Ping pong at the rec centre, flower clock, cannons, POM bakery, Imperial Tobacco smells, finding pucks in melted spring snow, Stores: Arrages, Clements, Pascals, Steinbergs, Tonys Shoes, Dominion, Select Pastry, Lazars, Cantors, Frys, Sams, Dannys, New Plaza, Miracle Mart, Chalet and Chateau, Trainatorium, Miss Westmount, and PikNik. Honeyballs and pinball at Alexis Nihon, fake Westmount ID at the Carb, hockey stick escalators, returning Coke bottles in paper bags, lawn bowling, Murray Park goldfish, pickup football, fouling softballs into traffic on De Maisonneuve through Westmount Park, brown buses on routes 24, 102, 103, 104, 105 and 124, Bob Aiken’s goatee smirk and Johnny Garland staring off into space, the echo in Westmount square tunnel, Harold’s little VW Bug, Spaz beggar in the tunnel to pigeon park, hippie hill, Russell the park ranger, Long-gowned Sufi incense vendors outside chocolate store while waiting for the 124 at Claremont and Sherbrooke, tobogganing on Murray Hill before the stupid hay bales, delivering the Star, skating, swimming, ping pong and basketball, cop station near Selwyn House, Victoria Day fireworks, Man Reading Newspaper, Unity Club, "Terminus!"
(Thanks to Dylan Haines about 60% of these).
Ping pong at the rec centre, flower clock, cannons, POM bakery, Imperial Tobacco smells, finding pucks in melted spring snow, Stores: Arrages, Clements, Pascals, Steinbergs, Tonys Shoes, Dominion, Select Pastry, Lazars, Cantors, Frys, Sams, Dannys, New Plaza, Miracle Mart, Chalet and Chateau, Trainatorium, Miss Westmount, and PikNik. Honeyballs and pinball at Alexis Nihon, fake Westmount ID at the Carb, hockey stick escalators, returning Coke bottles in paper bags, lawn bowling, Murray Park goldfish, pickup football, fouling softballs into traffic on De Maisonneuve through Westmount Park, brown buses on routes 24, 102, 103, 104, 105 and 124, Bob Aiken’s goatee smirk and Johnny Garland staring off into space, the echo in Westmount square tunnel, Harold’s little VW Bug, Spaz beggar in the tunnel to pigeon park, hippie hill, Russell the park ranger, Long-gowned Sufi incense vendors outside chocolate store while waiting for the 124 at Claremont and Sherbrooke, tobogganing on Murray Hill before the stupid hay bales, delivering the Star, skating, swimming, ping pong and basketball, cop station near Selwyn House, Victoria Day fireworks, Man Reading Newspaper, Unity Club, "Terminus!"
when i was about 4 or 5 busted my first pair of glasses toboganning down Murry Hill. Hit a bump and went face first over the front into an icy mound at the bottom. Snap! I guess probably that was my first concussion too! Robert
ReplyDeleteKing's School (on Western, now De Maisonneuve)
ReplyDelete"Attewatturr!"
ReplyDeleteDid Mr.60% (Dylan) or yourself ever witness the great spectacle of the Worm Collectors during certain evenings in Murray Park?
Equipped with miner-type head-lamps, I believe that the City of W. actually employed them. Then again ;)
Lovely fish pond, too.
Changing scents each day emanating from Givaudan in St. Henri, quite possibly other sources, too.
As the flowers say, time flees.
ReplyDeleteVery little remains the same.
Ah, yes, I remember the flower clock and the cannons in Westmount Park…
ReplyDeleteI also remember that the streets were paved in a way that had several rows of bricks along the curb before the tarmac began… I wonder why that was.
One of the perks of growing-up in Notre-Dame-de-Grâces was the proximity of Westmount, and the heavier candy harvest on Hallow’een; you had to bring extra pillowcases, and a “Radio-Cart”… It was well worth the trouble to go up the Mountain, the candies would last well past Christmas…
Many NDG boys used to go to the Carb. Andre was slack on IDS,drinking quarts at 14 years old.Those were the days........
ReplyDeleteYou and Dylan have brought back many memories.
ReplyDeleteI very much remember the Trainatorium where they stocked the big Lionel trains. Before moving to Westmount, they were at the corner of University and Cathcart downtown.
I must very strongly object to you using the phrase "Thalidomide Gervais." I knew Gervais way back then and although we were never close friends, I think it pretty low to nickname someone for a handicap resulting from a poorly researched morning sickness pill his mother took.
I will add one from the forties.
ReplyDeleteThis memory from football in the Queens - Kings - Roslyn school league. Each team played the other twice, once at home and once away. Queens had a very tall heavy player who could run for a touchdown every time he had the ball. I forget his name but when I got to the junior High in 1945, he was in my seventh grade class. The one question that he ever asked was, 'When did compulsory education end?
When told that one could leave school at 14 years old, he raised his arms in a victory salute and said 'Next year! Hurray!'
His name escapes me at the moment but not the name of the only player in the league who had the speed, but mostly the courage to tackle him almost every time he carried the ball despite being half his size. I can still see his little black face looking up at the spectators on the sidelines in silent prayer that someone else would pluck up the spunk to play as hard as he did. That boy was, of course, Richard Lord, one of the finest all round atheletes, no, one of the finest people ever produced by the Westmount Schools System.
Michael Fish
@Westmounter.. I knew and admired Gervais, his whole identity was based around how he was able to overcome his handicap and do karate and other stuff, but if you saw that as a negative description then others probably did as well, so I removed it.
ReplyDeleteRemember Westmount High School being the school used for high school students who had to go to Summer School...
ReplyDeleteOxford Stationery on Greene, the Katz brothers who owned it, Greene Avenue Lunch and Soda for Dinky Toys and a 5-cent bag of popcorn, Hill's Stationery, Clifford's, Gordon's, and Steinbergs with in the winter with tracks of sawdust in the dirty snow by their doors, Westmount police yelling to get your bike off the sidewalk or put a shirt on in Westmount Park, nighthawks calling in the hot night sky and plunging in freefall, The Vancouver train arriving at Westmount Station, the way it had every day since the lines reached BC in the 1880s, the sounds of kids playing in the streets after school, dying in the tropical section of the greenhouse in January, the smell of the linoleum in the "new" children's library of 1959 ...
ReplyDeleteWas Gordon's the grocery store at the corner of Greene and Ste. Catherine, or was it Clifford's?
DeleteGervais indeed overcame much.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kristian.
ReplyDelete-Victoria Day fireworks at Murray Hill Park
-Beverley from the Recreation Department
-Mini-Sips from Perrette's on Ste-Catherine at Metcalfe
-1cent swedish berries and cap guns from Anthony's, on Ste-Catherine and Abbott
-Park Rangers, pre-Westmount Public Security days
-The banana tree in the greenhouse
When was that huge bent-over tree finally cut down in Westmount Park
ReplyDelete--the one where they hold those little concerts?
Westmount swimming pool. I recall a frightening family that haunted my dreams. Very obese mother, possibly mentally handicapped and two scary sons - one blond, one black-haired. They seemed to personify evil.
ReplyDeleteThe Hobby Shop where Kenny (Koichi) and I used to buy our AMT 3-in-1 custom car model kits.
ReplyDeleteFor sure, Anthony's for penny candy and lucky rabbits feet. Pierrette for popsicles. "Swimming" in the fountains in the park. The library contests to see if you could recognize the illustrations and what books they came from. Saturday morning swims in the YMCA, the pool was in the basement and tiny. And how about the elderly French gentlemen who were identical twins and strolled each day up and down de Maisonneuve, dressed exactly alike?
ReplyDeleteYou just brought back a faint memory of those gentlemen twins!! Anthony’s was a regular stop...pixie sticks, Swedish raspberries (like the fish) and shoestring licorice (used to love knitting the red and purple and green together before chewing the knots!)
Deletechildren's library, penny candy, cantor's bagels and salami...plus black cat gum, Roslyn, snow piles to make forts in on side of streets,Windsor park and skating rink, pool and the diving boards, the lookout - or the make out, coffee houses n the church on Wednesday nights - disco dancing there! The bead emporium, Tony's peanut butter, lettuce and mayo sandwich, neighbourhood kick the can games
ReplyDeleteSt Matthias coffee houses! I was involved with some of those! Where I learned to dance to disco ...mobile dj’s Rock your Bottom and Sound Odyssey were on rotation! But I recall them on Sunday night...
DeleteAdding both bicycling down Arlington lane — filled with cracks and potholes and no helmet!!
Oh my god. Thank you for this page. "Don't build forts in the snow drifts." Something my parents always said. You didn't want to be stuck in a cave-in or eaten up by one of those snow grinders. The 66 and the 124 trying to make it uphill on snowy days. Old movies at Cinema V. Trying to get front row so you could put your feet up. The mean ladies at Miss Westmount. The children's section at the Westmount Library. Christmas trees and pumpkins from Atwater market. Roslyn school. Firecrackers on Victoria Day at Murray Park. Amazing we didn't lose a hand. The fire station on the Boulevard which is now condos. The Boulevard Shop. So many memories.
ReplyDeleteFriday movies for kids at St Andrews church on Stanton.
ReplyDeleteHorse drawn sidewalk snow plows about 1947.
Horse drawn milk and bread wagons...JJJoubert..Wonderbread.
Skating at Wood park.
Beautiful Temple Emanuel.
Real Shoeshop Greene Ave....bought skates and hockey sticks.
Emile Beauty Salon Greene Ave.
Avenue Hardware Greene Ave.
American Drug Store..Greene and Sherbrooke.
Telescope Night at Westmount Park.
Concerts bandshells Westmount and Murray Parks
Avenue Snack Bar...Louie.
St Leo's and St Paul's Schools.
Tall tall Elm trees...tree climbers trimming trees.
Avenue Theatre..showing Disney kid movies.
Mitchell's Greene and Western ave.
Baseball games Western Ave. opposite Westmount Park.
Westmount Examiner.
Westmount Post Office Greene and Western.
Chestnut trees in Murray Park.
Sailing your little boat in Westmount Park..Sherbrooke St.
Westmount Realties Greene Ave.
Ohmans Jewellers Greene Ave.
Smithers Shoes St Catherine St.
Clifford's Greene Ave.
Both fire stations responding to fires or false alarms..5-7 trucks.
Police cars with squeaky suspensions...could hear them coming.
Junk man with horse driven cart going down lanes.
Ice truck delivering blocks of ice for ice boxes..chop with pick.
Bank of Nova Scotia Greene and Sherbrooke.
Vienna Pastry Greene Ave.
Yo yo demonstrators at various stores.
Streetcar islands on Sherbrooke.
Unity Boys Club...lower Greene Ave..near Shelby.
Fred Kloos
Former Westmount Resident
July 29,2017
Thanks for the memories. . .here are a few of mine
ReplyDeleteGrosvenor Sweets (before Arrages) 3 for a penny black balls. . .
Champlain Gas station across from Grosvenor Sweets
Macy's Victoria and Sherbrooke - the place for a cherry coke. . .
24 bus when it was the number 4.
Coffee house - hangout on St. Catherine near Westmount High
Hockey in "Johnny's League" (Johnny has since been exposed as a child molester. . . oh God. . .)
Refereeing Pee Wee hockey games with "Skip" Bob Aiken.
Landing the coveted Gazette route in the 4300 (de Maisonneuve)
First taste of pizza at Westmount Pizzeria across from the train station.
Ping Pong in the arena and checkers in the park. Hiding under the "falls" in the park. The bead emporium on Victoria.
ReplyDeleteOMG. So many memories. The Bead Emporium. That antique store near the 124 bus stop at the corner of Sherbrooke and Claremont. The scary lady chasing kids out of Miss Westmount. Waiting in the cold for the 66 bus on Guy. Holy cow!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful lists! .. very personal details that we all experienced. By the way, The people in Anthony's were: Virgil "Don't lean on the showcase!" Fabie, and Margaret (Looked and sounded like Zsa Zsa Gabor) with her pooch.
ReplyDeleteThere was a donut shop a couple doors down on Abbott. I used to annoy the old guy by kicking the counter while eating dounuts.
Sam's burger Joint on St-Catherine at Lewis.