Images from summer 2012

Montrealers are profoundly unhappy with their municipal government as I reported in a recent item here. This sidewalk tragedy is proof of the stuff Eastern NDG residents are forced to endure. The concrete has been deteriorating in two spots, making the sidewalk a shaky, powdery mess. And the garbage bags? They've been there for about 2 weeks, totally blocking the sidewalk and the city for some reason hasn't done a thing about it. I guess one way to make the city affordable is to keep it rundown as all shit. Great strategy.

The proliferation of parking lots on some of the city's really primo real estate has always perplexed me. News this week that not only is the lot going to be built on in front of the Bell Centre, but also part of this lot on Bishop St. where Darwin's once stood. I'm also told that the lot on Drummond in front of my former longtime apartment is going to be built upon.
My father owned a parking lot and I spent many hours working there as well as other lots around town in my youth. There's not much lost culture to bemoan (except for the drunk maniac Claude who could park cars 1 cm away from the adjacent car.) The true loser will be parking spaces!

These here are, roughly the buildings that will be demolished for the Ogilvy's Project as it's being called. I'm not particularly ok with the demolition of the Winston Churchill Pub property but the building connected to the south of it is a real beaut. Hopefully the unpaid, unelected downtown Ville Marie borough CCU force the new project to incorporate those facades or something, because losing that would be tragic.

The Ste. Catherine St. sale seemed to be even busier this year than in pat years even though the sales were not nearly as enticing as years past. I'm not sure what this woman was selling but it was possibly makeup.

There's a question that I spend an unreasonable amount of time considering: are Montreal women still considered the most beautiful of any city? I have expressed my doubts here several times recently. But perhaps I'm just getting too old and jaded to appreciate beauty. My theory has it that we now wear all the same made-in-China threads that everybody else does, so we've lost our edge.

Little Westmount is that sub-Sherbrooke St. area, just east of Claremont. It has to be one of the best places in the city to live just because it's not on a hill, it's near transportation and hey it's the city's best neighbourhood. Anyway Prince Albert has been undergoing hellish, constant, neverending construction that has totally negated the charm of the area for several months. You've gotta figure those folks are sick of it.

Not sure how long these guys on Sherbrooke near Mackay have been wrapped up but on the hottest day of the summer it was tempting to unravel them.