Here's a family enjoying that most joyous of all occasions, they're getting evicted from their home. The photo was taken Oct. 30, 1945. That was a great year in Montreal, as the soldiers had returned and people were just plain giddy and doing a lot of drinking and partying and baby-making. It is said that the most glorious day in the history of Point St. Charles, for example, was when those soldiers all came back and the streets were jammed with people celebrating like it was 1999.
Speaking of getting the boot, on that same day as this photo was taken, the Montreal Gazette published a list of homes that were up for repossession for non-payment of city taxes. (This is still done, the list gets published annually about now, in Le Devoir. But the better list is found at city hall as it's frequently updated as people pay off their debts before auction.) You'll notice a lot of widows named on that list, suggesting that these women weren't really doing a great job administering their late husbands' estates. Perhaps some of these husbands had been killed in war and the wives were too distraught to efficiently manage the property.
Proof that 1945 was a very special year: the next year's list of unpaid taxes was considerably shorter.
Anyway, wartime price limits had been put on items ranging from potatoes to rent and one of those defaulting landlords actually had to pay a $75 fine for violating the ceiling.
Looks like Marcil and Sherbrooke. Across from what is now the animal clinic.
ReplyDeleteAnd picture #2 is taken on the south side of Marcil with the chapel of the Collins Clarke funeral home as the backdrop. That SE corner is now home to the Ginseng Massage Studio, which has been reviewed on the MERB board (hit and miss service and often greedy staff). The animal clinic used to be a Bank of Montreal branch. Gerry Tremblay grew up on Marcil. NDG Park was a prominent locale for teen hookers during the depression.
ReplyDeleteYup, Marcil & Sherbrooke for sure.
ReplyDeleteIn 1959 there were 2 famous people living on Marcil Avenue.
ReplyDeleteMagic Tom Auburn lived at 4342 Marcil Avenue. He was a well known magician in Montreal who had a steady gig at the Piazzo Tomasso restaurant on Decarie Boulevard. In 1961 he had his own show on Montreal TV on channel 12.
Sarto Fournier was the mayor of Montreal for a few years in the late 1950S. (In between Jean Drapeau's terms.) He lived at 4506 Marcil. They installed two lamposts on either side of the walkway up to his house with white globe-like lights. It looked very odd in the neighbourhood and more like they should have been outside of a mansion. Sarto Fournier was the man who iniated the Expo 67 project.
Marcil & Sherbrooke
ReplyDeletehttps://maps.google.com/?ll=45.471673,-73.613591&spn=0.0096,0.019011&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=45.47163,-73.613689&panoid=vQVQn_OJvAFAYFRXE9fWAg&cbp=12,263.27,,0,13.41
All things considered, these newly-evicted people seem awful smiley.
ReplyDeleteOnkel Charlie.
People can be counted on to do silly things when they know they're on camera.
ReplyDeleteWho hasn't watched a TV news reporter downtown on Crescent Street where there's some bozo in the background determined to wave "Hey look, Ma...I'm on TV! Don't I look stupid? Yeah, I KNOW I am! But I'm on TV!!".
Even worse, they continue to wave and blow kisses if the reporter is obviously trying to keep them out of camera-shot.
Wouldn't even matter if the reporter is at some murder scene or traffic accident, either, because there's always another goof-ball needing his or her "30 seconds of glory".
William Shatner is another famous one-time Marcil resident. He mentions moving from Girouard to Marcil around the 7 minute mark of this (pretty lousy) interview:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSxvlCHS5jw
Pretty grisly Youtube interview. Looked in the beginning as if he would just get up and walk out of the room! Arrgh! Awful!
ReplyDeleteAccording to Lovell's, Shatner originally lived with his parents from the late 1940s at 4240 Girouard just south of the Monkland Theatre and, as he confirms, later moved to Marcil Avenue in one of the duplexes on the east side just north of Monkland Avenue.
Shatner's father Joseph ran the Comfort Clothing Company.
Lovell's inexplicably doesn't list any Shatners living on that block or anywhere on Marcil during that early-50s era. Perhaps the lease was in his mother's name?
In any event, some years back there was an excellent TV documentary about Shatner returning to his old neighbourhood and even visiting his old Marcil home where a doctor and his wife then lived.
The French couple were somewhat awed at their famous visitor as he pointed out his old bedroom, etc.
I remember cycling by that duplex many times, noticing the doctor's gold "plaque" which indicated his medical profession, but I have forgotten the address.
Today, that gold plaque is gone, presumably because the doctor has since moved.
Anyone remember exactly which address Shatner lived at on Marcil?
Pretty grisly Youtube interview. Looked in the beginning as if he would just get up and walk out of the room! Arrgh! Awful!
ReplyDeleteAccording to Lovell's, Shatner originally lived with his parents from the late 1940s at 4240 Girouard just south of the Monkland Theatre and, as he confirms, later moved to Marcil Avenue in one of the duplexes on the east side just north of Monkland Avenue.
Shatner's father Joseph ran the Comfort Clothing Company.
Lovell's inexplicably doesn't list any Shatners living on that block or anywhere on Marcil during that early-50s era. Perhaps the lease was in his mother's name?
In any event, some years back there was an excellent TV documentary about Shatner returning to his old neighbourhood and even visiting his old Marcil home where a doctor and his wife then lived.
The French couple were somewhat awed at their famous visitor as he pointed out his old bedroom, etc.
I remember cycling by that duplex many times, noticing the doctor's gold "plaque" which indicated his medical profession, but I have forgotten the address.
Today, that gold plaque is gone, presumably because the doctor has since moved.
Anyone remember exactly which address Shatner lived at on Marcil?
How many remember the huge fire which occurred just a few blocks further west in the Melrose Grocery at 5818 Sherbrooke W.?
ReplyDeleteSee the Gazette, July 21, 1959, page 3 with photos.
Beginning at 7:30 a.m., the fire eventually engulfed the building which injured 14 firemen.
I wasn't there to witness it myself, but surely many of you baby boomers were?