Pre-critique of the Superhospital The West End MUHC Superhospital has opened today, here's a list of worries I overheard someone mention on the 80 bus.
1-The contract with Lavalin. Administrators must hire Lavalin to do every little bit of maintenance and repair. A picture can barely be tacked into a wall without them being involved, which means that the cost of this thing will always be expensive.
2-The layout. Some staffers urged designers to copy the Jewish General, which has a useful layout but they did not get their way. As a result workers will be cutting through the emergency room because the alternative is to walk all around the entire grounds. There's also some worry about where the ambulances will wait. Workers will have to use pass cards to get through doors but patients will be able to waltz right through, which some find odd.
3-Consultation: the only group of the MUHC that really had time to get away to participate in the design was the infection people. So it's very good for the infection stuff but maybe less good for other departments.
The person who uttered them said that they might not turn out to be seriously problematic. (BTW, don't call it "The Glen" because that's a Scottish word for valley and it's not in a valley at all. The Glen is a geographical entity in Westmount where St. Cat meets Landsdowne, Westmount doesn't get naming rights after blocking a logical access down there).
More buildings atop metro stations please
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| Boring old Vendome before and after |
Every time I see a stumpy little metro station it saddens me.Every metro should have a building atop of it, preferably with both retail, office and housing.
The value of a building above a metro station would be much higher than in some other place because those who live inside can conceivably get around town without facing cold winter days and can boast that they don't need more than a little sweater. |
| Papineau metro as it should be |
I'd suspect it's because metros are controled by a government body that doesn't specialize in real estate wheeling and dealing so the board don't feel compelled to cut such deals in return for their six figure paycheques.
Also there could be some issue with parking as building condos or apartments might be problematic given the standard one-indoor-parking-space per unit municipal requirement. Maybe they're harder to build for obvious other reasons.
The stumpy tations most ripe for such structures are the St. Lawrence metro, the Vendome metro and the Papineau metro. Others?
Mike Torrez: let's name a street after him in St. Laurent. Studly Expos righty Mike Torrez was a workhorse for the Expos until Jim Fanning (RIP) foolishly traded him away to the Orioles along with Ken Singleton for basically nothing. But what you didn't know is that Torrez was one of those incredibly-rare Expos who actually lived here in the winter. He spent at least four winters here according to this article, in which he expresses an interest in returning to the team after playing briefly for the dreadful Oakland Athletics, which had recently ditched all of its stars for money reasons. Alas Torrez did not return and went on to win a World Series with the Yanks. (By the way, at least one obituary for the recently-deceased Fanning suggested that he moved away from Montreal in 1993. In fact he lived in Hudson well past that, where he and his wife were very much involved in local stuff.)
Broadway Chips: let's bring 'er back
We don't have much to say about Broadway Chips at the corner of Notre Dame and
Broadway in Montreal East, other than to say that it looked like a helluva place.
Showgirls at the rental board This high-profile duo is Dorcas and Kristi, leggy showgirls and nightclubbers long associated with the Kingdom Gentleman's Club.According to online rental board records, they had a rough time getting 'er paid each month. They were evicted from an apartment costing $1,480 for non-payment and then were booted out soon after from another apartment owing almost $5,000. Seems neither has had such problems in the three years since, so we live and learn. BTW, speaking of the Kingdom strip club on St. Lawrence, you might ask what celebs go there? Their FB page has pics of visitors Rob Corddry, Russell Martin, Bad News Brown, David Desrosiers from Simple Plan and a variety of other boxers. actors and rockers.