The East End is a rough place, not recommend to visit, and certainly don't go unarmed. But I took a chance and went down and survived to show you these pics.
Well known apartment building, well known for its interesting characters many of whom enjoy the partying lifestyle.
This joint made it past 50 years but not much more. You can re-open if you have the right knives.
Ambisexual bicyclist waltzes the orange shag look.
Tubby girl with plastic wrap around new tat.
Check out the mad woman in the background waving madly at the cam. She came over and babbled to me soon after, in a conversation that ended when she asked for five bucks.
This little kid also talked to me too. Cute kid.
In fact that very kid is so liked that they put his picture up on a wall. What a guy!
I was tempted to ask this Mr. Superquebecois sign-less Army Surplus wannabe here if he could sell me a Canadian flag. He probably would, actually but only if I promised to burn it in front of him.
Depends what she would do for that $5...she looks better than the backsides of the 2 tubbies draped in tattoos...
ReplyDeleteFunny that the welfare bums of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve always have money for beer and cigarettes...and now, vomit-inducing tattoos...but never to buy an a/c unit to beat the heat...
She looked like a zombie. I should have given her the fiver in return for allowing me to tape our conversation. It was sorta like talking to the dead.
ReplyDeleteGosh, some clueless will believe you that the whole ¨dark side¨ East of St-Laurent is dangerous. At least those in the know can still score cheap rent on magnificent apartments or lofts by risking their life living there...(sic)
ReplyDeleteI didn't know there was still on of those old 1950's Dairy Queen signs left in Montreal! May have to brave going down east to visit it this summer when we come back home on vacation.
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh at the guy sitting outside that army surplus shop with his dog, as his dog is the spitting image of mine right down to the floppy ears!
Is your dog also a strong believer in the Indepence of Quebec, as this guy's surely is?
ReplyDeleteThat's not an army surplus shop. It's the office the Quebec militia (actual name escapes me). An unofficial "Quebec army" of sorts.
ReplyDeleteTubby girl??? She doesn't look that 'tubby' to me. Judgement calls?
ReplyDeleteTruedat, big-boned maybe? She might look slimmer next to her really tubbilicious pal.
ReplyDeleteI never understood the whole drama about the East End. Montrealers love to present it as "the East End, you know, the ghetto kind of place." After living in the US for years, a cute little area like the East End can hardly scare me. :-)
ReplyDeleteThat Dairy Queen - on Beaubien, right? - has got to be the oldest DQ still in business.
ReplyDeleteDespite the amusing paranoia, Montreal is still much safer than any U.S. city. Much safer than Toronto or Vancouver even!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, people in the daytime are generally going about their business. It's in the night when humanity's darker nature emerges.
Where you don't want to be in Montreal is after dark in some east end bar where some drunken angry thug whom women have spurned once too often needs to prove his manhood by producing a knife or gun.
That is some funny shit.....LOL....Loved it
ReplyDeleteyes, this made me lol.
ReplyDeleteHaha! Thanks for this. You just captured the essence of it, this subtle Hochelaga 'aroma'(!). Too bad that pictures can't capture the peculiar smell that comes out of some of the manufactures on St. Germain. Cheap rents and great appartments are well worth the "risk" though.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous: I think the Dairy Queen sign is on Ste-Catherine st, near Pie-IX...
ReplyDeleteWell...If you don't like it, stay in the West. Making fun of poor people...I tought we were in 2011...SAD.
ReplyDeleteHaha!
ReplyDeleteI grew-up in Snowdon and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Then, in 1976, we moved to Outremont.
I got my first ever (summer) job the next year or so at the corner of Papineau & Sherbrooke, running errands for a travel agency.
One must understand that for a Notre-Dame-de-Grâce boy, Papineau is pretty much the end of the world, and Pie-IX is the stuff legends are made of. We won’t even talk about speculations about a Lacordaire boulevard even, because that would be dabbling in science-fiction!!! Also, Papineau was pretty much the furthest I would venture on my bike (although I had no problem going all the way once to Île-Bizard, via Bois-Franc when it still had farms — and a trailer park)…
So, on the job, whenever I went downtown (which was all the time, twice a day), the (all french) staff would ask “are you going west???”.
I did not understand. “No, I’m going downtown”, I always replied. Heck, for me, WESTMOUNT WAS IN THE EAST!!!!
About 5-6 years after that, I moved out of my parent’s home, into my very first appartment on my own.
It was on Lacordaire street (not boulevard!), a place so quiet compared to Outremont that at first I had trouble sleeping at night.
I usually like your blog but this post is reeking with bigotry. Stay in the West as someone suggested.
ReplyDelete