When hustlers made money renting chairs on Sherbrooke Street

    Small-scale cut-throat capitalism coloured the biggest annual event in Montreal each year as locals jostled to make a buck renting chairs to spectators of the St. Jean Baptiste parade.
    These Conrad Poirier photos from 1945-1947 confirm that the custom was real and widespread.
    But behind the scenes of this money-making scheme was a merciless competition to claim space that often ended up with thugs muscling out people who invested in renting the chairs to offer to parade-goers at a profit.
   One newspaper report from 1954 demonstrated the anarchy that accompanied the street-level capitalism.
   The Petit Journal of June 27 reported that a Mr. Gagne struck a deal with a property owner to lay out chairs in front of 447 Sherbrooke E.
  Gagne had rented 500 chairs from a supplier at 25 cents each and paid Asselin $75 for his sidewalk real estate.
   Gagne planned to offer parade spectators a chance to sit on the seats for $1 each. He'd make a $300 profit on his $200 investment.
   But his chair-rental scheme didn't sit right (Ah, I see what you did there, are you trying extra hard tonight? - Chimples ) as a group from St. Timothee Street simply moved the chairs, as they claimed that they had been coming to the same spot for a dozen years.
   Gagne was helpless to stop it and all he could do was complain about it to newspaper reporter Arthur Prevost.
   Charles Nadon of 1136 Sherbrooke E. had a similar experience that year. He placed seats in front of his place in hopes of renting them but "People came at 2 a.m. and knocked down our chairs and put their own."
   Property owners on Sherbrooke still managed to rent out spots on their balconies and verandas back at a time when attending the St. Jean Baptiste Parade was an essential Montreal ritual.
   One estimate was the small-scale capitalists managed to rent out 7,000 seats in total.
   An estimated 7,000 seats got rented out each your along the Sherbrooke Street route.