How gorgeous greystone rowhouses of Jeanne Mance were saved from demolition

 
Here's the story of how that beautiful postcard-worthy row of houses between 2020 and 2092 Jeanne Mance between Sherbrooke and President Kennedy was saved from the wrecking ball in the 70s.
  During those dark years it seemed that half the city's most glorious architecture was being gleefully demolished while the other half was being burnt to the ground by crazy - or perhaps not so crazy - firebugs.   So when real estate speculators purchased the greystones just north of the Place des Arts metro and left them semi-abandoned with the express intention of demolishing the gorgeous row of homes, things looked bleak. Only three of the buildings were relatively safely in the hands of small private owners.
   The speculators applied to the city to demolish everything on the block and to evict the tenants.
   Architect Michael Fish heard about the situation because he taught a tenant, a blond girl Liz, in a course on conservation at Sir George Williams of Concordia. She asked Fish to help her try to save the buildings. He agreed.
   Fish then invited the James MacGregor group at the University Settlement which included Peter Sijpkes and John Gardiner to help as architects-organizers but they declined, so Fish took on the role.
   Coincidentally, as part the Save Montreal Group, Fish and others had previously visited Minister of Cities and Towns, Victor Goldbloom, to ask him to pass a law giving cities and towns six months to study demolition permits before issuing them. The intention was to allow time to consider alterantives to demolition. Goldbloom agreed.
   The Jeanne Mance group - represented by lawyer Michael Berger, who had also handled the Van Horne Mansion case - asked for a legal injunction to stop the demolitions on Jeanne Mance. With Goldbloom's law in hand, the group went to visit Yvon Lamarre of the City of Montreal, who agreed to use Goldbloom's new law to delay the demolition.
   The group then offered to buy the houses for $900,000. Fish put down $1,000 as a downpayment. The group then had six months to get a mortgage and buy the buildings.
   The province gradually came around to classifying the façades on the street under the orders of Minister L’Allier as well as one of the buildings (2066 Jeanne Mance) in its entirety, inside and out.
   The group then spent three years submitting different feasibility studies to CHMC to approve mortgages, all of which included a variety of ownership models for the various buildings.
   Each successive scheme included suggestions for improvements as suggested by CMHC officials. But after the local CMHC rejected each submission, the group was reduced to intensive lobbying.    They were turned down time everywhere.
   After several months, with the only victory having been in obtaining an extension on the option to buy, the sun finally shined on the conservationists. Richard Cannings, a former journalist from Channel 12 and a close friend of Fish, phoned Fish to ask if he wanted the ear of André Ouellette.
   Cannings had become close to Ouellette for whom he worked as a political attaché. Ouellette was the federal cabinet minister responsible for the CMHC. Fish asked Cannings to explain to Ouellette the merits of the project. Cannings managed to persuade Oullette and soon the CMHC HQ gave the green light to the Jeanne Mance Project.
   The CMHC then purchased the properties for $700,000 cash and the project was finally in gear.
   But the CMHC local office - apparently not thrilled to have been ordered from above to reverse its refusal - argued that the group's projected budget was unrealistic.
   After the group did the working drawings for the whole block of 13 buildings, CMHC told the group to do all of the drawings over, focusing on only two buildings. They also ordered the group to redraft to have each building in separate drawings. After another year the drawings were done and the first two buildings were completed on budget.
   The next year the CMHC greenlighted five more buildings. They also came in on budget and the next year the remainder were done.
   By the end, however, co-op residents had taken over control from the professionals. The residents were originally run by a young blonde woman, then a Russian student and then by Esmond Choueke, another recent commerce graduate.

Esmond Choueke

   Choueke and Ian Fairlie were removed from the residents committee and a new executive oversaw the work on the last group of buildings.
   The residents sought a deal to allow the last five buildings be given a more lavish treatment. Several mysterious money shortages ensued, as more than 11 agencies, federal, provincial and municipal contributed to the project and none knew or wanted to know what the others were doing. The surfeit of cash from so many sources opened the door to some confused bookkeeping by the residents committee.
   In spite of the problems at the end, the project was considered a massive success. The contractors and architects received medals and certificates of excellence from the Governor-General in Toronto. The positive outcome allowed several other similar projects in the city to be realized, the most important of which was the Milton Park Project.
   Choueke stayed in the house of which he was the only occupant. The executive of the co-op tried to move him out of his house and expel him from the co-op and made his life miserable with heavy lawsuits for years. He lost every case. Matters were decided in his entire favour by the Supreme Court of Canada. He still lives there quite happily and has extensive records on the history of the property.