arrived in Montreal in 1812 and died in 1821.

D`Urban led troops in Portugal against Napoleon, moved on to Antigua, Guyana, South Africa. He came here at the age of 70 in 1846 when hostility between what is now Canada and the states erupted. He died three years later and his funeral was said to be the citys biggest ever for the time.

Another headstone marked the remains of William Lloyd, a British soldier who took the initiative to drop supplies to the disease-ridden Irish immigrant community in Point St. Charles. He eventually caught what they had - typhus - and died too.

George Weir, another British soldier, was also buried at the site. He was killed in the village of St. Denis in the rebellions of 1837. The last body was buried there in 1869 and they include some parents of the soldiers.

-Q-What architectural fluorish was removed from the Bell Canada building a few years back?

Yes. We have a winning reply. The building exterior long contained a bas relief design well above the sidewalk which might've looked like interlocking swastikas walking to the left. The construction preceded the German co-opting of the ancient symbol, a symbol still common today in the Buddhist world as a sign of good luck. Bell went to considerable expense to sandblast the design from the building even though it would have taken a whole lot of effort to misconstrue the little fluorish.

Cuz you're too darn clever..Quiz of the Day 2- what famous event happened here?

Wow. Nippy winds bring out the freaken brainiaques! It is the house on Redpath Crescent that James Cross was kidnapped from. At least I'm pretty sure. The address 1270 (or 1279 according to another source) has been slightly modified, no doubt to confuse people like myself or people even worse than myself shudder at the concept.

It was morning. Cross was shaving, wearing underwear shirt and socks. His wife, maid Anila Santos, Brolly the dalmation and his three year old daughter were also in the house as Nigel Hamer knocked on the door with a package while Jacques Lanctot and Yves Langlois watched from the side of the house. Lanctot sprung out with a 32 and Hamer pulled out a M-1 cut-off rifle as the Portuguese maid sought a pen to sign the alleged birthday gift. Langlois also held a rifle in the driveway. They drove off with Cross in the trunk and kept him hostage a long time. The act didn't help the city of Montreal, as the city started fast deteriorating from then on.

Quiz of the day - what's the difference?

versus

Shawn is the happy victor of this quiz. Car owners get to zoom around comfortably, with heated windshields, seats, rear, window and foot vents all making their ride incredibly comfy. Meanwhile Montreal and its MTC is responsible for all 2,977 bus shelters on the island (of which CBS Signage manages 1,770 - if there's an ad in the shelter, it's theirs.). Each of our substandard cheapo shelters costs between $7,000 and $12,000.

Far too many bus stops have no bus shelters. Suffering commuters standing shivering in the wind as the weather turns them into unwilling human- flavoured pink or brownish popsicles.

Meanwhile civilized places have heated shelters, including Winnipeg, New Haven and Chicago.

The City of Montreal and its Tremblay administration keeps raising bus prices while they browbeat and guilt you into taking the bus, but never do they make any real effort to make such a journey in any way comparable on a comfort-level to the driving expererience.

Westmount.... where pigeons eat lead

A 1957 interview with a Westmount official named Williams, written up by the semi- legendary Alain Stanke, revealed that the city had been sneaking around shooting pigeons dead. The crew had tried catching the feathered beasts in traps and giving them to the SPCA but the aviary Westmount wannabes were released and kept returning to the lovely urban suburb. Guys would discreetly go around revoke the birdy citzenship through the use of 22 guns and pick them off rooftops or wherever they could get 'em. The mayor at the time, I believe, was a certain Colonel Tucker.

Buck Crump's predictions for 2000

Norris Roy Crump, aka Buck Crump of the Canadian Pacific was a reluctant Montrealer. The stubby, BC-born CEO was stationed here from 1955 while he ran the CPR but disiliked Montreal and moved immediately to Calgary as soon as his time ran up in 1974. In Calgary he opposed the introduction of culture to the city, no joke, until he died in 1989. In the book Canada 2000 AD Crump predicts that his rapidly-expanding CPR would provide hypersonic aircraft that could fly 4,000 mph, six times the speed of sound. He predicted "robot trains" where the driver could read a newspaper rather that watch the rails, automatically piloted cars and a "dial-a-bus system is possible. A person could pick up the telephone and have a small, automatically operated bus directed either to his front door or to a nearby stop. The passenber would be notificed of its arrival by a light on his phone." Crump was keen on computers and this photo of the computer room in Windsor station might portray Montreal's first computer.

Montreal woman marries eight soldiers

During WWII women would sometimes love soldiers so much that they'd marry several of them at the same time. The military boys would get some shore leave and have an instant romance and bang, she's got a ring on her finger. Irene Hornby, left, of Montreal had eight such hubbies at once. As a military wife she received $28 a month from the government, plus another $22 per month from her new hubbie. Her fifty bucks a month, times eight saw her raking in $400 per month, big money for 1944. She was sentenced for four years in jail but the money was never recovered.

Politics in Verdun

Ferland's right arm and nose were damaged in the attack but he was otherwise ok. The three assailants had been wandering around Verdun on election day wielding hammers. Gavigan - I'm assuming it's him on the left - looks like his aggressivity might've been compensating for the fact that he appears to be a Boy George predecessor. The three were apparently hardened criminals with police records (Regatta De Blanc?- Chimples) as long as your arm. Ferland served as Verdun mayor from 1933 to 1939 and was succeeded by Edward Wilson who ruled the seductive riverside municipality for 21 years.

All hands on deck - Montreal's great booby grab craze

A friend of Coolopolis named "don't use my name" who works in a downtown bar sent this photo collage our way.

He sent this note, which we edited for reasons of legibility. "You used to never see cameras. Now flashbulbs are going off all night. When they get drunk they grab each others by the chest. You see this every day."

So this trendspotter confirmed that it's the new normal by collecting photos of local women on facebook caught in the act.

So the boobygrab is the new drunken handshake in Montreal. We not sure of its legality or the proper etiquette or decorum involved in laying one of these on someone. Like don't do it to strangers on the metro. Try to get a written consent first.

Drapeau prediction - by 2000 Montreal will have 7 million residents

The Montreal photograher Gaby, aka Gabriel Desmarais, published a book called Canada 2000 A.D. in 1969. He asked Canadian leaders - most of whom were based in Montreal - what the year 2000 holds.

Jean Dreapeau's contibution (he's pictured above alongside sidekick Lucien Saulnier) contained an optimism that soon after went extinct - thanks largely to the FLQ separatist terrorists who wrecked stuff up in October
Montreal already bears all the signs foreshadowing the future which scientific calculations established for this City, where no less than 7,000,000 citizens will live by year 2000. Let's review those scientific calculations, Your Worship, I don't think we're even half of that today.


-Headquarters of numerous international organizations, cosmopolitan city, Canadian metropolis, important economic centre, Montreal will have established itself before the end of the Century as an authentic universal metropolis.... Well, sorta. We've still got ICAO and a few bank headquarters and about 13 Dunkin Donuts...

-A balanced network of buses, mass transit systems and roads will be extended by the construction of an additional 400 miles of expressways and by a more comprehensive metro system... which will eventually reach 100 miles...and be linked to a new mode of transportation, the regional express offering two main circuits, linking Ste. Adele to St. Hyacinthe and Rigaud to Joliette. The metro expanded but it's still only 40 miles, meanwhile almost zero new highways were added since that promise.

Furthermore, the covered pedestrian walkways which already exist downtown will multiply and with all these enclosed areas, the population will continue to pursue various activities in the agreeable atmosphere of a perfectly controlled micro-climate. The underground city was finally extended under St. Catherine and eventually down to the convention center towards the southeast.

He continues with a vague reference to promising more parks and housing and schools and finishes with a pretentious:
Only when intelligence does not guide its growth is a city the enemy of man.

Why Montreal baseball fans shouldn't cheer for the Baltimore Orioles

Montrealers rightly revile the Washington D.C. baseball club, our stolen Expos. When we spit at the map we might expand our watery aim to the neighbouring city of Baltimore, which has also spoiled Montreal's baseball aspirations repeatedly.

-In 1903 the Montreal Royals were cut from the top minor league to make room for the Baltmore Orioles. Montreal fans had a good record of attendance at Atwater Park (now Alexis Nihon Plaza) in spite of poor teams. The Orioles had been been relegated from the big leagues to allow the New York Highlanders to play in the American League. The Highlanders became the Yankees. Thankfully the injustice Montreal suffered was rapidly rectified. That same season the Worcester Mass. club went broke and that franchise was relocated to Montreal.

-By the 1950s Montreal and Baltimore both had teams in the International League and when Montreal's Jackie Robinson was slated to play on the road, fan abuse was feared, especially in Baltimore, the league's southernmost city. But 40% of the 25,000 who showed up at that first road game were black, so there was not much of a rough ride. The Baltimore Evening Sun remained critical of Montreal's Robison, taunting him for sitting out a few games with sore ankles. Baltimore and Syracuse were the two teams that most opposed Robinson's presence.

-In 1953 St. Louis Brown owner Bill Veeck wanted to relocate. Montreal wanted a big league team and the City of Montreal went into action to snag it. They offered to purchase the Delormier Stadium from the Brooklyn Dodgers, an initiative approved by city council on September 24, 1953. The Brooklyn Dodgers asked for $2.35 million. They had purchased it eight years earlier for $375,000. The city had it evaluated at $332,000 yet were willing to go up to $1 million, possibly $1.5 million. Councillors Jean Paul Hamelin, Paul Dozois and Frank Hanley were leading the drive to get the team and went to the states to examine the possibilities. Forty eight of 55 councillors voted to buy the team but not for the asking price and the Dodgers wouldn't negotiated down. In 1955 the Dodgers offered to sell Delormier ballpark to Montreal for $1.6 million but it was too late. The Browns had already moved to Baltimore, even though Montreal had a far better attended minor league franchise. Had it not been for Baltimore (and Brooklyn's greedy management) Montreal might have been in the major leagues in 1954. (The Montreal city councillors who voted against purchasing the stadium: Adelme Farly, Norman English, Herve Ravary and G-A. Gagnon).

-Some might also point out that in 1995 Baltimore owner Peter Angelos refused to go along with a deal where strikebreaking ballplayers would play real games in an attempt to force the real players to accept a deal that would allow poorer teams such as Montreal survive.

The tragic life of Montreal's greatest juggler

Let's remember Edmond Gingras (1878-1953) a champion bodybuilder, juggler, wrestler and balance artist.

In 1911 Gingras, born in Three Rivers Quebec, was declared Canada's best physical specimen and by 1915 was amazing vaudeville fans in New York's Madison Square Garden with his feats of strength. He was hired after challenging vaudeville impressario E.F. Albee, who claimed to offer the greatest shows on earth. Gingras told Albee that it could not be the case, as he was the world's greatest juggler and he did not work for the show. Gingras was soon hired onto the Albee-Keith show, where fellow Quebecker, the bodacious singing hottie Eva Tanguay of the Eastern Townships, was already a massive star.

Gingras' greatest feat involved a cannon shooting eight inch, nine pound cannonballs at him from a good distance. After they bounced off his torso, Gingras would catch and juggle the cannonballs. Gingras became the top rival of famed German juggler Paul Conchas. Conchas died in 1927 and vaudeville also took a big dive soon after.

Since 1912 Gingras had been earning, on average, $300 a week, and sometimes up to $1,500. But suddenly in 1927 Gingras was living hand to mouth, even as a vagrant.

After seven years of drifting Gingras attempted a comeback in 1934 and was hired by Fred Norman who ran a vaudeville show at the Theatre Francais. But the 50 year old strongman was humiliated as his feats of strength were severely lacking and he suffered the pain of boos cascading down in his direction.

He drifted from apartments on Papineau, Dorchester, Notre Dame, Amherst, Panet, Duluth, Wolfe, Lafontaine, finally ending up in a run down apartment at St. Antoine and St. Dominique. He received an old age pension and spent much of what he had on a piece of land on the South Shore where he had hoped to fulfill his dream and spend later days in his own home after a life on the road.

On April 6, 1953, Gingras - who never married and spent the last three years of life as a recluse - was found dead. His body was brought along with his entire fortune - $1.76 - to the Fullum street morgue where his body lay unclaimed and unrecognized for several days.

If anybody has a photo of Gingras, please send it along this way.

St Leonard Public transit 1953

In 1953 this was public transit in St. Leonard. It went from the corner of Desgrosbois and Azilda (never heard of it - Chimples) to the corner of St. Hubert and Cremazie. It did 140 miles a day and could handle 48 passengers, 18 sitting, 30 standing.

Vinnie Lecavalier, Karl Wolf, David Azrieli, Gary Galley, etc.

Local boy turned hockey megastar Vincent Lecavalier will likely be playing in the All Star game here in Montreal January 25 which, sadly, will mark one of the only times you'll ever see him play in Montreal in a role where he isn't trying to beat his hometown Habs.

The pride of Ile Bizard attended John Rennie High School. His father Yvon was a fireman. We don't know Yvon's educational background, nor that of his mom Christiane.

Under Bill 101, the only way Vinnie he could have qualified for John Rennie or any other English public school is if one of his parents served the majority of their time in an English school. Or perhaps Vin's parents used the loophole law and put him in an English private school for a year, thus qualifying him for the English public school system. The loophole is now in jeopardy as the provincial and federal governments are fighting against human rights lawyer Brent Tyler who is in court trying to keep the loophole open.

So should francophone kids like V-Lec be allowed to attend English school? Some anglo imperialists want to deny French speaking kids English language schooling as a way to perpetuate their economic dominance. So they co-opted separatist braintrust into passing schooling restrictions against the French speakers. But let's be generous, the glory of English - the prime method for international communication - is something that can be enjoyed by all, so Coolopolis believes that francophone children shold be allowed to attend English public school if they want.

The downside in this instance is that as a result of his English schooling, Lecavalier became so comfortable in English that even as a teenage rookie he had no trouble fitting in as a resident of Florida and now likes Tampa Bay so much that it's likely he'll never leave to play for the Habs.

In other language politics hockey news, Gary Galley, who played a long, long time in the NHL, credits language politics for his dream career, now over as a star NHL blueliner. One day his father was shopping in a grocery store on the South Shore of Montreal, where the Galleys lived. The cashier was unwilling to communicate in English and that Gary's father was sufficiently infuriated to persuade his family to immediately pack up and move out of the province. The family relocated to a small town in Ontario which offered infinite hockey possibilities to young Gary who went on to become a junior star and then an NHL star, pocketing tens of millions (perhaps hundreds of millions?- Chimples) in hockey salaries before retiring as a broadcaster.

So let's talk about another local stellar NHL defenseman from Montreal. Wally Weir. He had no issues with anything. He played a little hockey while working for Canada Packers. Did a lot of fighting. Caught on in the WHA with the Nordiques and then the NHL. Up in Quebec City if you were on the 'Diques you were local royalty. The hottiest babes would practically camp on your doorstep. He retired, married one of the Matticks daughters - or so we are told - and has a steady job somewhere in the port or someplace like that. Hey Wall, drop us a note sometime.

Local singer Karl Wolf. We're not happy with you. Specifically your heinous decision to redo the song Africa by Toto. Really now. And it's getting a ton of Cancon airplay. Really. Wolf surely doesn't know that the song is the finest example of corporate radio rigging. Music company muscle manipulated the Grammy awards to give these Toto bozos six undeserved Grammy Awards in 1982. This during a time when when legitimately talented inventive songsters (Adam Ant, Specials, Madness, ABC, The Clash, Stray Cats, Billy Idol, etc, etc) were producing some of the best pop music ever made. Toto and their crapola has become the ultimate symbol of repression of merit in music. Karl Wolf wears bad idea jeans.

David Azrieli is the man who demolished the treasured Van Horne Mansion in Montreal in 1974. He has made a lot of money on it and other buildings. He has been described as a philanthropist. We have issues with that terminology. If a billionaire gives .1% of his fortune away (with good lookin' tax breaks in return) he gets tagged with that glorious description, whereas if a person of modest income gives a higher percentage of his cash to the needy he never gets described as a philanthropist. Also, according to the rules of philanthropy - and yes there are many who study these things - philanthropists can only be described as such if their giving is non-sectarian, rather than aimed as a particular community, not exactly the case with Azrieli. So remember that the Hotel Sofitel was built on the site of one of the biggest development outrages in the history of Montreal engineered by David Azrieli.

Thought of the day: The distance between today and Halloween 2008 and is roughly same distance between today and St. Patrick's Day 2009.

Recent vids of Mtl..some ok...mostly too long

expos videobust snow

boarding
poolside illegal pillow carolingnot sure..

Des Carrieres Street panoramas - this was once a legendary street .. do you know why?

Here's a history of that area, as translated and adapted from a work by Robert Prevost, published in 1938.

In 1774 a British militia officer named Mr. Fay was one of the few who lived North of what's now Mount Royal Avenue, then an area of thick forest. He and a few scouts chopped down some clearances.

The area was rife with streams and creeks where people could hunt, collect nuts and kids could play Indian.

Underfoot in the clearings sat calcified stone and when the dirt was cleared a blueish rock was uncovered. It wasn't particularly useful but many homes in Montreal have these as their foundations.

Under that layer sat a thin strata of extremely hard rock which was deemed to be excellent for construction. It was a massive discovery because Montreal was growing fast and new buildings were needed all over and soon the greystone was used to countless strcutures, such as the Notre Dame Cathedral, the first Montreal courthouse (1803), the Bank of Montreal (1818), the Bonsecourts Market (1845) and the second courthouse (1850).

Workers, quarrymen mostly, started streaming into homes near the quarries north of Mount Royal and soon the Belair Tannery opened in the area.

The area was administered by commissioners including Godard Lapointe, Edouard Cadorette and Jean Prenoveau, a wealthy owner of many quarries. Clan chiefs, Dupre, Martineau, Potvin and Lapointe sought incorporation for the area and in a proclamation dated 20 October 1846 the area was detached from Visitation du Sault-au-Recollet and incorporated into the Municipalite de la Cote Saint-Louis.

Over the next few years it was divided into the Village de Saint-Jean Baptiste (1861), the Village de la Cote de la Visititation (1870) the Village d'Outre-Mont (1875), the Village Saint Louis du Mile-End (1878). On 2 april 1890 the former sprawling Cote-St-Louis becamse its smaller self.

To this day Des Carrieres Street remains unique in the area for its twists and turns. That's because it was the path to the various quarries along the route. The street initially went all the way down to Mount Royal and ended at a toll get at the north end, which aimed directly towards the magnetic north.

Quarry workers settled along this road and earned the nickname Blackfoot. No relations of the eponymously named First Nations tribe. Y'see back then a stream flowed from Mount Royal North of Laurier (then called de l'Eglise) then went under a couple of bridges until finally ending up in Lafontaine Park, which was then a part of Logan farm.

The Blackfoot rock cutters of Des Carrieres were heavy drinkers and would often drink at the J. O. Villeneuve Hotel at the Southwest corner of St. Lawrence and Mount Royal. The walk left their feet caked in mud and they'd wash their feet in the horse fountain outside the hotel.

Another explanation, offered by the historian E.Z. Massicote has it that the Blackfoot would work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and after a day in the burning sun, and without such modern amenities as running water, they'd sit out in the porch with their socks and shoes off to allow their dirty feet to cool.

By the end of the 1800s the quarries started to close as extraction became increasingly costly. The good rock was harder to reach deeper in the earth and blasting dynamite to get it out was a costly enterprise.

The Pieds-Noirs Blackfoot of Carrieres street feuded with the Nombrils Jaunes - aka Yellow Navels of St. Louis du Mile End east of St. Lawrence. The Yellow Navels earned their nickname from the sallow colour of their pale skin.

The antipathy was likely political. Coteau St. Louis and its Blackfoot Village supported the Liberals and Sir Antoine-Aime Dorion. Meanwhile Saint-Louis du Mile End was Tory, led by M. Louis Beaubien, who was a respected provincial agriculture minister.

St. Louis du Mile End was initially part of part of Cote Saint-Louis but split off and was incorporated as a municipality in 1878.

The City of Montreal started at the river and ended around Duluth. Saint Jean Baptiste started and then there was St. Louis du Mile End. The Saint Jean Baptiste area was annexed to Montreal in 1884.

At the south side of the intersection of St. Lawrence and Mount Royal sat a hotel managed by Omer Vallieres, complete with a bar where a black banjo player named Johnson was a permanent attraction.

Right across the street, on the North side was the Hotel Wiseman, which was in Mile End.

The Blackfoot often met at the Hotel Vallieres and started trouble. Both Saint-Jean Baptiste and Saint-Louis had small police forces. With the annexation to Montreal the Saint-Jean Baptiste area, along with the Hotel Vallieres become part of Montreal. Suddenly the Blackfoot would have to deal with Montreal's larger police force when they went to their favourite drinking establishment. Hotel Wiseman, across Mount Royal Avenue remained in St-Louis du Mile End.

So the Blackfoot continued to drink at the Hotel Vallieres and would simply run across the street when the Montreal police came beause that force had no jurisdiction beyond Mount Royal. The drunks would toss projectiles at the police and police were helpless to pursue them.

During these years every corner store would sell whiskey from a barrell for mere pennies. On Saturday nights the Blackfoot Quarrymen of des Carrieres would fill their lunchboxes with whiskey, pop it in on their kitchen tables and all the boys would fill up a massive glass and proceed to get pickled, a welcome relief after six days of breathing stone dust into their lungs.

They'd sing.
les tailleurs de pierres
ne sont pas des gens fiers
les gros comme les petits
y boivent tous du whiskey
toujours ben contents
mais jamais grand argent
toujours esperant
de s'y voir au printemps

The Blackfoot were also known to visit Griffintown where they'd fight the Irish, who they called the Silk Stockings, largely because the Griffintowners wore ill-fitting clothing that allowed people to see their socks.

For about a decade John Spedding (aka John Speding) was the head Fireman and Police officer for Coteau Saint-Louis. He lived next to the station at Laurier and St. Denis. The station had two small cells and one big.

One day a drunken Blackfoot named Perreault started taunting Spedding from the other side of Mount Royal.

So Spedding went home, took off his uniform and - dressed in civvies - went to find Perreault, whom he found asleep on a hotel bench. Spedding gave him a beating he wouldn't soon forget. But Perreault complained and Spedding ended up having to pay an $8 fine.

Some time later, longshoremen came to Cote St Louis to have a picnic and soon started trouble. The same Perreault happened to be nearby and when Spedding called on him to deal with the troublemakers, Perreault was right at his side to help out.

Another time - according to an interview with his widow - Spedding heard a woman crying for help. A Blackfoot was chasing his wife with an axe, a citizen helped catch the perpetrator but neglected to put his suspenders on, as a result he was seen trying to run around with his pants around his ankles.

Around 1850 the French had no consulate in Montreal and official visits went unnoticed. One day the Blackfoot heard of a French minister visiting the city so they took it upon themselves to come down - wearing their trademark red belts - and give him a roaring ovation. The dignitary was so touched that upon his return to Franch, he often spoke of the Herculean strength of these stonecutters of the Montreal quarries. In 1934 Pierre-Etienne Flandin, another French minister gave a speech in Lafontaine Park and asked about the Blackfoot that he had hear about in France, asking whether they still existed.

The Blackfoot were known to jostle around with each other, frequently fighting in good natured battles. The reigning champs around 1890 were Edouard Perreault and James Haney. Perreault weighed around 265 pound and Haney, though less tall, was around 275. Perreault would boast that no Irishman could beat him and Haney would say the same about the "Canayen." The battles were referred by Francis Ethier, a great fighter in his day. One day the duo battled so hard that Perreault was hospitalized and Haney brought home. Even at 60 Perreault fought a 20 year old challenger with his right hand tied behind his back.

One great athlete from the neighbourhood was the runner Joseph Prud'homme. Hotel owner Tom Wiseman and a guy named Spalding took him on a tour of the states where he outrace competitors who were left lying exhausted by the roadside while Prud'homme would merrily carry one.

The Pronovost clan, who it was said built three quarters of the churches in Montreal were also notables, as was Judge Martineau, who'd talk about his modest childhood fishing for frogs at the brook on Laurier and running barefoot in the quarries. Telesphore Ouimet, Montreal's Chief Fireman was also a big name from the Quarrytown and Montreal's Director of City Services in the 1930s, Honore Parent spent much time among the Blackfoot as a child. Another Blackfoot notable was Georges Guilbault, who lived at 5317 Berri and became a respected bailiff at Superior Court.

Back in the day there was a race track at Mount Royal. You could only get to Coteau St. Louis by crossing the track, sometimes when the ponies were in the middle of a one mile race. The English would call the area Mile End, after the track, but the name irritated the locals and thus in 1895 it officially became known as simply Ville Saint Louis, minus the Mile End.

In 1897 Armand Clermont was named Chief of Police of Coteau St. Louis. He required some heavy persusation because the Blackfoot were constantly fighting on the old Exhibition Grounds or in the quarries. Clermont persuaded the authorities to build a courthouse in the neighbourhood. Rodolphe Lemieux, who became a Senator before passing away in the 1930s was put in charge. He worked with Clermont and soon the annual arrest rate went from around 300 to 1,700 in 1897-98.

The heart of the area was des Carrieres street, which initially included a stretch that went from Mount Royal to the CPR tracks, then known as Tannery Road. Nowadays des Carrieres is only the stretch north of the tracks.

The Blackfoot had a bad reputation for fighting and drinking, but were known as being generous and honest. But they never backed down from a fight. One day the Blackfoot were bringing stones to Ontario Street, right into the territory of the Cleric-Doctors (clerc-medecins) students who controled the area around Ontario and St. Denis. These boys also liked a fight and on this day this delivery a fight broke out with soon escalated into rock throwing and was only quelled when firemen turned hoses on the combatants.

When some Blackfoot were quarantined with smallpox, a group of others walked down St. Lawrence to the corner of Ontario, and broke the window of the village doctor who had ordered the stricken to stay inside.

The Blackfoot were useful in the time of elections. Each was paid two dollars for their work which was a good sum in those days. People would scream out "here come the Blackfoot" and stay home rather than vote.

One day a Blackfoot named Perreault developed a feud with the authorities and then invited several of his Blackfoot friends to drink a barrel of beer under the pines on the old Expisition Lands. Four officers showed up and ordered Perreault to come with him to the station. A fight ensued and Perreault and the Blackfoot prevailed. Later that afternoon 60 officers came to Cote St. Louis and arrested anybody looking suspicious or nervous. Thirty were arrested and some spent six months in jail.

Montreal - Cote St. Paul, to be exact, produces the world's greatest sleepwalker....

It is said that nothing has ever happened in Cote St. Paul, that little town developed in the 1930s east of Ville Emard which together mirror Verdun from the North side of the Aqueduct. But tell that to Jean Rivard, a six foot tall lad who at age 18 did something exceptional June 1939.

One night he went to sleep and awoke to find himself 17 miles away on the South Shore near the home he grew up in. He soon realized that he had sleepwalked across the Victoria Bridge. So what did he do about it?

He walked back, returning at 5 p.m. the next day. The 34 mile walk took around 17 hours and when he returned he ate an omelet, drank some milk (maybe that was his problem) and played some cards.

Motivational speakers - and we predicte there will be a resurgence of them with this recession - will tell you that many of us are sleepwalking through our lives, but Henri Rivard proves that you can accomplish impressive feats without even waking up. We propose a statue of Montreal's great Power Sleepwalker down in Cote St. Paul on that street near the expressway where he lived becuase really there's not a whole lot there now except for a big garbage depot.