6-Camilien Houde denounces conscription Popular Montreal Mayor Camilien Houde gave a speech advising people to ignore the national registration for World War II in 1940. He vastly overplayed his hand as feds swooped in and put him in an internment camp for four years without trial.
7-Failure to extend infrastructure while it was still cheap Highways, metro lines and other such goodies would have been relatively easy to build when the island was less built-up but would be inconceivably expensive today.
8-Building a giant public housing project in the heart of the city Mayor Drapeau passionately opposed the plan to jam a huge public housing project in the heart of the city and was rewarded for his efforts by being voted out of power. Turns out he was right as the wasteful land usage known as Jeanne Mance Housing Project has cost much potential tax revenues.
9-Money and the ethnic vote A drunk Jacques Parizeau forever burnt bridges with an important demographic when he shamed immigrants for not sharing his enthusiasm for Quebec separation following the 1995 referendum, echoing the disastrous Yvette controversy of 1976 which saw a celebrity denounce federalist women as "Yvettes."
10 The CBC Tower An entire downtown neighbourhood was demolished simply to erect a tower for the CBC / Radio Canada. The new building came with extensive tunnels underneath, making it difficult to build on adjacent lands.
11-Banning immigrants from French schools A bizarre longstanding policy that forced immigrants to attend English schools worked at counterpurpose to the demographic aspirations of the francophone majority.
12-Opposing the Cavendish extension Cote St. Luc residents fiercely opposed any proposal to extend Cavendish to Highway 40 until they realized that the status quo was forcing them into much longer commutes, it was too late, however as authorities had lost interest in the project after they changed their mind.
13-Demolishing Goose Village A historic neighbourhood that served as an ancient landing pad to Irish immigrants, and later Italian immigrants, once sat near Bridge street, vaguely across from where the Costco sits now. For reasons best understood by himself, Mayor Jean Drapeau ordered the entire area demolished in 1964 at great costs to the city budget.
14-Decades-long hole downtown From about 1910 to 1960 the area around Central Station sat as a massive crater, the result of the digging required for the tunnel to Town of Mount Royal. Buildings such as the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and Place Ville Marie eventually filled the space but the hole remained an open wound on the city for half a century.
15- Pastagate Quebec's infamous language policy brought much unwelcome derision to Montreal by fining a restaurant for having Italian on its menus.
16-Demolishing the Overdale block Montreal Mayor Jean Dore allowed a pair of developers to dupe him into permitting them to demolish an entire city block that they had bought up surreptitiously. They promised a shiny condo project on the site but once everybody was gone in 1989, they allowed it to sit as a parking lot, speculating on the once lively neighbourhood of students and artist and retirees for 25 years.
17-Losing the Expos Montreal lost its connection to an important vein of notereity when the team left town. Had owners held on, the team would have proved viable, as revenue sharing would have put a good profit in their pockets in spite of its low player payroll and underwhelming attendance.
18- No roundabouts Montreal's approach to traffic has long been counterintuitive, as right-on-reds have led to unnecesary pollution and delays while police enforcement of jaywalking has also led to much discomfort in cold weather, but perhaps the biggest oversight has been constantly opting for traffic lights over much safer alternatives such as roundabouts.
19- Demolition of Corridart Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau commissioned a magnificent trail of art down Sherbrooke street for the 1976 Olympics. Some elements proved derisive to his authority so he ordered the entire thing removed.
20-Letting firetraps flourish A not-too-stringent policing of safety in bars resulted in 37 deaths at the Wagon Wheel on Sept 1, 1972. Similar oversights at the Laurier Theatre on St. Catherine in Jan 9, 1927 led to 78 young people dying, while a fire at the nearby Hochelaga school 20 years prior led to 17 young people to perish.
21-Mario Lemieux refusing to don Pens jersey when drafted Mario Lemieux would eventually prove to be an all-time hockey great but his first connection to the NHL in 1984 would prove to be a disaster that took him many years to live down.
22-Killing of Pierre Laporte The separatist movement became associated with murder when provincial MNA was kidnapped and killed by separatist terrorists in 1970, leading to long-term damage to the movement.
23-Renaming Dorchester Various street renamings have led to unnecessary squabbles and inconvenience, in the case of Rene Levesque Blvd., it sent the signal that Montreal has to name major arteries after provincial premiers of they won't get their cookies. Had Jean Dore stood strong and resisted the temptation Montreal would have retained its independence.
24-Drapeau's restaurant Mayor Jean Drapeau, while still in power, opened a fancy restaurant with live classical music in the Windsor Hotel in 1970. The place was targeted by every stripe of protester and went broke fast, leading to a sketchy showdown that saw police illegally allow him to recover his restaurant equipment after bailiff officers showed up to seize it.
25-Removing the funicular at Mount Royal park One of Montreal's most charming features (1884-1918) allowed park-visitors to slowly wend their way up to the top of the hill until it went broke and was dismantled.
27-Celine Dion angrily declining an "anglophone song" award in 1979 In an ill advised publicity blunder, rising singer Celine Dion made a bizarre speech upon accepting an English language song award. The embarassing moment was rarely mentioned thereafter.
28-Losing the Montreal Maroons Montreal had the unique distinction of having not once, but two, NHL teams, both winning Stanley Cups. They went broke in 1938.
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30- Rene Levesque running over and killing a war veteran Edgar Trottier on 6 Feb. 1977 was on Cote des Neigs when along came the Premier of Quebec in the middle of the night. Levesque had been drinking at the apartment of his pal, the hardline separatist Yves Michaud. Levesque ran over the aged man on the street, dragged his body 140 feet. Police did not administer a breathalyzer test. Levesque's credibility and judgment were forever questioned thereafter.
31-La Cite Great numbers of classic old buildings in the Milton Park area of the McGill Ghetto were demolished for the La Cite project, as authorities overlooked a huge movement to protect the area.
31-Setting the great fire of 1852 About half of Montreal burned in 1852. Someone carelessly allowed flames to spread from a fire on St. Lawrence.
32 - Bombing 11-year-old Daniel Desrochers Montreal's biker war was allowed to continue without much interruption until a poorly-planned bombing killed a child in the east end. Authorities swiftly intervened to enact new laws to take down the gangs.
33-War on gays Police led major busts against gays in Montreal bars, tossing people in jail routinely until the late 1960s and then ramping up the effort with the Truxx raid in 77, Buds in 84, Sex Garage in 1990 and Katacombes in 1994.
34-Eradicating streetcars Montreal's longstanding love affair with streetcars ended in the mid-1950s when all of the beautiful old trains were tossed in a big fire. Saving a few of the lines would have maintained some of the charm they offered.
35-Souki Montreal Expos unveiled a mascot in 1978 that lasted only one season as the round-haired scourge struck fear into the hearts of children.
36- Not saving the Van Horne Mansion Business owner David Azrieli took advantage of lax demolition laws to raze a venerable old mansion on Sherbrooke in 1974.
37-The De Bernonville petition 143 Quebec notables signed an ill-advised petition urging Canada to allow an infamous French war criminal to stay in Canada. De Bernonville was a particularly bloodthirsty killer who was forced to Brazil where he was killed by his servant's son in 1972.
38-RCMP's raid on separatist groups on St. Hubert St. RCMP agents pulled off an illegal break-in at 3459 St. Hubert in 1971, seizing nothing but stacks of useless paper from obsolete separatist groups the MDPPQ and APLQ. The raid led to great humiliation of the RCMP and ended several careers.
Montreal's greatest blunders: a list of a city's all-time biggest mistakes - Part One
ReplyDelete2) In the long run, Montreal has benefited from the St. Lawrence Seaway albeit in more indirect ways. See: http://www.greatlakes-seaway.com/en/seaway/facts/eco_impact.html
3) If done properly, the Big O could be (and evidently is going to be) upgraded. The ridiculous excuse that it is located "too far away" from convenient public access is simply a mantra repeated by those who insist on throwing billions of tax-payer money away on another monstrous stadium jammed closer to downtown with the resulting traffic nightmares. No doubt some disgruntled group would soon find fault with the new arena and demand ANOTHER one be built. Enough already! All that money can be better spent.
4) Many major cities have built successful airports miles from densely-populated residential neighbourhoods, thereby reducing local runway and facility expansion, expropriation, and noise pollution complaints. Mirabel "failed" because interfering politicians and certain "business interests" ALLOWED it to fail. Autoroute 13 never continued beyond Autoroute 640 as it was supposed to do and the proposed rail line from downtown was never built either thus making Mirabel Airport a "nuisance" to reach. The final nail-in-the-coffin was that sham "contest" between Dorval and Mirabel which was stacked in Dorval's favour.
7) We can thank those PQ separatist governments for focusing on referendums rather than funding our steadily-crumbling infrastructure. Just imagine how much worse our roads and bridges would be today if Quebec HAD separated! Rest assured that taxes would have increased so enormously that many more people would have left than actually did.
8) Alternatively, allowing decrepit slum housing to remain in place rather than build anew would have left a blight on our city. Who wants to live in run down, unsafe housing? Urban renewal was and remains a necessary fact of life around the world so long as there is public consultation and heritage sites are respected. There is a right way and a wrong way to accomplish it.
10) Granted the CBC Tower project was poorly conceived, although it DID replace the ramshackle, fire-trap hovels which used to exist there. But why wasn't green space and a shopping plaza included on the CBC's property?
11) I suspect that the St. Leonard school "crisis" of the late 1960s was more of a ploy fomented by radical elements which targeted paranoid politicians who, in turn, caved in to their demands. In hindsight, the "riot" along Jean Talon where mostly Italian businesses were smashed was likely orchestrated by radicals who hired goons to do their dirty work. How many of those radicals and goons actually RESIDED in St. Leonard? It was a well-known fact that, back in the day, French Catholic school education was bogged down with religion, which made the English Protestant schools more attractive to Italian immigrant families. Political intimidation and violence only created anger, resentment, and even movement out of the province by many of those affected.
12) It seems clear that the Cavendish Extension will only be forced to completion when the traffic situation around the Decarie Circle becomes so totally grid-locked that the vast majority of commuters will demand relief and overrule the last-remaining NIMBY obstructionists--a day which is virtually upon us. Stay tuned.
13) Goose Village, despite its quaint name, was essentially another run-down series of streets with ancient housing that existed too close to an industrial zone and on property that was better off being obliterated and re-purposed. Not everyone was opposed to relocating elsewhere, either.
Montreal's greatest blunders: a list of a city's all-time biggest mistakes - Part Two:
ReplyDelete14) Due to World War I, the Great Depression, and then World War II, both the railway and the adjacent, commercial property owners were forced by economic circumstances to wait until the time was right to complete Central Station, The Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and Place Ville Marie in that order, which is all well-documented in the historical record. Incidentally, take a look at the relevant and fascinating photos on the east passage walls connecting Central Station with PVM.
18) Having had extensive experience riding around numerous roundabouts Down Under, I can report that they DO work fairly well for the simple reason that motorists there were BORN INTO using them. To suddenly incorporate them into Montreal's road infrastructure and expect our notoriously impatient drivers to easily adapt would prove to be a dangerous and even deadly experiment not worth the risk.
23) Renaming Dorchester Boulevard was an opportunity that the separatist party card-holder mayor Jean Doré arbitrarily forced through overnight with NO public consultation whatsoever. Fast-forward to the upcoming plan to rename Amherst Street to another name more palatable to our local revisionists terminally diagnosed with selective outrage is just a continuation of well-established, mean-spirited political opportunism. Would renaming that street also make it mandatory to rename the existing Amherst Building at 1010 Ste. Catherine East as well? NO historic figure is as pure as the driven snow, so where does it end? Doubtless there are those who would rename Wellington Street into Rue Napoleon. How about renaming the racist Lionel-Groulx Metro station to something more user-friendly? Alas, they just cannot bring themselves to do it.
26) I highly doubt if anyone could have predicted what the then-aging Charles de Gaulle was going to blurt out from that rarely-used balcony of City Hall. I also doubt if he himself knew ahead of time, either. I could be wrong, but I've always thought that de Gaulle simply got carried away by the enthusiastic crowd and in particular by the "Quebec Libre" placards being waved below only to realize later the enormity of his foolish gaffe. In any event, his reputation around during that time period had already sunk considerably for various other reasons.
28) Having TWO NHL hockey teams in a single city is overkill. I wonder how divided New Yorkers are over the Rangers and the Islanders? Same goes for baseball and other sports, I imagine.
34) The route 11 streetcar over Mount Royal should have been kept in service. It was only the widespread enthusiasm over the conversion to busses throughout the city (and in other cities worldwide) that blunted any notions of nostalgia at the time. Forget about re-instating NEW tram lines on city streets as the cost and inconvenience of building the infrastructure would not be worth the expense and the headache to nearby businesses and residences. Trams are best suited for rights-of-way. Besides, easy-to-reroute, all-electric busses are the official plan for the future along the upcoming light-rail network.
36) It's too bad that heavy retroactive fines cannot be administered to everyone who had shamefully demolished heritage buildings in the past.
Most cities in the developed world have a list of historical blunders. Montreal has more than most but is still a wonderful city. It's not exactly Lagos.
ReplyDeleteFor # 26: Has anybody cared enough to notice that De Gaulle did not utter his famous "Vive le Québec libre!" in 1970, but in 1967?
ReplyDeleteI think the demolition of goose village was so visitors from the States would not see these old run down houses as their first view of Mtl..
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