When Lachine demolished the wrong house

  If you ever want a good gig teaching at a university, try to persuade them to let you preach on Montreal's architecture built between 1929 and 1944.
   You'll have plenty of time to toss paper airplanes at truant students and tell stories of your childhood because what went up during those 15 years was precisely nothing.
   Between the Great Depression and the end of WWII not only did little get built, empty lots proliferated all over and many buildings were torn down, some that weren't even supposed to be.
   Take for example the now-vacant space on a prime location overlooking the Lachine canal on St. Joseph between 6th and 7th Aves.
   The City of Lachine demolished a building there in 1936 only to realize that they had knocked down the wrong house.
   Lachine authorities had the right to demolish one structure but the other was the property of the same owner. That's the one that they demolished.
   Of course the owner Louis Clement, who seems to have been a bit of a deadbeat, immediately launched a lawsuit and sought compensation. The building was valued at a whopping $800.
   (Explain it right dummkopf:  The one ordered demolished had been repossessed by Lachine due to unpaid tax debts. Clement likely didn't pay the bill because claiming ownership of one part of an inheritance also ties you up with whatever debts also belong to that estate - Chimples).
   The spot - now prime real estate - remains vacant to this very day.