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Crosses on Ridgewood

January 5, 2014, 3:25 pm
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Funny little detail about the buildings at the top of Ridgewood Ave in Cote des Neiges: when they were built, in 1955-1956, they were designed to form the shape of a cross from above.
   So, in fact, there are actually about a dozen crosses on Mount Royal, not counting the cemeteries.
   Another weird little detail: on at least one of those buildings near the top of the hill, one corner of the foundation is a 63-foot column.
   The column - stuck into a lower portion of the mountain - supports a massive 63 ft by 144 foot slab of concrete. So the basement-parking lot upon which at least one of those buildings is constructed is actually well above the ground.
*Source: Petit Journal 29 Jan, 1956
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Phil Everly's famous friendship with Buddy Holly - forged in Montreal

January 5, 2014, 7:00 pm
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The recently-deceased early-days-of-rock legend Phil Everly describes how he first met Buddy Holly in the Montreal Canadiens' locker room at the old Forum in 1957.
   It would be an epic friendship - albeit brief, as Holly died on Feb. 3, 1959.
"The first time I met Buddy Holly was in Montreal. (Everly Brother) Don and I joined a big package tour
- the Fats Domino Tour - Buddy and the Crickets and everybody was down at the locker rooms, like a sports event. Everybody had a hook. That was the wardrobe and we all set on benches and we were all in the same room. That's when we first met him and it was a lot of fun. I was 18 at the time so it was like a college, everybody was a  contemporary. It was like being in a fraternity, we rode buses on the tour and it was the best of times, I call it the golden age of rock."
 Buddy Holly played twice in Montreal, at the Forum, once on September 15, 1957, and again on October 5, 1958.
   Anecdotes about that first encounter relate how Holly and the Crickets were highly impressed with the nicer clothing that the Everly Brothers - who had a few months head-start on them career-wise - were sporting. "Let's go shopping," said Buddy Holly after examining their fine gear.

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Now that's a car crash

January 6, 2014, 9:00 am
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    Back in the days when Lorne Greene was the voice of all of the Canadas and neighbouring housewives used to ring your doorbell to borrow eggs and sugar, Montreal had a lot of streets that have since disappeared.
   For example, the land that the Olympic Stadium currently occupies contained little streets, including Bennett that ran up to Sherbrooke (and maybe beyond) and that's precisely the intersection where Jean L'Esperance, 42 of 4567 Orleans smashed into a tree and killed himself. His two children were injured but survived on Dec. 2, 1956.
    Back then, motorists would drop like flies as brakes were unreliable and tires bald.
   We really should create a memorial to those traffic victims, who died because of inferior technology.
   L'Esperance's sad but highly-photographable demise was one of many motor deaths on National Traffic Safety Week in Montreal that year when nine died over the weekend. One of the dead was a 15-year-old cyclist.
 Still better than the 15 that died the weekend before.
   In Quebec in 1956, 669 died on highways. There were 50,000 accidents in the province that year, almost exactly half of those in Montreal. At the time there were 825,000 motor vehicles in Quebec and over one million drivers.  
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Palais de Concrete and its mysterious gas leaks

January 6, 2014, 10:30 am
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   Downtown resident Madame Arthur Lafontaine of 960 Chenneville Ave. in Montreal was hospitalized several times for a mysterious series of gas inhalation incidents between 1951 and 1956.
   Authorities could nae divine from whence precisely the fumes under her home were emanating.
   Dead rats, killed by the gas, had been found in her basement and weird smells were also prevalent.
  Neighbours also complained about the stench and one newspaper* ran a photo of the poor woman as she slept, sickened by the toxic gases.
  Mme Lafontaine had a five year old son who wasn't seriously sickened by the fumes.
   So where is Chenneville Ave. downtown and why haven't you heard of it?
The houses have all been demolished and the Palais de Concrete now sits at the site.
  *8 Jan 1956 p. 34 Le Petit Journal

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Why the shot-in-Montreal series Radisson - aka Tomahawk - flopped

January 6, 2014, 1:00 pm
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 Radisson, or Tomahawk: The Adventures of Pierre Raidsson, was one of the earliest-ever Canadian TV series and it was filmed right here in Montreal. The CBC production - filmed in such exotic Canadian locations as Perot Island -  turned out to be a big money loser and here, for the first (second.. third? - Chimples) time ever is an explanation as to why it did so terribly.
   Somebody stole the scripts and nobody had a copy of them.
   In December 1956 writer John Lucarotti parked his car outside of Renaissance Studios on Cote des Neiges while attending a staff Christmas party.
   He had left two scripts and about a year's worth of research in the car.
   When he got back the car and its precious contents had been stolen.
   Lucarotti, a self-described "ardent-naturalized Canadian" went to the Laurentians and tried to rewrite the lost texts from memory but got frustrated and booted it back to his home in Toronto where he did his best to complete it as he remembered it.
   The problem with the show was that its very-large projected budget rose to $15,000 per episode, which was already very high and then to $25,000 per episode and that total didn't even include the costs of CBC staff.
   The show was aimed at young people and aired an hour before the hockey games on CBC. It was eventually sold to the USA and ITV Tyne Tees and Australia.
   Some now-elderly folk in those countries still recall watching the show as kids and appreciating Canada somewhat while watching its adventures.
   Some criticized the costumes, including a Montreal woman wrote that the Indians looked like white men "who dunked their heads into a bucket of multicoloured paint then donned ill fitting and badly decorated bathing caps."
. They did a survey of viewers and the summary said that "many felt Radisson emerged as an exaggerated and implausible figure."
   Lucarotti took the whole thing pretty seriously, he hyped the show as "a titanic undertaking - a saga to stir the blood of every Canadian.""I'm not creating a cardboard hero it's a full dimensional portrayal of an ordinary man.. whose life was literally packed with exciting incidents."
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Montreal's Jewish Defence League in training, 1970

January 7, 2014, 7:23 am
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   Hate to terrify you this early in the morning but these fierce young warriors used to roam the streets of this very city in 1970, as part of a squad of 300 fighting to protect the Jewish people.
   Arnold Mintzberg, 26, centre in that photo above, was the chief of the local Jewish Defence League, which met in a four-room office over a Decarie Ave. butcher shop.
   He conceded that there was little antisemitism in Montreal at the time but worried it was growing, which inspired him to lead the movement.
   Among their activities that year was a sit-in at the Aeroflot offices on de Maisonneuve on June 30, to protest the Soviet refusal to allow Russian Jews to leave. Seven were arrested.
   On March 12 about five dozen took part in a counter-protest opposing a Palestinian rally outside of the Israel and US consulates on McGregor that never materialized. And in July they claimed to have roughed up a guy who had attacked a Rabbi. They claimed to have guys with radios patrolling supposed hotbeds of antisemitism, like Jeanne Mance St. and Fairmount.
   Don't know what happened to Arnold Mintzberg, who would be about 67 now, but other Montrealers with that same last name in Montreal have done well, including Henry, an academic and Marc and Sheldon, both entrepreneurs.
  The JDL had been formed just two years earlier in New York by Meir Kahane and Mintzberg claimed that seven of his members had attended training camp in New York.
   Of course, the local Jewish community then - as now - is not a political monolith and some local Jews didn't support the aims of the JDL at all, including gadfly prof Stanley Grey.
   Eventually, the Montreal-born Irv Rubin would take over the JDL but he wasn't in Montreal at the time or even involved in the JDL in 1970.
   Rubin moved from Montreal to Los Angeles with his family in 1961 at age 15, and got into the movement down there in a big way in 1971.
   According to one biography, Rubin learned to fight back against antisemitism while growing up in Montreal, "where some hotel owners and other business people hung signs reading `No Dogs or Jews Allowed' on their doors and where French Canadian schoolchildren taunted him because he was Jewish."
   He once recalled that his mother told him to go out and fight a kid who had called him a "dirty Jew."
   Rubin sought to reopen a JDL chapter in Monreal in 1994 as an "insurance program" to protect the Jewish community and that raised publicity but eventually it fizzled out. He died in a Los Angeles prison, falling off a 20 foot balcony, in 2002. The JDL was deemed a terrorist group by the US government in 2001. 
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Where are they now? Sir George Williams protester dies in Trinidad

January 7, 2014, 9:00 am
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Belgrave
  Perhaps worth nothing that a central figure in one of the city's most famous riots,  Ian Belgrave, died in July. The militant Trinidad-based mathematics teacher and steel pan lover, better known as Teddy Belgrave, was one of the leaders of the Sir George Williams sit in strike against racism that led to 87 people being charged for conspiracy, it should be noted that only 42 of them were actually black. .
   The group was irked by a professor named Perry Anderson, who they accused of flunking several students for no other reason than that they were black. He was later exonerated by the university but only after about $1.6 million of damage was done to a terribly expensive computer centre.
   Among the participants who went on to have impressive careers were Canadian Senator Anne Cools and Rosie Douglas, who went on to become Prime Minister of Dominica.
Edmund Michael, Lucille Whitby, Rosie Douglas,
Anne Cools went to try to meet PM Trudeau
in Feb. '70, during the trial. He declined to meet.
   (By the way, Douglas died of a heart attack in 2000 immediately after visiting Montreal. His bodyguard in Montreal told me that Douglas had been tailed by a suspicious man whose credentials did not check out when scrutinized. So there's always a possibility that Douglas was the victim of foul play perhaps some sort of furtive poisoning)
   Belgrave proudly lived in Laventille, a not-very-wealth suburb of Port of Spain, where I actually stayed for about three days once, next to the Shouters' Church and they really do shout.
  Belgrave's wife Valerie Belgrave was also charged. She went on to become a noted artist and writer in Trinidad after graduating Concordia. She worked on a book about steel pan music six years ago, so she was likely either still together with Ian at the time, or on good terms with him. Remind me to interview her about the affair when I figure out how to reach her.
   Their lawyer Juanita Westmoreland, a Verdun-born woman of Guyanese heritage, went on to become Quebec's first black judge. She lost her case as 8 of the 10 Trinidadians were found guilty in March 1970. Fourteen Trinidadians were convicted and deported altogether and the Trinidad government paid $33,000 to Concorida to help offset the $1.6 million in damaged computers.  
   Belgrave later told a reporter that the arrest didn't hurt his professional career and said it was "a fantastic experience."
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Early days of Montreal's motorized taxis

January 8, 2014, 8:51 am
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Montrealer Mario Pompetti shared this photo of his father, a cabbie in the early days of motorized taxis. He says it was taken in the 1930s in Montreal but I can't determine exactly where, as the name Wings, seen in the background, was shared by many businesses around town at the time, including a lot of Chinese laundries.
   You'll notice that there was no dome light on taxis in those days, just a sign in the window.
  Note the two brassy babes proudly sporting their cheap sunglasses, which were likely at the cutting edge of high-technology at the time.
  The lower photo is a shot of of the senior Pompetti wearing his taxi-driver uniform which he wore driving for Diamond Taxi, a long black wool coat and white gloves. "He used to change every day until the 1950s," said Pompetti, who said that his family came to Canada to flee the Italian fascists, who stole much of his family's property. 
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Summer of '70: Toronto air disaster kills 64 Montrealers

January 8, 2014, 11:06 am
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Top row: Mrs. Boosamra and her daughter Lynn Boosamra, Mrs. R. Poirier, Mrs. Weinberg and daughters Carla and Wendy, Mark Simon, Mrs. and Mrs. Gustave Waitz. Second row: Gaetan Beaudin, Claude Holiday, Gilles Labonte, Mrs. W. Wong, Linda Earle, Lewella Earle, Sister Madeleine Grenier. Third Row: Wong Wong, Susie Wong, Michael Molino, Antonio Molino. 
  On July 5, 1970 109 people died on a plane from Montreal to Toronto on Air Canada Flight 621 as the nose lifted due to human error, leading the backside of the plane to come hammering down to the ground,  leaving to all sorts of explosions.
   About 64 of those who died were Montrealers, including the nine crew members and about 50 of the 100 passengers.
 Captain Peter C. Hamilton, 49 of Pointe Claire (originally from Weburnn Sask).
 First Officer Don Rowland, 39, of Hudson and originally of London England (13 years at Air Canada)
 Second Officer H.G. Hill, 28, of Lachine. He had just moved from Toronto.
 Purser Robert Cedilot, 29, of 480 Bourque Dorval, three years with Air Canada.
 Stewardess Denise M. Goulet, 22, of 1975 de Maisonneuve.
 Stewardess Hildegund Wieczorek, 24, who moved here from Austria in 1968.
 Stewardes Yolande Daoust, 25, of 425 32 Ave Lachine. Four years with Air Canada.
  Stewardess Suzanne Dion, 23 of 65 Bouchard Blvd.
 Stewardess Ginette Marie  Bertrand 23, of 1025 First Ave. Dorval.
Passengers:Mrs. David B. Clarke 208 Lagace Dorval.  She was an AC employee.
 F.T. "Bun" Moore, Canadian living in LA working as AC representative.
 Lynn Boosamra, 11, 3250 Ellendale Ave. going to see her sister in LA
 Mrs. R. Poirier Montreal
 D.J. Woodward 164 St. Rosemere, former AC captain., now doing flight simulation training.
 Gaetan Beadin, 27, father of one, Valleyfield
 Mrs. Saul Weinberg and her two daughters C and W of 5767 McMurray
  Gilles Labonte, 1180 d'Auteuil St. Duvernay, Presdient of Allegan Canada.
  Mr and Mrs. G Dicaire and three kids, of 585 O'Connell Dorval. he was an AC employee.
 Mr and Mrs. R Whittingham and son J.W. Whittingham 12 John Terace TErrebonne Heights
 G. Boulanger of Montreal
B. Gee 1583 Ducharme Outremont
 M. Molino 7342 Rousselot St. Leonard
  Dr. and Mrs. G. Desmarais 225 Roy St. E. Ste March sur le Lac (he was uncle of OUtremont Mayor Pierre Demarais III and chief gynecologist at charles Lemoyne Hospital
  Mr. and Mrs. C.W. Partridge of Montreal
Mr. and Mrs. Gustavl Maltz 10 8 Ave Laval (he was a construction worker going on holidays they had seven kids.
 Mr. and Mrs. Wong Wong and granddaughter Susie of 4866 Jeanne Mance.
 Mark Simon who had moved to LA but was visiting dad at 240 Kenaston TMR.
 J. Charent Montreal
 Twin sisters Lewella and Linda Earle of Park Ave Montreal, who were going to Cleveland to meet up their boyfriends..
Miss H. Hamilton Montreal
Lionel Robidoux of Lacolle
Mr. and Mrs. Oscard Leclaire, 12281 Valmont St. Montreal
 M. Raymond, 16 of Labaron St. Boucherville,
 Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Benson and son F. Benson and daughter H. Benson of 4321 Cedar Pierrefonds
Mr. and Mrs R Belanger, son J.B. Belanger and daughter R. Belanger of 6957 Hamilton St. Monreal.
 Mr and Mrs C. Mailhot, Montreal
 Mr. and Mrs. G. Tournovits, Linton St. Montreal.
 Mr. and Mrs. P.J. Adams, both on honeymoon. had married just before.
 Mrs. Silverberg of St. Leonard and two children.
 Sister Madeleine Grenier teacher at Mont Jesus Marie d'Outremont.
 S. Szpackowicz and son B. Spackowicz Montreal.

A new memorial was created at the site of the crash last summer.
   More photos here.
  Lynda Fischman, who was waiting for her mom and two sisters in Los Angeles (the Weinbergs), wrote a book about her ordeal growing up without them. 
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Snow sculptures in the city

January 8, 2014, 3:30 pm
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Would love to know the backstory about this snow sculpture on a 1987 postcard, somewhere in Montreal. 
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Cyber-savvy Mayor Coderre earns online fail

January 9, 2014, 7:58 am
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   Montreal's new mayor is unlike other politicians of the folksy-portly breed, in that his thing is being lightning quick with his internet accounts.
   Coderre is prolific on Twitter where some have wondered if he doesn't have some sort of Tourettes of the thumbs, after he suggested that one Habs forward should be sent to the minors and then more recently condemned a Montreal police officer for his dealings with a homeless guy minutes after a video was posted online, basing his possibly-rash condemnation on no other context than a 52 second video.
   But alas, nobody is perfect and - as we see here - Coderre's online skills are seen very much lacking in one other regard, as he has neglected to take the 49 seconds required to update his professional Linked In page, which still lists him as a federal MP, a job he left on May 29, 2013, over seven months ago and counting.   
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1951: teen goes undercover for 4 years, busts Montreal Communists

January 9, 2014, 9:58 am
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 Maurice Boyzcum was a widely-feted anti-Communist infiltrator who spied on the Reds for four years, starting at age 15, in a mission that ended in many busts.
   Boyzcum quit the Boy Scouts and joined the Communists as a spy in 1947 under the name Morris Taylor.
   His father, John Boyzcum was second-in-command of the Montreal police squad's anti-subversive squad since its inception in the 1930s.
  The senior Boyzcum, as an anti-subversive, was assigned such tasks as checking out if Lili St. Cyr's dances were immoral (they weren't) and busting a baseball team trying to raise cash for their lefty political party.  
Young Claire Benzvy watches raid
   The idea of Maurice infiltrating came when he was reading some of the Communist material his father had brought home.
   "My father warned me it was a Communist paper but I explained that's how I would get to know them," said Maurice in an interview.
 Maurice, then 15, vowed that he would replace his dad in his job on the anti-subversive squad if needed.
  So Boyzcum began infiltrating as Morris Taylor, son of a Polish dad and Jewish mom by becoming a delivery boy for the Red publication, the Daily Tribune.
   He then moved on to delivering mail and running errands from their office on Notre Dame W. to Quebec provincial headquarters of the Labour Progressive Party at 254 St. Catherine E. rooms 25 and 26.
   He dropped out of high school, the Boy Scouts, avoided his regular friends and quit his part time job. He wanted to leave discreetly, so he demanded a big raise, which was refused. His communist friends applauded him for standing up for his rights.
   Boyzcum then joined the Jewish People's Order's Youth Division in the fall of 1949 and quickly became the secretary and social director for that group.
  He even took his own apartment in the north end. and sometimes allowed his friends in the Communists to stay there with him.
   "It was a slim chance but with luck on my side, I succeeded in slowly climbing the ladder of the Red movement in Montreal," he later said.
   He became press and publicity director of the UJPO and in 1950 they promoted him to a full-member.
   "This meant I was pure Communist through my activities and tests I passed, including a course in leadership given by top party leaders," he said.
   He eventually was a member of the UJPO, NFLY, Civil Liberties' Union and Montreal Peace Council.
   The teenager even attended Communist summer school.
"I never knew my luck would last so long," he said. He was eventually brought up "paraded before a meeting and questioned for several hours."
  Suspicions of him being an undercover agent had risen so he was suspended and forced to leave.
  Cops, using his information, then conducted four simultaneous raids on Dec. 5, 1951, at 1539 Ducharme Outremont and busting Claire Benzvy, 19, at her parents home. They also raided 4900 Clark (Sydney Marknian),  5333 Hutchison, (Ann Lash) 7820 de l'Epee apt. 10 (Peter Peretz)
   Peretz owned a fur business and was polite and helpful as police carted off huge amounts of pamphlets and other materials. He and his wife Jane Little were the local leaders.
   Eight days later four more joints were raided under the Padlock Law, which was later ruled unconstitutional.
  "I've lost 22 pounds in less than a year while leading this double life. Now maybe I'll put on some weight," said Boyzcum.
  Days after the raids, his dad's home on Taillon was broken into at 2:30 a.m., presumably by his former friends in the Communist movement, hoping either to rough him up or get back some of the 8,000 documents seized in raids of the National Federation of Labour Youth.
   The Boyzcum clan doesn't appear to get mentioned again, ever, so it's likely that Maurice Boyzcum changed his name.
   We would definitely like to know what became of Maurice Boyzcum, who would be about 81 now, if still alive.
 *See also: Mtl Gazette Dec. 7, 1951 p. 17 - unlinkable on google.    
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Quebec's costly deal to rent offices on the Lower Main

January 10, 2014, 8:26 am
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Photoshop collage of Christian Yaccarini and J.F. Lisee
    The province has finally achieved its obscure goal of occupying the Lower Main, as on December 2 Quebec inked a costly deal to relocate many bureaucrats to the heart of the red light where they'll push pencils while transvestites, hookers and degenerates stroll around down below.
   The province will be transferring bureaucrats from the World Trade Centre on McGill street at the edge of Old Montreal to Christian Yaccarini's to-be-built office/condo/commercial complex straddling Cleo's strip club and the Monument Nationale.
   The deal commits the government to renting 14,000 square metres of space for 25 years at a cost of $518 per sq/m for the first five years. The price rises 12.5% every five years, a deal totaling a hefty $137 million in rent due, a sum 45 percent higher than the current digs, according to an excellent recent article in La Presse.
   Developer Christian Yaccarini is blameless in this deal as it's certainly his right to try to make a good deal on his property and he appears to have achieved just that.
   It's not the first time the Quebec government has tried to claim the block. They attempted to take it over for Hydro Quebec offices in the 90s but that plan fell through.
   The block, of course, is not the daintiest place around and attempts to get rid of the porno movie booth complexes and strip clubs have been an utter failure for decades and there's no reason to think that this new complex will do anything to scare those places out.
   And while the government cites a desire to rid the city of dilapidation on the east side of the block, it must be remembered that the loss of some very lovely and historic greystones was largely a result of their own meddling, as the province has long expressed a desire to occupy that area, so developers have long had the itch to cash in on the government's obsession with building on the block.
   PQ cabinet minister Jean-Francois Lisee defended the new lease deal in an interview with La Presse.
   Lisee was, until just a few months ago, a journalist who spent his time writing articles about how English people are somehow at fault for not recognizing obscure Quebec youth celebrities such as Marie Mai.
   The $160 million Angus Development complex is set to begin construction this fall and should be complete by the start of 2018.
   Other spots would have been more logical for development. For example the space around the St. Lawrence metro station would have had the added advantage of being right atop a metro station.
  The Lower Main - the symbolic dividing point between east and west, French and English - first became a focus for attempted ethnic dominance when the road was widened at the start of the last century.
   Around 1910 the Societe St. Jean Baptiste's lobbied for major roadways to be built to lead to its headquarters at the Monument National and then about a century later they built a large student dorm across the street and the province appears to be in line with that same thinking as they've campaigned endlessly for the last 20 years to transform the block.
   So the attempt to commandeer control of the Main lives on and will come at a price to taxpayers.
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Newly-discovered old pic of bus station on Dorch

January 10, 2014, 9:06 am
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    Contributor MP & I sent this photo of the old PTC Terminal on Dorchester near Drummond taken by his grandfather in the 1930s.
   It's the best pic I've seen of the site, which was demolished and relocated to Berri
    Note the tower on CPR Windsor Station right rear of photo and streetcar tracks, removed when Dorchester was completely re-orged in 1955.
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Sad photo of the day - Montreal's once-glorious rooftop pool

January 10, 2014, 9:36 am
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   Painfully cold days of winter used to be the time for Montrealers to start dreaming of summertime urban delights such as sipping beer at baseball games and sipping beer poolside in such joints as the Hotel de la Montagne rooftop and.. uh.. just generally sipping beer.
   This pic, taken from Charest_RakkoonLife's photo set on flickr, demonstrates that the pool doesn't look like it'll ever be rehabilitated, even though the redevelopment project appears to have been shelved and the hotel could have, technically, reopened when that was announced.
   As the ever-helpful Blork notes in the comments, the top-down demolition of the entire structure is now well advanced, as the building gets shorter by the day. 
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Skyscrapers will make downtown Montreal windier and colder

January 11, 2014, 4:15 pm
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  Montreal's skyline - as seen in this composite image by Cadillac Fairview including future projects - is growing fast, as the area around Dorch fills up, following the same trend that hit de Maisonneuve on the last skyscraper building go-round.
   Most Montrealers cheer on the construction of tall buildings, as a robust skyline increases our sense of importance and prestige and heck, more residents and businesses downtown liven up a city and help combat urban sprawl.
   But there's a rarely-mentioned (never-mentioned? - Chimples) downside that come with the skyscrapers, principally in the form of wind tunnels that the buildings cause.
   The wind tunnel effect occurs when wind is channeled into a narrow area and while a nice cool breeze might be welcome in some sort of place like Panama or Dubai, it's less fun in a cold winter city like Montreal where the wind chill factor is already difficult to cope with.
   Downtown is usually a little warmer than areas outside of the city because the concentration of heated buildings means that internal heat seeps out into the streetscape, but those who dare to walk out on a terribly cold day in future-Montreal will have to brave some wicked winds after these buildings get done.
  Skyscapers also cast long shadows below, which will further cool down areas around them.
  I'd suggest that the city immediately undertake measures to compensate the punishment that pedestrians will be forced to endure in the future as we stroll amid these buildings while winds whip up and tear the heat off of our vulnerable bodies.
   Some sort of heated sidewalk system might be in order, as it would not only make things warmer but it would also clear off well-trod sidewalks without costly snow clearing operations. 
   Get 'er done Bob!
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Cuban horses at Blue Bonnets

January 12, 2014, 4:30 pm
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   After we ran photos of the dystopian hell that onetime glorious Blue Bonnets has fallen into lately, we feel obliged to run these pics of happier times at the track, kindly sent along to us at the Coolopolis Towers. 
   This 1969 photo shows Ugo Magni, the groom, holding the bridle of a special horse from Cuba named Cayajabo in the Winners' Circle.
   Thoroughbred racing was wildly popular in Cuba during the pre-Communist era under Batista but suddenly those nags had nowhere to go, as they were banned from running in the U.S.A.
   Our own PM Pierre Trudeau had a more charitable view towards those ponies itching to tear down the track, however, so he allowed them to compete here in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada. 
 "The least we can say is, Cayajabo was saddled down with lots of weight before the race was started. Lots of people carried a grudge against Commies, and in Cuba’s case, the lose of the very profitable Vegas of the Caribbeans by American riffraff," writes Magni. 



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Little shacks with big setbacks

January 13, 2014, 9:41 am
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Imagine your house being so awkwardly conceived that whenever you make the long trek from the sidewalk to your front door bear-hugging a Steinberg's paper bag laden with Miracle Whip and Twinkies, you are forced to march down your inexplicably long front yard, right past the entire length of your neighbour's homes as their kids stare out from the side windows.
  And when you look out your front window - rather than seeing the streetscape like normal folks - you spy those same neighbours leaping into above-ground pools and planting tomatoes into back yards which they have the luxury of, but you don't.
   Such is the reality for several homes on Hamilton Street in Ville Emard, as well as surely many others around town which saw builders plop houses on the very far end of the property with maximum setbacks and front lawns when they were erected in the late 1920s.
   For a long time the houses with those wannabe golf course front lawns on Hamilton between Raudot and Allard - and surely many other streets in the area - were the standard.
   But by the early 1950s the rest of the street got filled in with duplexes and these older, smaller and now less-valuable cottages became the oddballs, making an awkward situation among neighbours.
   I guess the architects had a fetish for setbacks and not too much appreciation for backyards.
   The only real advantage of these houses is that they've got ample parking space in front, which might have been a consideration when they were built at the time, perhaps in preparation for the golden age of the automobile.

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Black history to be wiped out with demolition on St. Antoine

January 14, 2014, 11:26 am
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The old building across from the Bell Centre on St. Antoine W. is going to be demolished to be replaced by a new condo development and that's sad because 1180 was a useful space for practicing musicians includingThe Nils, the Doughboys, the Capones among others. In recent years it has even served as a venue under the names Chez Eux Club and Cryochamber, among others.
   But long before that, those buildings and neighbouring structures now gone along St. Antoine just west of Mountain,, were the site of a burgeoning black club scene in Montreal.
  According to an excellent McGill thesis written in the late 1920s, the Utopia, the Nemderloc, which opened in 1922 (colored men spelled backwards) and the Standard Club were all thriving on that strip, but they weren't universally acclaimed, as you shall see.
  

   "Three Negro clubs are being operated on St. Antoine street between Windsor and Mountain streets. All are privately owned and managed. In the Negro club the spare time problem of these men has attained a commercialized aspect. 
    Negro club life began in this city when the present Utopia Club was opened on St. James in 1897 between Roy Lane and Little St. Antoine street. The club at that time was known as Recreation Key Club. In 1911 rooms were secured at 22 St. Antoine followed by the taking of the present  location the following year. The increasing number of Negros taking up residence gave rise to the opening of the Standard Club in 1914 (80 St. Antoine) until 1919 when it moved to St. Antoine and Desrivieres. 
   While these clubs are outwardly "for members only," as signs on the door attest, the patronage is not so exclusive. Members are allowed to introduce their friends as guests. These guests in time become regular patrons and eventually full members. A special set of rings upon the bells cause the men in charge upstairs to release the electric control allowing admittance to members. 
   These clubs are the hang outs of the riff-raff from the Negro population in this city. Although they began with the purpose of giving the man with a large amount of spare time recreation, they have gone beyond pure recreation. The group who are the regular patrons are those who make a profession of preying on their ignorant brothers.
   Gambling in its various forms is the accepted practice here. The thrill and excitement of winning at billiards and pool is heightened by thoughts of the possibilities of wining the bet. Refreshments of beer serve as an added attraction and is available at all hours. In times of election 'the Niggers are all fixed up through the clubs.'
    Occasional police entrance, in which the premises have been raided for the illegal sale of liquor and gambling have taken place. One one such occasion upon the entrance of the detectives into the room the lights were switched off and the officers of the law fired upon. With the threat of shooting to kill, the lights were turned on and the raid was conducted without any further interruptions. 
The question is being constantly asked by both Negros and the whites in this St. Antoine district: 'why does the police allow these clubs to operate?'
  The Montreal Negro has two distinct attitudes towards the clubs. One group sees the race judged by the behaviors of this minority group, and, as a solution, 'would burn St. Antoine St. from Windsor to Mountain.'"*

   I appears that the mission - 85 years later - will finally be complete as the buildings have come to their end and all of the musicians that have found it to be such a valuable resource have been ordered to remove all their equipment and vacate the premises.

*p. 186 MA McGill thesis The Montreal Negro Community by Wilfrid Emmerson Israel Sept. 1928
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The West Island teen locked up for skipping school

January 15, 2014, 12:01 pm
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Erika Tafel 
   Erika Tafel was not your typical teen behind bars.
   She came from a middle class nuclear family with two brothers and professional parents on the West Island and has never, to this day, been charged with any crime.
   But her stubborn refusal to attend school led her to be locked away at Shawbridge alongside girls who committed serious crimes.
   Tafel's issues started at age 12 when she rebelled against attending St. Thomas School in Beaconsfield, a Catholic school which she considered not all that interesting.
  Her mom, a nurse, and dad, an engineer, were at loggerheads with her decision to spend her days in non-academic environments and the standoff eventually led to Tafel being locked up at Shawbridge in 1983, at age 13.
  A few months ago Tafel - now living in B.C. - wrote a memoir of her four years at the youth facility, Slave to the Farm, apparently the first-ever first-hand account of life in the century-old institution as seen through the eyes of an inmate.
  Her main critique of the system is that it makes no distinction between youth sent there due to difficult family situations and cohabitants locked up after committing grievous misdeeds. .
   In fact, the blameless kids had it worse in some ways, as those kept inside for committing misdeeds are given clear time-frames for departure, whereas the family protection kids are kept inside indefinitely.
   And yet while Tafel missed her parents, there was a strange comfort in being away from the quarrels in her fish-out-of-water/coming-of-age tale.
Erika Tafel
   "It was so much cooler to be in jail than it was to grounded at home with my mom," she said.
   "I missed them greatly but my mom and I had a strange relationship so being with her was challenging and my father was a hardworking processional, he was emotionally not there. My life with him consisted of him getting up and going to work going to sleep, he didn't discipline me."
   Once inside, however, there was no sense that she'd ever get to leave before turning 18 and the system certainly was in no rush to let kids out because they are compensated on a per-head basis, which makes it in their financial interest to keep them around.
   Tafel, from a comfortable West Island background, found herself being explained the world through the eyes of child prostitutes and even a couple of murderers, but she said that it wasn't all bad, and she even developed some close ties to others girls, regardless of their difficult situations.
   "One of the most incredible discoveries I found in discussing with them years later," she told Coolopolis, "was that we all missed it to some degree. There's a trauma bonding between people incarcerated together. As adults, they strive to find a community feeling that they've never since been able to replace."
   Tafel attempted to run away several times and finally succeeded in 1986 when she was 16, close to her 17th birthday.
Tafel in a more recent photo
   This time she was able to stay out for good with the help of a boyfriend five years her senior, who let her move in with him and helped her hire a lawyer who got all warrants against her dropped.
   She took a job in a sandwich shop in on St. John's Blvd and re-established ties with her parents.
   Tafel attended university in Thunder Bay, then returned to Montreal but left again in 1995, going out west where she eventually settled on the coast where off-the-grid in Rock Creek, B.C. with the man she married in 1997 and the two children that she proudly proclaims have never attended conventional schools.
   Her parents and a brother now live in Ottawa, while another brother still lives in Montreal
   Since starting her research project, Tafel has communicated with many others who also experienced a similar narrative at Shawbridge (since renamed Batshaw) and she has embarked upon a second book.
   So those with stories to share are invited to contact her through her site.
   If there's one change to the system she'd like to see, it would be greater compassion for those who are sent there for being misfits, rather than criminals.
  "Housing protection cases alongside youth offenders is a grave mistake. I was a babe in the woods, a greenhorn. One of the first girls I met had strangled her sister. Until I met this girl, murderers were these big hairy tattooed biker dudes, they weren't girls in my age or school. I had an epiphany that murder was possible for anybody."
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