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| View from Place Ville Marie |
Ici pourquoi: look at a map or this city or any city. It's pretty much all places you cannot go. You can't walk out in the middle of the street because those have been given away to cars, (also highways, railways, etc.).
Pretty much the rest of the city has been given away to buildings. Unless you own a building, you're not welcome in those properties.
Some buildings contain businesses, which you can enter only on the condition of spending your money there.
So that really just leaves sidewalks and parks.
Sidewalks and parks, that's all we're allowed unfettered access to. Some great reward!
Sidewalks are covered with ice for much of the year. The one I live nearby is crumbling and just plain dangerous.
Meanwhile parks are also often parceled off and given away, such as the one near my home where all that's left is a tiny slice of green space after the city councillors gave the rest away to soccer associations, old timers for bocce and most strangely a 14,000 square foot basketball court that was needed only in someone's imagination (hello Peter McQueen).
It's tragic that politicians' consider the much-needed green space to be a bargaining chip to sell for support from athletic associations.
One tiny suggestion to remedy our exile from urban geography: force the adminstration of all very tall buildings to offer an observation tower.
We should have access to those high places where people can simply look out to the horizon and down around the city anytime we want, for free.
Because sure landowners own the land but the air above should not automatically be all theirs without condition.
Such publicly-accessible decks should be a condition for the construction permit of any future skyscraper and the same condition should also be retrofitted to apply to existing buildings.
A few years ago I made a point of trying to go to the top of every tall building in the city and was a bit naively surprised to find that there was no access allowed to me as Joe Sixpack. Even the old Bank of Commerce observation room, which for some reason I still assumed would be open after all these years, was closed.
Place Ville Marie is the notable exception as they still maintain some sort of bar the top which as far as I can recall is staffed by somewhat unpleasant waitresses. But at least it's something. Let's force all the others to do the same and better.
You forgot that there's a curfew for parks ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou could always go for a swim in the river. Gee, what happened to a bit of imagination?
ReplyDeleteKris Gravenor for Mayor.. !
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely your best post among many good ones. Security always being a problem, the elevators to the top should be outside the skins of the high buildings. I purchased tickets to go to the top of the Empire State building a couple of years ago, the line was so long, we gave up and gave the tickets away. As the novelty wears off, as it did in the Bank of Commerce building years ago, the elevators gould be moved to newer high rise places.
I got a ticket for being "Flanant Ivre" at 7am doing snow angels in a park, then walking down the sidewalk. The officer's explanation for the ticket was because, hrmf, "c'est le plateau mont royal." Apparently making drunk snow angels at 7am in a park on a Sunday is not appreciated in "Le Plateau."
ReplyDeleteIn order to get to the lookout deck of place ville marie I had to enter a stair race competition!
ReplyDeleteCame in 6th, but for the first time in my life my lungs actually burned.
The view was worth it though.
Mt Royal has the "view from above" that you are advocating, but suffers from restrictive park-is-closed-at-night laws.
The downtown lookout at the Mt Royal Chalet is the best view in Montreal.
I agree totally that we need a few skyscraper lookout decks in this town.
Montreal's Views...Part One
ReplyDeleteMontreal's points of observation (or elimination of same) were discussed and commented upon, as you recall, in one of your previous topics about the Bonaventure Hotel several months ago.
As far as downtown Montreal is concerned, the only semi-public observation point is from the Altitude 737 restaurant from atop Place Vill Marie.
See: http://www.altitude737.com/ ...strangely, this official site is in French only--which obviously is not user-friendly for non-French-speaking tourists.
So what we are left with are:
1) The Chalet on top of Mount Royal
2) The Westmount Lookout (restricted parking)
3) the Olympic Stadium Observatory (accessible via a funicular track)
4) The Port of Montreal Clock Tower, only open in the summer and consisting of a long staircase that eventually spirals, winding tightly near the top, effectively restricting access for any long line of waiting visitors.
5) La Ronde's "Le Spirale", one of the original rides in existence since Expo67. This along with the ferris wheel and minirail are announced as "panoramic" rides on La Ronde's website.
6) A reasonably good view north and west of the city can be obtained from Northmount--the slope upon which the University of Montreal sits, although their landmark, yellow-bricked, iconic tower (currently under renovation) is innaccessible to the public, never was and presumably never will be. This is really a shame because a view from the top would be fantastic. The university could even make money by charging a small fee. (Are you reading this, U of M?) How about a webcam at least?
7) St. Joseph's Oratory. The view north and west from the highest reachable steps is pretty good, but how much longer must we wait for elevators to be installed accessing the dome and the cupola? The existing steps are locked to the public and the original plans of a 2012 opening have obviously faded with 2014 now touted (but not guaranteed). Don't hold your breath, though, as churches are notorious for their plans falling through for whatever reason. Until the Oratory gets its act together, we are left with the videoscreen of the cupola's webcam, viewable in the east end entrance area of the Crypt. Inexplicably, however, this stunning webcam view is NOT linked to their website. How dumb is that? Emails requesting they do so have thus far been ignored.
8) Camillien-Houde Road. The eastern section of this winding route--complete with coin-operated binoculars--has great views toward the east.
Montreal's Views...Part Two
ReplyDeleteObservation points no longer available include:
1) Yes, the top floor of the Commerce Bank on Peel and Dorchester (Blvd. Rene Levesque) is sadly closed. The publically-accessible deck was closed without explanation in the media as far as I remember. The last time I went up there was back in the mid 1980s and I should mention I had a scare coming down when I decided to take the stairs and found that I was unable to exit onto any other floor because the doors were all locked from the staircase side. I had to yell and hammer on one of them to get someone's attention to open it from the inside so that I could take the elevator down to the ground floor. The idiot laughed and thought it was funny! Definitely a violation of fire-escape regulations! I wonder if those doors are STILL locked that way, there and elsewhere?
2) The Bonsecours Market dome which was closed after a fire many years ago. Although restorations were successfully completed, it has remained closed.
3) The brownstone Tour de Levis on St. Helen's Island. Last opened to the public in the summer of 1966. Inexplicably closed during Expo67 (!) and then moth-balled until about five years ago when it was renovated and the surroundings re-landscaped. Since then, access to the observation deck has been stupidly restricted to "official groups" willing to pay in advance to climb the interior stairs and take in the view that the rest of us "riff-raff" are denied. Thank you, City of Montreal Parks Department. Is that where our tax money is going?!
4) Not sure if the Sunlife Building ever had an observation deck, although from the outside it sure looks like there was or is access to those "in-the-know". Somewhere up there is a locked door which leads to a great view. If only...
I have a suspicion that one or all of our other high-rise office buildings downtown such as the Bell Tower have "exclusive viewing decks" which are kept quiet from the public. C'mon, speak up, office workers, superintendents, etc.!
How many remember Mayor Jean Drapeau's hair-brained scheme of an observation tower on Mount Royal with cable cars running from it all the way to La Ronde? Good grief, what an unworkable monstrosity that would have been--even if it was humanly possible to construct in the first place!
I have visited many cities around the world and virtually all of them offer some panoramic view, but for some reason Montreal has a "problem" with them.
Go figure?!
The tower on Ile Ste-Helene was closed (and ever since) to the public during Expo 67 since it was the site of the "Sun Life Centenary Carillon" (since moved to the Sun Life buliding).
ReplyDeletehttp://expo67.ncf.ca/expo_67_40th_anniversary_edition_p5.html (scroll about halfway down).
Montreal's "Points of View" addendum:
ReplyDeleteI forgot to include the observation deck at the "Belvedere" floor of the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History at Pointe-a-Calliere at the foot of Rue St. Francois Xavier.
A great view of the surrounding buildings of Old Montreal and the Old Port can be enjoyed.
The Jacques Cartier pavillion in the vieux port has an elevated 2nd story deck running for a hundred metres above the pier, it is a great view of the vieux port and place jacques Cartier.
ReplyDeleteThe uppermost parking lot at Oratoire St-Joseph has a very good view. I share he opinion above about the planned access to the St-Joseph Oratory's dome's cupola. The view, when it finally happens, will be very very good.
The Van Horne overpass in the uppermost plateau has good views over the plateau roofs to Mt Royal. Take the stairs at St-Laurent.
Many gay baths have rooftop terraces that have rooftop views. You pay your money, wrap a towel around yerself, and enjoy the view. Try not to be judgemental.
The Musée es beaux arts has some high windows to look northward. This is in the pavilion on the south side of Sherbrooke st.
The Bay store downtown cafeteria has windows from like 8 floors above de Maisonneuve street. This Bay also has a Hudson's bay fur trading company museum in the downtown store. Very much in the little-known montreal museum gems category and worth checking out (free).
The front of the Allen Memorial buildings (part of the Royal Vic hospital complex) which was the original Ravenscrag mansion has spectacular view of downtown.
Similar and top-class views are available on several lookout stops on the L'Escarpment trail on Mt Royal not far from the top of the peel street stairs where they top out near the Mt Royal Chalet and lookout - which I almost forgot about and is HIGHLY recommended.
Pont Jacques Cartier bridge's cycle path/sidewalk (on the west side sidewalk) has a belevedere lookout with a several-million-dollar view of Montreal from high above the river.
ReplyDeleteMontreal has a distinct shortage of lookouts and lookout towers. With the phenomenal amount of shoreline park land around Montreal Island, I am quite disappointed that not one of them has a lookout tower.
A few good lookout towers exist outside of Montreal, ex in St-Malo (near coaticook), Coaticook gorge park (quite a place!) and Ile aux Coudres in the charlevoix.
There are some mountain lookouts available by car, Mont Megantic has a toll road and two summits with car access (and an amazing "dark sky"), and Chemin de la croix in Clermont beside La Malbaie has another fine view. But, these are outside mtl. Therefore I must stop as I am out of ideas.
Finally!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/place-ville-marie-observation-deck-1.3648972