Coolopolis

Time to make your bid on the 8,200 square feet of retail space on the north side of St. Catherine twixt Crescent and Bishop.
The one-story structure is zoned to 115 feet, which means that a 10-story building can be built with 75 feet of frontage where an underwhelming little stubby thing has stood in the heart of the GSM since 1923.
So call up your bank pistoleros and tell them you've got a bead on 82,000 square feet downtown.
The buildings at 1383 to 1389 St. Catherine belong to Catcres Holdings which is listed since 2003 under the name of tax lawyer Robert Raitch. A company called JLL is fielding bids.
The businesses currently ensconced in the premises include the souvalki-licious Kojax whose late-night guy served up plenty of tasty meals and plenty of free analysis of Dustin Hermanson for the top guy at Coolopolis long before Coolopolis came to be.
The commercial tenants might be able to block any proposed demolition simply by pointing at the expiry dates on their leases.
But upcoming street renovation Armageddon might persuade those entrepreneurs to come to terms.
If borough council greenlights a 10 story structure on the property they'd be well-advised to insist owners include a public rooftop terrace where people could bask in the sun, which they no longer can do since the Loblows Selfridge folks demolished the Hotel de La Montagne to replace it with a huge structure.

Guy and Dorch features a red cross on the corner to signify death.
It has been there since 1737.
It ain't there for nothing.
Some of the deaths near that corner include:

Guido Pucci, murdered at the hotel on the northeast corner in 1984.
Eugene Desjardins, lovable restaurant owner was run over by a car in the rain around 1945.
31 kids burned to death at the Grey Nuns place in 1918.
Wayne "The Vampire Killer" Boden, of 1831 Dorch, killed a neighbour in 1969.
16 died in a 1958 fire on Oldfield, then at the foot of St. Matthew, in 1958.
Elaine Reade, killed by a speeding car in Feb. 1985.
Michael Kibbe attempted to flee the cops on Guy and fell to his death in 2001.

Lorraine Kenney

Many of these stories are in my upcoming Montreal: 375 Tales of Eating, Drink, Living and Loving.

But here's one you haven't heard:
A crazed, love-stricken gunman named J.S. Moll, a 30-year-old father of six from Alexandria, Ontario* broke into the building where now stands the Canadian Centre for Architecture, on 2 Sept. 1962.
The Sisters of Service occupied the site until 1973 and 70 young women lived there in '62.
Lorraine Therese Kenney, 29, from North Sydney Nova Scotia, was one of those inhabitants.
Two months earlier she moved to Montreal from Toronto to be closer to her family in the Maritimes.
Moll climbed up a fire escape, at 1 a.m. Sunday morning, pried off a metal grille to get inside and spotted Kenney, who he mistook for his intended victim.
Most of the women had taken off for the weekend but the insane Moll figured that if she was sporting a blue skirt, white shirt and blonde hair, it must be the woman he sought revenge upon.
So from five feet away he squeezed the trigger on his .303 British war rifle and blasted away, hitting Kenney in the head, killing her immediately.
The innocent Kenney had zero to do with the insane man's issues.
Moll fled but a witness recognized the shoes that he left at the scene and he was soon after arrested.

*The Gazette article, written the day after the killing, offers a different version from the Petit Journal account from a week later. The Gazette reports that the gun man was from Cornwall and had two kids, not six and that he was apprehended after his father-in-law alerted police that he was dangerous. The Gazette reports that Kenney was 32, not 29.

The ill-fated St. Patrick's Hall 1868-1872

Here's a partial list of concert halls from the early days of Montreal entertainment.
1-1804 a playhouse, said to be Montreal's first, opened atop a warehouse next to the old post office north side of Place D'Armes. It was operated by Ormsby, the noted Scottish actor. Some complained that the tickets were expensive and the acting was bad, as soldiers from the nearby barracks took the stage. There was only one actress and young boys played female roles.
2-1808 -The Garrick on St. Jean Baptiste
3-1808 military theatre in artillery hall on St. Paul.
4-Montreal Theatre 3 Rue du College later became the Mansion Hotel. It was heated with wood stoves placed around the hall.
5-A playhouse behind the St. Lawrence Hall was successful enough to wipe out the Montreal Theatre. Did lots of plays for and by the men from the barracks and their wives, who were constantly bored with nothing to do
6-Royal Theatre 1825 built by John Molson who died in 1836 age 76. It was on St Paul near Bonsecours. Expensive-looking place with Doric columns. It had a small stage later expanded. Frederick Brown, considered a great actor, managed it. Edmund Keane and his son Charles Keane acted there as, did his wife Ellen Tree. Charles Dickens acted there in 1842 aged 30. It closed 1845.
7-Hays Theatre - 1852 Just South of what became the Viger Hotel. Tried to fill the space left by the closure of the Royal seven years earlier. The curtain, painted by Martani, cost $6,000 alone. Shows supposedly included one with 60 dancers from Vienna and 38 German musicians who played three months straight. Some say the fire of 1852 started in the stables nearby. It burned the Hays hotel and shops as well.
8- Where later stood the Hotel Riendeau hosted plays from 1830- 40. It was considered a second rate theatre but was the site of a kerfuffle involving a Patriote who refused to stand for God Save the King. (See my book Montreal 375 Tales for the full story)
9-Mansion Hall 1833 near the British American Hotel was destroyed 24 April 1833. It was run by Rasco, who later opened a hotel under his own name. It featured such events as a flea show with real fleas.
10-Royal Theatre – 1851 - Catherine "The Irish Swan" Hayes was among its noted performers. Lots of military guys doing shows.
11– Mechanics Hall - 1854 - corner St. Pierre and St. James. First floor housed a library, second floor show hall. Became a museum in 1885.
12- 1845 - 1870 Shows were held upstairs at the Marche Bonsecours
13 - Bonaventure Concert Hall - 1857 - NW corner St James and Victoria Square. Held some French plays.
14- The Terrapin Club, in the Masson Block on Notre Dame. (about halfway down the block east of the Main, north side). Jingoistic Brits, guys from the barracks doing their thing. Was still going as a restaurant in 1890.
15-Nordheimer's Music Hall c. 1860 – 59 Great St. James - Described in one 1862 article as "probably the finest public room in the Province." Opened by the German Abraham Nordheimer who funded many such venues with money he made building and selling instruments. Samuel Nordheimer was the Montreal guy. It later became a boxing school.
16-Crystal Palace 1860 Peel and St. Catherine, SE corner, built by the Arts and Manufacturers Council. In 1864 it hosted a tribute to the Shakespeare Tricentennial.
17- St. Patrick Hall 1868 – on Victoria Square. Calixa Lavallee performed on opening night 3 Sept. 1868. The upper floor of this 140 x 100 foot building was the same height as the two lower floors combined, to give space for a high ceiling to make room for a 2,000 seat concert hall but the roof collapsed under the snow and repairs entailed renovations to improve sound quality, so they jammed highly-flammable cotton into the ceiling. On Wednesday Oct 2, 1872 winds blew flames from a fire at the Ronayne's shoe factory across a 12 foot laneway, burning it down just four years after it was built. The building was well-insured.
18-Academy of Music 1875 built on Victoria Street downtown. Many good stories, once again see my book for details. Famous performers included Albani, Adelina Patti, Sarah Bernhardt, Mrs. Second-Weber, Jane Hardin, Theo, Judie Coquelin, Mounet-Sully
19- Dominion Theatre 1871 - Had been a Protestant church. It was on Gosford across from Champs de Mars street. Held melodramatic plays then became a variety house where a trapeze act ended in a near-calamity in 1874.
20 -1888 - SW corner University and St Catherine, saw the start of vaudeville with acts like jugglers, acrobats, singers, and afternoon shows. Owner worked with Sparrow, who owned the Royal Theatre and their shows were also held at Mechanics Hall, Dime Parlor Museum, the Lyceum on Beaver Hall Hill, the museum on St. Dominique w(which later became the Empire and then Theatre Francais) and on Notre Dame were the old Institute Canadien had previously been.
21- Le Conservatoire - 1887 Brousseau transformed a building at Bonsecours and Champs de Mars to hold French plays.
*This is mostly cobbled together from a 1908 article by Massicote in a theatre program which I found in a Google book search. I can no longer find the link.

Since breaking the story of the murder of Reet Jurvetson in Los Angeles in 1969, Coolopolis has been receiving tips and suggestions in hopes that it might solve the case.
This latest one may or may not prove useful.
Young Jurvetson traveled to Los Angeles to find a boy she was crushing on by the name of Jean.
His identify remains a mystery.
The two were staying at the place of another Montrealer also named Jean, as shown in the illustration.
The image was drawn by Paul Robert, based on a description by Gilda Green, who chatted with this Jean (the host, not the boyfriend) one night after Reet had disappeared at Cafe Prag on Bishop. Green tells Coolopolis that host Jean was short, around 5'6" and spoke very little English.

I saw him at the Prag. I asked him about Reet. He said she was happy, stayed with them for about 2 weeks and then left on her own. I asked where she went. He said he didn't know. I also asked about his friend Jean. He said he was still in L.A. He really was not able to say much in English. It was not an in-depth conversation by any means. After this, I never saw him again.

The Jean seen above bears a strong resemblance to another Jean from Montreal, from the same time in the same scene.

As well as looking exactly like the man in the sketch and having the same first name, this Jean traveled to Los Angeles during those years.
Coolopolis is interviewing his acquaintances in an attempt to find out whether he might have been in Los Angeles at the time.
Green recalls Jean as being short, however, and this Jean was tall, around 6'2" and spoke excellent English. So the lead may or may not pan out. Those with further information are welcome to pass them along to megaforce@gmail.com.
See also: Coolopolis exclusive: Montreal woman identified as Jane Doe 59, possible Manson Gang victim

Two bodies found in the basement of this home at 5187 Henri Julien led a court to sentence a 32-year-old butcher's assistant to life in prison 37 years ago today.
Lionel Lussier killed two friends of his girlfriend Ginette Amyot at the home and buried them in the basement.
He blamed her for the killings but a court did not believe his testimony.
Lussier, if he's alive, would likely have been freed in 2004.
Lussier first killed Sylvie Ranger, 17. She had escaped the Laval Detention Centre for Girls and dropped in on her friend Ginette in mid-March 1979.
Lussier apparently disliked Ranger because he feared that she would go to the police to accuse him of raping her.
Lussier later made a cryptic remark about her which led her to suspect he was involved in bad things that happened to her.
Then two months later Amyot brought her friend Marie Paul Guerin over. Guerin was a stripper and the three smoked hashish together for a few hours until one of the couple proposed a threeway. It went wrong and she ended up dead in the basement.
Lussier was sentenced to six months in prison for refusing to answer questions and was later given life.

Here's a translation of the La Presse coverage of the case

May 23 1979
Lussier held responsible by Raymond Gervais
Along with being held criminally responsible by Coroner Rock Heroux for the deaths of Marie Paule Geurin and Sylvie Ranger, both found lifeless on 13 May 1979 in the crawl space of 5187 Henri Julien, Lionel Lussier was condemned to six months in prison for refusing to testify in the coroners inquiry into the deaths of the two young girls.
According to corner Dr. Andre Lauzon, Marie Paule Guerin died from strangulation by a leather strap. Her body also had three stab wounds and it's believed she died 12 May.
Syvlie Granger died from a fractured skull which caused a brain hemorrhage. she was stabbed nine times as well and her body was left under a few inches of earth in the basement of Lionel Lussier's home.
According to Lauzon, that death took place in mid-March.
Ginette Amiot, then Lussier's girlfriend, testified that her friend Guerin came to the home 12 May and after smoking hash for several hours Lussier asked her to do a threeway.
"I was a bit shy because I knew Marie Paule wasn't used to doing it. We stripped and I started making love with her while Lionel watched us. She didn't like that and so I stopped. Lionel wanted to have sex with Marie Paule but she didn't want to. She finally accepted saying if you want go ahead. I went into the kitchen to smoke a cigarette and drink a soft drink"
When she returned Amiot saw her bloody friend and started screaming. "I saw blood on her stomach, I said Lionel we need to bring her to hospital. He said it's too late. He took her leather strap and put it around her neck to strangle her and then threw her body into the basement."
As for Ranger, the 17 year old girl, she was also a friend of Amyot and came to see her in March after fleeing the Laval detention centre. It's the last time Ginette saw her friend alive.
Lussier knew her but didn't like her. He was always scared he'd tell the police he raped her.
"I started to have my doubts and went into the basement and my heel got stuck in the ground. I knew that he already said he got rid of Syvlie and I didn't have nay news from her since mid-March. "
"After that I called a friend Claude Morin and told him all. I showed him MP's body in the basement.
Amyot said that Lussier told her that "after the second you're no longer scared."
Heroux found Lussier responsible for the deaths after hearing the testimony.

PM Trudeau's Liberal government has unveiled plans to triple the Canadian population to 100 million people, albeit over the next 90 years, so you might be in your second or third body by the time we get there.
In this spirit they are opening the gates for 450,000 annual immigrants, largely from the well-educated classes abroad, (which leads to its own ethical debate over whether it's fair for us to take the best and brightest which foreign governments have already invested in but let's save that one for another time)
What effects will this have on Montreal? Let's explore some possibilities.

Nationalism Quebec traditionally seeks to have about 25 percent of Canada's population but new immigrants are shunning the eastern half of this country for places further west, so that could enfeeble Quebec's power in Canada, which will lead to new dissatisfaction and passport burning episodes. Quebec has long imagined that there's an endless flood of francophone talent from places like France wishing to get over here, so those peoples could serve to replenish our aging ranks, but in fact less stable countries might end up bringing their folks instead, leading to further irritation in a place that rejects multi-culutralism.
Population density A nine-million soul greater Montreal begs the question: where would they all live? Urban sprawl and densification would be the inevitable reply. Places like St. Henri, where anti-condo sentiment thrives, would see a far more intense battle against gentrification. Cities, of course, like new towers because they bring in solid tax revenues. Pressure could be put on park space and highways could become more crowded, which brings us to....
Transportation infrastructure More trains, metros and roads will be needed, which dovetails with the government's newest darling, which is transportation infrastructure spending. Elements of those fantasy Montreal metro systems that sexless transit geeks draw up for fun could actually take place. Many have added a stop at Sherbrooke and St. Lawrence sprouting up from Berri, which seems like an awesome idea. I'd like to see one from Vendome to the airport. Land could be obtained cheaply by building in the corner of Oxford Park, NDG Park, then a variety of such places down to Montreal West where it just cruises through industrial land thereafter.

The Capri Brasserie on St. Patrick will close forever on Dec. 23 and the building will be demolished, a staffer has told Coolopolis, although a borough official said that no demolition has been authorized.

Capri employees 2006

The Capri, on the southeast corner of Laprairie, was a competitor of Magnans, two blocks west, which also closed recently.
St. Patrick Street has been entirely closed for repairs for many months, a factor that could not have helped business.
For a time many of the English-speaking people who didn't feel too at home at Magnans moved over to this place where old-time Irishmen were known to sing at their tables.
In recent times it has been run by former NHL winger Yvon Lambert, who twice scored 32 goals and won four Stanley Cups for the Canadiens playing on an effective third line with Doug Risebrough and Mario Tremblay.

Anthony Bourdain once featured the Capri on his show

The Capri opened in about 1960, a time when Point St. Charles had about 40,000 residents, about twice what it has today and plenty of blue collar jobs to fill their pockets.
That era ended a few years later when industrial jobs shut down and many moved away or went on welfare.
About half of the homes in the area are now government subsidized and it has become one of the poorest areas in the city.
St. Patrick Street, however, appears to have some waterside appeal as it's just a puck's toss from the idyllic Lachine Canal and not far from the poser-tastique Atwater Market, so some upscale potential exists for further wealthification.

See also:

Canada needs launch a program to pay people for relevant photos from the past.
Tragically, people toss out invaluable photos and negatives every day because they have no incentive to keep them.
The result leaves an enormous gap in our understanding of the past.
Significant funds from the government or private foundations need to be organized to pay people for historically-relevant photos before the images get lost forever.
Alternatively, government could enact fines for people who fail to recycle their photos.
During the 18 months I've been working on my upcoming 400-page masterpiece Montreal: 375 Tales (set for release within a few weeks) and I have seen a tragic and shocking gap in our visual knowledge of the past.
There are simply no photos in existence of such relatively-recent places as The Alberta Lounge on Peel, the nightclubs, hotels and restaurants on Metcalfe and Mansfield and most amazingly, the entire once-buzzing strip of Sherbrooke just West of Park, including The Swiss Hut, New Penelope, Spanish Association, Country Palace and Fawzia's Belly-Dancing place.
The same crisis surely exists in other places across Canada as well.
Why do we need photos of restaurants, cafes, bars, nigthclubs?
Because those places show how we chose to live in the past.
They inform us of our history and how we lived in the city.

To start the ball rolling, I offer, as a symbolic gesture, $5 for any good quality photo of such places from the past.

The same dearth of photos surely applies to other towns across Canada.

Some people such as Alfred Bohns have stepped up and scanned their old negatives and sharedthem online without any financial reward.
His shot of the Main and St. Catherine (above) might be my all-time favourite photo of Montreal.
Give him a medal.
To think that there are more such photos lying around neglected and unseen somewhere is almost mind-blowing.

Others post their photos onto Facebook on their own pages (see the excellent Armand Monroe's photo at left of the PJ's sign from the 1970s) or excellent pages like Montreal Historical Photos.
But surely most have simply allowed their photos to sit in boxes or worse yet, tossed them out without taking the time to scan the shots.
Newspapers and other such outlets have collections that they do not share with the public without getting paid.
Solution? Government or someone with money needs to buy those collections outright and put them online for all to look at or republish.
This would be a way to bolster the bottom lines of beleaguered media outlets that have been beset by massive financial problems and it would enrich our understanding of where we came from.
A photo buyback purchase program could also put money into pockets of long-struggling freelance photographers.
People like the excellent Jason Felker who barely made ends meet doing his excellent work in Montreal might finally see a payday in exchange for their photos, if they have any still.
Government already spends billions on much-less-worthy programs which I won't name here.
Please contact me if you have a collection that might have value and I'll help you proceed.

Stephen Lack,of Montreal art and film fame, has supplied this anecdote from his upcoming memoirs. He's looking for a publisher in case you're interested.
***
One of the great things about Montreal is that once you have lived there and walked all the streets from east to west, every nook and cranny holds a memory…. unless the architecture has been removed. Now when I visit town this memory keeps coming back to me on Sherbrooke St., heading East from Greene Avenue. My first thought in that area should be about exhibitions at the Bellefeuille Gallery or lunch at Nicks back in High School Days, but this memory is so much stronger and stranger.
To the uninitiated it should be explained how Montreal is a bit of a criminal town.
There are many reasons for it, the potential anonymity it provides by its size and neighborhood stratification, the acceptance of all sorts of wardrobe, and the zesty love of life of its French population as well as their innate and frequent rebellion against the edicts of Mother Church.. It’s histories during prohibition where bootleggers became millionaires is another factor…. Hey, the list goes on. … but I was brought up in the straightest of environments and as a reaction to the neat lawns and polished floors and white carpets of Snowden, I gravitated to the original neighborhood of my forefathers, the Main.
There as a community of artists we could take over unused but heated ex factories for relatively cheap rent and hang out supporting ourselves on our talents and good looks.
Crime and Art are related in that they are both branches of a tree that gives success to those who break the rules, so artists and criminals often get along well together.
My loft on the Main had many from both sides of the legitimacy veil hanging out and while I didn’t ‘perform’ we all understood our boundries with respect. I mean, I didn’t encourage Satan’s Choice to ‘come by and see the work and get a buzz’ , There was a line and it was easy to draw, there were a lot of people to play with.
One group was the Downtown Junkie Crowd.There were some great and funny people in that group. Diverse. They were often hungry to score they used my studio to relax or to meet friends. It was central and I was loose. … There were always stories. I was a good listener…. and I usually knew who was involved.
I get a call one morning that there was a ‘bad scene’ last night, during some pot deal some guy named Bugger pulled out a gun and shot a friend of mine in the back, twice. Always the artist; knowing he was a Dancer, I immediately asked:” Is he OK? Will he dance again??”
***
Now my friend is in the hospital and this guy Bugger is on the loose in the underground. I start getting the background on Bugger. How bad is this guy?
Well, him so bad that in a tableside conversation, I am told, he got upset and reached across the table and thumbed someone’s eyes out.
All this stuff all happened in NDG on the West side…. so what does this all have to do with my memories of Sherbrooke Street between Greene Ave. and Guy St.?
Well, it’s like this. There was this Black gentleman on the Downtown scene, Freddie B, a real serious and wise man who was a longtime junkie and very well mannered, a friendly guy who radiated an inner strength.
He was the only Black Man on the scene that I knew, he was funny and hip and, from what I could tell, very kind.
I can’t get into all the situations I shared with his presence. Some incidents were legendary like when he revealed his engorged manhood to a future girlfriend who could not ‘parse’ the image input and thought she was looking at a baby’s arm holding an apple… He was sitting down at the time and she was looking for the rest of the baby. Maybe she was a bit stoned.
***
Anyway, there I was on Sherbrooke St one very sunny day driving along with all the windows wide open. At the red light somewhere near Greene Ave a small truck pulls up beside me and there in the drivers seat is Freddie, with some grim no lipped guy beside him in the cabin, just staring straight ahead.
We make eye contact and he grins away at me as we exchange greetings, yelling at each other in traffic. “That your truck?” I ask. “Naw!” Freddie replies,” just a friend’s, doing him a favor” he says, gesturing behind him to the truckbed.
Sticking out of the truckbed is a large Persian style carpet, rolled up and hanging partially over the back lid of the bed. MR. NoLips, the guy in Freddie’s truck, hisses to Freddie that the light has changed and pushes his chin forward to get the show moving again.
For the next ten blocks or so, Freddie and I had a rap between cars about things, old friends and updates etc, as we drove on, stopping at all the lights. Thing about Junkies is that, everything that happens to them is momentous, and that makes catching up a series of mini epics. Eventually I turned off Sherbrooke and watched Freddie and the truck and the carpet migrate down the road.
A few months later I ran into a mutual friend of Freddie’s and mine and as per usual, Freddie’s name came up.
“Oh, did you not know? Freddie got Bugger!” he said like he was telling me our Grannie got a new sweater at Eaton’s. “Whattaya mean” I asked like a civilian. My buddy looked at me and then over all four of our shoulders and said:”Well, Bugger, he was out of control, Bad for the whole scene, so Freddie offed him. Rolled him up in a carpet and ‘poof!’ he be gone!” he said, with a ‘that’s that!’ grin.
“Well,” I replied, I never knew Bugger but I do think I met the carpet once a few months ago.”

Montreal in 1976. Feeling it?
These photos, from an Eaton's department store fashion insert might bring you back.
The concept was to bring the models out to various spots around town sporting the snazzy gear that they purchased at Eaton's.
The spread was jammed into the Feb. 28, 1976 edition of La Presse which I found at my new favourite search engine. (Thanks to Justin Bur for sending me the link).
There was a lot of cash flowing around the city just prior to the Olympics.
After they ended it was recriminations and finger-pointing and Montreal, some say, was never the same as the province took advantage of the chaos to become masters of the city, leading to its sharp decline.
But all of that is a discussion for some other day.
Let's enjoy these photos. Photographer unknown. Models? Unknown. Put answers in the comments section in case you know.

Our happy wanderers make the obligatory bagel pilgrimage to St. Viateur Bagels. Back then bagels were slightly more obscure. Don Bell's Saturday Night at the Bagel factory created the mythology of this place a couple of years earlier.

Hotel Nelson? Yup. A few discos thrived in Old Montreal from the late 60s, notably the Plexi in the Iroquois Hotel on the west side of the Jac Cartier Square (I write about its dramatic history in my book Montreal:375 Tales). Alfie Wade's Le Vieux Rafiot was another earlier one. People always fretted over parking. The Nelson achieved some notereity a coule of years later as a weird music venue, another crazy story I recount in my book.
The models then move on to pose for an amazing pic at

Champion Pool Hall, whatever that was. It was listed as being in the Greek part of town, so we're guessing it's up on Park Ave. or Park Ex. The guy in the middle is named George.
They also hit Louis Tavan's Tea Room, wherever that was. Tavan was a major player in the local restaurant scene after his Crepe Bretonne took off on Mountain. I've seen in him a couple of low-quality photos only alas.
Here's a pic of the folks wearing the disco uniform popularized by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

The beautiful neon sign outside of the Silver Dragon Cafe at the corner of Church and Laurendeau (St. Remi) has been removed forever.
The restaurant was sold to the owner of the Dragon de Chine in Verdun.
He is renovating and will change the name and put up a new sign.
It's unknown when the restaurant will be reopened under the new name.

The sign did not light up in recent years.
Coolopolis has long urged that someone step up and rehabilitate it, as it was a very rare bit of heritage.
The actual sign was on the building for decades at the gateway to the area.
We didn't have the heart to ask whether it has been destroyed, but if not it would be nice to see in some collection.
(Thanks to Jean-Francois Lambert for the tip and photo)
See also: Reclassify The Silver Dragon Cafe's sign as a heritage monument

The Silver Dragon was in operation since at least 1960. A search in Lovells would determine a more exact date. (Thx to Rohinton Gandhi for the photo of the old ad)

Bar employees that "mingle with the customers" or "sit at the same table or counter" with a customer" can be fined $200 or sent to jail for up to 60 days, according to a Montreal bylaw.
Bylaw 3416 was passed in March 1967 and was vigorously enforced for two years, leading many establishments to shut down and causing grief to their employees and management.
A City of Montreal clerk tells Coolopolis that the bylaw is still on the books.
But another article from 1993 reports in passing that lawyer Clement Bluteau had it struck down.
The bylaw was put into use as recently as 1993 at Wanda's strip club.
It aimed at attacking prostitution and watered-drink scams.
In those situations a woman would sit with a man and persuade him to order her a drink. The bar would pour her a drink with no alcohol in it and charge for a real drink. She'd get a cut.

It was rampant in such places as the Casa del Sol on Drummond just above De Maisonneuve (part of Jewish Mafia Willie Obront's empire) and at the Silver Slipper on Metcalfe just above St. Catherine and the Black Orchid on St. Catherine.
Cops targeted those places mercilessly.
The bylaw was put into effect just prior to Expo 67.
Courts had recently deemed topless dancers acceptable, but Mayor Drapeau vowed to crack down on them anyway and 3416 appears to be a tool to keep the bars on their heels.
Soon after an MP expressed his concerns in Parliament about the bylaw being excessive but G.B. Puddicombe of the Quebec Superior Court said, however, that he thought it was quite legal, which was bad news for Shirley Sabourin, Pierrette L'Abbee and Jocelyn Chamberot hoped to get freed from the charges.
Another early victim of the anti-chatting bylaw was a dancer at Champs Sho-Bar on Crescent* named Joan Hill. Her lawyers argued that the bylaw went beyond municipal authority (was ultra vires) and so the case should not be heard.
The court agreed to delay the trial awaiting judgment from the higher court.
Bylaw 3416 went to the Supreme Court in 1969 but they refused to hear the case on technical grounds, so it ended up in appeals court, where it apparently survived a legal challenge.
By 1969 about 10 downtown Montreal nightclubs had either lost their licenses temporarily or permanently due to the bylaw and had to shut down.

The Cabaret, a club at 281 St. Catherine E (which later became the famous male strip club) attempted to get around the bylaw by making all employees shareholders in the bar.
Nowadays strip club dancers are not employees.
They are categorized as freelancers who have a casual relationship with the bar, likely as a result of the 3416 bylaw.
Expo '67 came and went but Montreal cops kept on busting nightclubs based on the bylaw.
Clubs like Beret Bleu saw 9 employees rounded up and manager Michel Soccio charged with interfering with police work. Chez Paree had five dancers taken into custody in the same 1968 raid.
Cops busted a staggering 22 people - 19 young women and three male managers - on May 30, 1969 simply for talking to customers at Pal's (97 St. Cat E.), where six girls were arrested, another half dozen were busted at the Casa del Sol (2025 Drummond), and seven more from the Beret Bleu (175 St. Cat E.).
Their crime? Talking to customers.
The bar owners got some measure of revenge on Aug. 8, 1969 when head of the Morality Squad Paul Boisvert came to do his thing, likely at Chez Paree, or possibly Casa Del Sol or The Silver Slipper and someone managed to get him to do something that caused him to hand in his resignation.
One can only speculate what he did.
Whatever it was the bar owners must have got it on film.
Police chief Jean-Claude Gilbert was irate and accused the bar owners of setting his man up. He initially refused Boisvert's resignation. Boisvert found a new line of work. The bylaw appears to have faded out into obscurity.
Variations of this and other Montreal stories appear in my upcoming book Montreal: 375 Tales

*That same year the legendary Lili St. Cyr, then 50, was arrested for obscenity while performing at the same bar.

True and sad story: a man splattered a black parade queen with white paint during a the annual St. Patrick's Day parade on March 14, 2004.
The story went largely unreported at the time.
McGill student Tara Hecksher, who was born and raised in Nigeria was the daughter of an Irishman named Rodney Hecksher.
She came to Montreal to study at McGill and was cheered by about 700 when she was voted the queen of the parade for the 180th St. Patrick's Day Parade in Montreal.
Clearly there weren't many racists at that event.
But some creepy comments later started emerging, as people close to the parade expressed misgivings before the parade.
One well-loved Irish horseman from Griffintown expressed disappointment with the choice, as he communicated to me in a casual chat.
A woman near the top of the committee also made a derisive comment about "black Irish," I was told by a witness at the time.
Most Irish-Montrealers are not racist. But sadly, some are.
News media staff take part in the parade, so that might be why the awful display went unreported, as they were preoccupied and also possibly uninclined to embarrass the event they take part in.
I was a columnist and reporter for the Montreal Mirror at the time, My newspaper had connection or conflict of interest involving the parade. I attended it every year with my family. After 2004 no more.
My attempts to report on the attack were frustrated as I could not reach the victim. I could find no other witnesses and would not report hearsay.
But one radio staffer, I have learned, saw the event up close and made no secret about her disapproval all along.
Her account below, tells the uplifting story of the bravery of the young woman victim attacked so outrageously.
We are told that Tara Hecksher has since moved back to Nigeria and recently became a mother. Montreal needs to offer our respect and apologies for the brave young woman for enduring such awfulness.
The attacker was not apprehended.
The account below is from witness Sharman Yarnell who shared it yesterday.

It was a man in a trench coat, in which he had hidden a bottle in a paper bag. There was no reason to stop him because there are a lot of men wandering around on parade day with bottles in paper bags.
He got close to the girls on the podiums in front of the bandstand, pulled out the bag and splattered her with the contents - white paint.
She walked back to the bandstand and was a bit confused- I remember her saying it might have been and accident.
There was more paint on her cloak than anything else. It couldn't be wiped off.
She was very, very upset but both myself and Shelagh Healey aid it was up to her but if she would stand up to him, get back on the podium, we would stand beside her. We did - the other girls joined her after a bit and we moved away. They, too, were quite scared. There was an elderly black man watching (wish I had his name) and he told her not to let the man get away with it by hiding. She didn't - she was amazing!
'It was absolutely horrible - you know, that kind of horrible when everything moves around you in slow motion!
What was worse, was her feeling that it was an accident - I, as gently as I could, told her it was done on purpose. And she just couldn't grasp it.
She was and remains the brightest, most well spoken and strongest young woman I have ever seen on that Queen selection stage. She walked out in African dress and remarked on how quiet the audience had become! Terrific sense of humour! I sat with her parents at a dinner after the parade and apologized to them for the treatment - they told me that as unacceptable as it was, she must get used to it.
She grew up rather protected and went to private school in England and had never really come across this before.
How can people be so small and cruel?

Richard Lajoie has a tattoo memorial to the 37 victims of the Blue Bird Cafe fire that he can never forget.
The victims of the 1972 blaze included his 18-year-old brother Rejean, three years his senior.

This year I offered myself a gift. I proudly wear this story on my arm. I wear every angel and every one of you on my arm forever..37 stars and one big one for the survivors...a kind of blue for the boys and kind of red for the girls..and different color for each age. So you never leave my thoughts and I am happy.

Lajoie

Coolopolis has occasionally mentioned the tragic stories of those who
perished in that fire. In about 1998 I wrote an article urging the city to create a downtown monument remembering the victims. The campaign was later taken up by survivors and turned into a lovely remembrance in Phillips Square.
One of those stars represents Eddie Crevier, who played drums in Don Curly and The Dudes, who were doing their songs there that night. The band continued on with a different drummer and played various country music songs around town.

See also:

Jacques Cinq Mars, who led the legendary Night Patrol for many years, has died in a war veterans hospital at the age of 96.
As an 18-year-old, Cinq Mars rushed the beaches of Normandy at the Raid on Dieppe which saw 24 of the 26 young men in his landing craft shot dead by German sniper.
Once on the beach Cinq-Mars surrounded two fallen German airmen but opted not to shoot them dead.
He was soon after shot twice in the leg and hit by shrapnel all over his body.
He was taken prisoner and lived on a loaf of bread and a bucket of water per week. He was then chained up alongside other Allied prisoners for 14 months. The clever soldiers quickly learned to undo their locks.
Cinq-Mars tried escaping seven times and for his efforts was transferred to a work camp at a sugar factory in Poland. One day he was ordered to walk west in the deep snow, with bad footwear and bloody feet.
He later said that the three week march was worse than the horrors of Dieppe. Over half of the 7,000 prisoners on the march died due to cold and starvation. Many others died in similar horrors, he noted, particularly the Russians because their rulers had not signed the Geneva Convention.
Patton's tanks eventually pushed through near Vienna and he was saved.
He took a year off and joined the Montreal police department where he gained a reputation for daring and fearlessness.

He served in squad cars for nine years in the toughest assignments and then did nine years on the holdup squad under Joe Bedard.

He was promoted to head the night patrol during a period when the city was overrun with killers and other violent criminals.
But they shook with fear at the very mention of his name as his patrol ruled the city from midnight to seven a.m.

The methods and techniques of that squad were infamous.
When detectives wanted a confession they got it.
Their methods included putting a tin garbage can on a suspects head and banging it until his ears rang. Or inviting a suspect to have a look at a gimmick lighter that looks like a gun. Once the suspect grabbed it the interrogator would tell him that now he has his fingerprints on what looks like a weapon he'd better confess or be shot dead, as the cop could claim he was attacked.
The night patrol was disbanded in June 1979 after the murderous Dubois gang complained that they were brutalized by the squad. Cinq Mars retired that November.
He had a daughter Giselle, born in 1961 and a son Daniel born 1959.
In an excellent profile from 1979 Tim Burke asked Cinq-Mars if he was planning to move to Florida in his retirement. "I love it right here. I love the four seasons and especially I love the winter. And why shouldn't I stay here? We arrived in 1646, so I guess that's long enough to be called a Canadia, eh? I will die a Canadian, in Canada."
He was coping with severe dementia, living at Ste. Anne's Veteran's Hospital when he died.
Novelist Trevor Ferguson named his Montreal police protagonist of his City of Ice series Emile Cinq Mars as a tribute to Jacques. He told an interviewer

I borrowed the surname as a homage to the original Cinq-Mars. After he retired, the police force was reorganized so that someone like him could never come along again. After him, the bureaucrats would rule, no more folkloric cops loved by the media, cops who planned and executed amazing and dramatic strikes against the mobsters. My guy would resuscitate not only the name but that sense of style, that sense of action, that close-to-the-streets and independent style of cop who manages to stymie his superiors through the scope of his intelligence. But it's always a battle.

Robert Bellemare, owner of the Metro grocery store on Church, wants to demolish and rebuild his outlet on Church at Ethel in downtown Verdun and replace it with a much-larger structure on the site.
The proposal incited much passionate input last night at a special Verdun borough council meeting Tuesday evening.

Proposed project seen from Church Street

The plan is to demolish the two-storey grocery store and replace it with something about as tall as the school across the street.
Seven buildings would be razed, including 22 housing units.
Only 10 of those apartments are currently occupied.
Sixty-seven new apartments would be built in the new project, mostly above the grocery store.

Seem from Ethel and Church

About 100 people showed up for a meeting that lasted almost three hours.
Many appeared hostile at first but were more receptive as the evening went on as Bellemare explained that he was foremost a grocer and not a developer and had no intention of taking the money and running.
Borough council meets again next week and could approve the project, although Bellemare might also alter it to respond to feedback, in which case it would be further looked at in February 2017.

It is no fair that they closed the Maidenhead Inn.
Throughout my youth I'd pass by there in awe, wondering what it would be like to inhabit the discreet and powerful world of adulthood.
Sure us teens from Westmount High could get lunch at the neighbouring Carb (Les Caribinieres) in the basement of the Alexis Nihon Plaza thanks to our fake ID and yeah this place shared the kitchen.
But the Maidenhead, now that was an adult place with adult affairs going on.
People discussing marriage issues, employment challenges, car payments, their need for a new couch.

What would it be like to finally enter that world of complexity and gravitas, a place so heavy that it required lightening by liquor and exposure to heart-thumping pulchritude of friendly women with low cut blouses and ample bosoms?
Oh, the anticipation.. my day will finally come where I can sit there with my shades and jean jacket and order a martini....waiting..waiting...and then... nothing.
The Maidenhead ceased to exist somewhere along the line.
I turned 18 in December 1980. The Maidenhead had either crept to the graveyard of fancy theme bars in the sky or perhaps by that point I was still feeling inadequacy of gravitas to stroll in.
Walking up to a bar like this as an 18 year old and pulling out a bar stool and ordering a drink. Man, that's grown up stuff. To do it without looking like an idiot would be a major challenge, like giving a speech or something.
The only person my age that might be able to pull it off was Glenn Grey, a prodigy of distance running, mountain climbing and poetry, who alas died young soon after falling from a mountain.
So the Maidenhead left me behind but luckily these photos have been found floating around the internet to allow me to peek inside.

The woman singing in the back near the piano and at the top is named Elaine.
The young woman on the right dropped in from Australia to stay in Montreal for a while and toted tray in her medieval wench costume. (and no, wench is not an insult, in spite of popular misusage, look it up).
The Hill brothers, who also opened the Frolics in 1932 or so on the Main above St. Catherine and the ChicknCoop and the Stagecoach previously, owned this place and the Bali Hai upstairs.
Their story is in my upcoming book Montreal 375 Tales. I hope to have it out soon.
Bring back the Maidenhead. Let me finally have a crack at the adult world promised to me in my youth. (More on this place from DC Stubbs in an excellent post he wrote on his site).

Here, with much help from Facebook friends, is a list of the most iconic figures in Montreal history.
Criteria: the longer the person stayed in Montreal the more credit they get.
Iconic? It's the wall-poster quality of "wow I can't believe I met that person."
It's more about heavyweights than lightweights: purpose and gravitas count more than just notoriety, therefore yes to war heroes and no to TV personalities.
It's not merely about virtue. Three larger-than-life criminals are on this list.
There is plenty of scuttlebutt about these figures in my upcoming Montreal: 375 Tales.
This list is meant as a fun exercise. Many were surely overlooked, underrated, overrated. Please share your suggestions in the comments section. (note - a couple of small changes have been made to this original list to zap duplication and to add Pierre Trudeau)

Jacques Cartier
Maurice "Rocket" Richard
Jean Drapeau
Jeanne Mance
Lily St. Cyr
Camilien Houde
Leonard Cohen
Jackie Robinson
Emile Nelligan
Brother Andre
Celine Dion
Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Charles "Joe Beef" McKiernan
Oscar Petersen
Louis Cyr
Katheri Tekakwithi
Pierre Trudeau
Michel Pagliaro
William Shatner
Mario Lemieux
William Cornelius Van Horne
Guy Lafleur
Jean Beliveau
Gilles Villeneuve
Gary Carter
Mederic Martin
Robert Charlebois
George "Buzz" Beurling
Jimmy Orlando
Rufus Rockhead
Mitsou
Guy Laliberté
Ginette Reno
Rusty Staub
Calix Lavallee
Shadrack Minkens
Michel Tremblay
Marguerite Bourgeoys
Ernest Rutherford
Gerry Boulet
Monica "Machine Gun Molly" Proietti
Mom Boucher
Sam Steinberg
Sam Bronfman
Laurent Beaudoin
Moise Safdie
Hugh McLennnan
Oliver Jones
Aldo Nova
Frank Marino
Doug Harvey
Toe Blake
Nick Auf der Maur
Frank Hanley
Philippe Nicol
JJ Harpell
Douglas Leopold
Genevieve Bujold
Harry Ship
Xavier Dolan
Pierre Peladeau
Jeff Skoll
Jean Coutu
Ewan Cameron
Dany Laferrière
Norman McLaren
Jacques Plante
Therese Casgrain
Donald Gordon
Gump Worsley
Wilder Penfield
Normand Bethune
Stephen Leacock
Armand Vaillancourt
Frank Shoofey
Richard Blass
Butch Bouchard
Red Storey
Vladimir Guerrero
Herbert Ames
Frank Hanley
Marjo
Jeanne Le Ber
Alys Robi
Jojo Savard
Paul Sieur Chomedey de Maisonneuve
Irving Layton
Mordecai Richler
Percy Rodrigues
Pedro Martinez
Charlie Biddle
Jacques Cinq Mars
Gino Vanelli
Leo Rene Maranda
Al Palmer
Dick Pound
Michael Sarrazin
Dunie Ryan
Gerald Bull
The Great Antonio

Thanks to the FB friends who helped create this list

Fill your appetite for Lower Westmount health food chit chat in this 1973 NFB film by David Bairstow.
Being a Westmounter who grew up two blocks from the store at 580 Grosvenor, this is none too exotic to me but perhaps someone else might find it charming.
Tom Marchant* started his Sunny Munchy Crunchy Natural Food Shop at 361 Victoria in 1971 and it was still going in 1973, as this movie attests and perhaps a little longer, but probably not much longer because he's a lousy salesman.
Many stores have come on gone at that spot. The jewelry store that currently inhabits that space is soon closing.
Marchant comes off as a chatterbox who might overdo the chit chat with his shoppers, including an 85-year-old who he tries hard to sell a single loaf of apple bread made of "five little apples."
Sheesh.
You'll might enjoy this 10-minute movie because it's reassuring to know that you didn't miss much by not being at this time and place.
Conversely you might not enjoy it because it proves that life is an empty meaningless spiral into the void of nothingness where nothing has weight or meaning.
Another basement health food store later opened on Sherbrooke not far west from the spot. It appears to be thriving.
You'll note that the NFB movie features a scene of a jogger running into the store and taking items without paying. That scene, for some reason, was shot on nearby Prince Albert just above Chesterfield, although made to look like it was here.
If anybody recognizes any of the faces, please send the news. The longhaired guy is a dead ringer for comedian Richard Lewis.

*I never met Marchant to my knowledge. He's is in my extended family but is not my blood relative. If I understand right, he married my father's sister and was the father of my four cousins, Pammy, Christopher, Tony (recently deceased) and Valerie, all splendid people.

Roland Dubois removes trousers
to display injuries. Adrien Dubois
(beard) and lawyer Sidney Leithman
watch on

Roland Dubois and Normand Dubois were hardened criminals when they pulled their pants down for journalists at a press conference in St. Henri in lawyer Sidney Leithman's office on Nov. 5, 1975.
The two men were part of an ultra-violent 10-brother crime clan from St. Henri that had a role in 63 murders between 1968 and 1982, according to police.
Fourteen of those killed were informants or people ready to testify against them, police claimed.
So why in 1975 were they dropping trou for reporters?

The duo lowered their pants to display wounds they suffered at the hands of police after being apprehended outside the La Barina bar in St. Henri in November 1975.
The exposed bruises led police brass to disband the Night Squad, where legendary cops like Bob Menard and Jaques Cinq-Mars ruled the city with an iron fist.
The irony? The brothers likely got the idea for the epidermal bruise display from police.
Just weeks earlier police had forced Roland Dubois to lower his pants for them for a similar damage display, with a different result.

***

Roland Dubois

Story begins in September 1975 when a petty criminal working for Roland Dubois broke into the home of Frank Zappia at 1949 Cardinal (probably in Dorval)..
The thief hit paydirt at Zappia's place.
Zappia was a high-profile developer who ran against Mayor Drapeau in 1970 and was later part of a consortium that won the contract to build the Olympic Village.
Zappia had links to the Rizzuto mafia crime gang and was eventually convicted of fraud. He made a stink over being shut out in the race for the Progressive Conservative leadership in 1976.
The thief discovered an envelope jammed with $60,000 in cash and stole it.
The thief gave the money to his father. Dad rushed to the liquor store to buy a case of hard liquor. The old man told Roland Dubois about the money. Dubois asked for $10,000 and the old man gave it to him.
Roland Dubois and the father celebrated. They smoked up and drank together.

Zappia

The next morning the father awoke to find the remaining $50,000 gone.
He called Roland to ask him for at least $6,000 of the money back.
Roland came by and gave the father $6,000.
Suddenly masked men burst in and robbed them.
They brutally assaulted Roland, kicked him in his private parts and stole his ring.
The father called police to report the theft and eventually confessed that the cash came from the robbery at Zappia's home.
Cops called Dubois to Station 12 on September 4 for questioning about the $6,000 robbery. Dubois told them nothing.
Police had Dubois strip down to display the injuries he suffered in at the hands of the masked men.
Dubois had no marks, scratches, or bruises.
Police concluded that the beating was staged. Dubois was later seen wearing the same ring stolen by the hooded attackers, according to La Presse.
The thief and his father were left with none of the $60,000, at a time when you could purchased a house in the West Island for just two thirds of that.
**
Two months later, Normand Dubois and his friend Paul Morgan were arrested outside the La Barina bar and charged with resisting arrest and assaulting officers.
They said that about 10 officers pistol whipped them and dragged them across the sidewalk while another 15 cops watched on.
The duo were transported to Station 12 in Ville Emard where they beaten some more and then brought to Parthenais Prison. Normand was treated for broken ribs.
Then the next morning Roland Dubois, with his friends Robert Denis, Frank Rocco and Bernard Lamer were also arrested at the same bar.
Roland complained that four or five officers beat him over the buttocks with a baseball bat and tire iron at Station 12. They also punched him in the face repeatedly, he said. When he got knocked out they'd wake him with smelling salts to resume their beating.
The Dubois brothers had their lawyer call the press conference on Nov. 5, 1975.
It received heavy media play and forced the police to reorganize, removing the Dubois prime foe, rugged police.
***
However police were not yet done with the Dubois clan.
Four weeks later crime commission testimony revealed that the family had been bringing in large amounts of drugs and selling it around the city and in Ottawa.
Their pushers were paid almost nothing for selling low-quality drugs such as mescaline, which was actually LSD with chocolate powder mixed in and sometimes even arsenic too.
One Dubois pusher testified that the gang forced him into becoming a pusher after he borrowed $50 from them. He told the commission that the Dubois brothers made him a virtual slave for two years. They told him that his $50 debt had grown to $800.
The dealer said that Adrien Dubois and three henchmen kidnapped him near the Forum and drove him to a bar where they force him to swallow cigarettes and drugs.
And so on.
***
Six months later Roland and another brother were jailed for refusing to testify at a crime commission. Many more stories emerged about the brutal reign of the Dubois brothers.
But for one brief moment, with lowered pants, they had their moment in the sun as victims.

Demolish Kojax - time is ripe to replace stubby, underwhelming GSM strip

Guy and Dorch - grisly stories of death abound

Montreal venues 1800-1900

Reet Jurvetson investigation - a possible lead

Bodies in the basement on Henri Julien

Overpopulated Montreal: how Canada's push to triple population will affect Montreal

Another Point St. Charles landmark doomed to close

Canada's photo crisis - why government needs to act NOW to save our pictures

The body in the Persian carpet - a truly grisly tale from Stephen Lack

Styling in Montreal 1976

Landmark sign removed as Silver Dragon Cafe closes

Two months in jail for bar employees caught talking to customers

Montreal shame: black parade queen doused with white paint

Tattoo celebrates 37 fire victims of downtown Blue Bird Cafe blaze

War hero, iconic cop and inspiration for novels Jacques Cinq Mars, dead at 96

Verdun mulls proposal to allow grocery store to rebuild much larger

Bring back the Maidenhead Inn

The top 100 Montreal icons

Vintage 1970s Montreal chit-chat in health food store film

That time gangsters pulled their pants down for reporters