Not many kids have died playing in Montreal churches but this joint near Berri and St. Catherine gobbled up a teen running around on scaffolding in 1877.
Mafia chief in Westmount: Vic Cotroni, top dog of the Montreal Mafia in the mid-1970s lived in this building on Sherbrooke just west of Atwater. That's where he was busted in connection with a 1975 pump and dump stock swindle.
Arthur English, aka Arthur Ellis, was Canada's official hangman for many years and was also quite a drunk. One time in 1914 he was busted and fined $5.00 for walking around drunk with a gun. He kept his job.
Montreal's Lenny Vista, made famous in the song Suzanne by Lenny Cohen, has been souped up with a fun ride in the background.
We propose a new verse to the song.
...and Jesus liked a carousel...as it brought all of the ups and downs...And Suzanne took the carousel... as her life went round and roundetc.John Allore's always-fascinating podcast focuses on a
fearless prison escape pulled off by Ronald Pouliot, 25, and his brother Mario Pouliot Dec.1974. They tied 48 bedsheets together and smashed through the window of the 11th floor jail of the Parthenais Street prison and simply climbed down. Their mother persuaded to give themselves up because she feared they would be shot dead as escaped convicts.
Thank your local cheese company if it's easy to find a gas station in St. Leonard. The Saputos persuaded authorities to grant family members a series of zoning changes in the area (and one in Boucherville) allowing them to flip the newly-rezoned lands to big oil companies at as much as four times what they paid around 1970-1972 before authorities started asking questions and found a note detailing a $20,000 payment to St. Leonard council. La Presse did some detailed
reporting at the time. (As usual the
BANQ newspaper search resource proves super handy, plug in terms like
saputo and
zonage into the bottom box.) The Saputo family went on to invest plenty in the local economy so Coolopolis figures they've paid their debt to society in full.
The flag is at half-mast at Coolopolis offices worldwide for the loss of the great Montrealer Kenny Hamilton, a well-loved singer and musician who lit up the city from the 1960s. Coolopolis was in regular contact with Hamilton, as he was a treasure of Montreal history, sharing stories of nightclubs around town and some of the larger-than-life characters that inhabited them. We shall miss Hamilton and we'll make sure to use every drop of material he shared.
Montreal is having municipal elections next month and Mayor Denis Coderre is trying to win a second term. Will he get it? Coolopolis predicts he will not.
