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.