Google News Archives & Parc Mederic-Martin

Well I just discovered, a few days ago, that Google news has archives.  

Elliot dans le Parc Médéric-Martin (en mars 2009)

Well I just discovered, a few days ago, that Google news has archives.  This is an extraordinary help with my research since I really would not have time to go to the library and start going through films of newspapers.  So it was a pleasant surprise to test out the Google news archives with its easy search functionality. 

At the same time today, I just got my first wireless router so rather than spend hours away in the computer room doing research by myself, here I am with my wife on the couch, blogging away while she reads a book.  It’s a nice change that makes research more enjoyable.

So I started googling “St-Eusèbe” (the name I originally found around this neighbourhood when I started this blog) and found out there was indeed a ward with this name back in the 30s.  Looks like it stretched from De Lorimier to Wurtèle St. at one point in time.  It probably also headed a bit north above Sherbrooke St.  As I kept googling, I found early info on Parc Mederic-Martin which is my local park where I participate in the local residents’ committee which is working towards revitalizing the space (and more specifically, the north section which has been untouched since 1960). 

By piecing a few Montreal Gazette articles and my pamphlet book (On se retrouve au parc), here is what I was able to piece together in under an hour:  The park land (between Ontario to the south, Hochelaga to the north, Gascon to the east and Du Havre to the west) itself was an exchange in February 1933 between the city and the Canadian National Realties.  The value of this exchange was approx. $95K.  In 1937, the park was given a children’s wading pool, a playground and the ground was leveled but the space still looked more like an empty lot than anything else.  The park was named after Montreal Mayor Médéric Martin in 1953.  During the same decade, citizens got together to pressure the government to invest in the park.  In 1958, a major investment $150,000 worth of investment was proposed at City Council (I am unsure if it was fully approved or not) which helped pay the way to the park we see today on the North end (a French-style garden park that was made for relaxation).  Work finally began in the 1960s which included a fountain (that has been removed) helped design what we see today but sadly it appears that there hasn’t been much maintenance since that time.  Anyhow, I definitely have more research to do but it was nice to find this right at my finger tips!

Sources: On se retrouve au parc (Eric Giroux), Montreal Gazette (Feb.14, 1933; July 24, 1958; Sept.16, 1960; July 31, 1971)

Today’s walk with Elliot

Sorry no pictures to share.  Today, it was time to spoil my dog Elliot with a long walk so off we went without a plan (and decidedly no camera this time).  First I went east to Hochelaga, through Préfontaine park and then down the streets towards St-Catherine St.  What I noticed is how amazing the architecture is in this area as you go further south.  It’s actually akin to what you would find closer to downtown.  I don’t know why this area gets a bad rap or has fallen into poverty but one thing is for sure it has nothing to do with the architecture.  Maybe the fact that it’s far away from a Metro station could be a reason.  Maybe it’s the fact that the Notre Dame St. parkway and industry along the river cut like a knife and made the area less interesting (and populated) over time.  I don’t know.

Once Elliot and I got to Notre-Dame St., we started walking back west along the parkland/bike path they have there back towards Sainte-Marie through an industrial wasteland and towards the area where I took the picture for this very website.  It’s a lot snowier now though.  We then continued west on Sainte-Catherine and I decided to walk towards the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. This part of Sainte-Catherine is also so full of hidden architectural treasures but it’s just lost its luster and foot traffic over the years.  Again, I don’t know why but my guess here is definitely the expropriated land that created the Notre-Dame parkway (Quick aside: new condos everywhere throughout my entire walk, some fit and some don’t).  Anyhow, as I passed under the bridge I marveled at the cement pillars above me.  The Jacques-Cartier bridge (the main photo of this blog) is really majestic.  Meanwhile, I looked at the third curve of the bridge which helped avoid expropriating the former Soap factory (1600 De Lorimier).  The question I have is how this one factory managed to avoid being expropriated when everyone else lost their land.  I still don’t know that answer (nor is that answer in my Centre-Sud factories history book).  Anyhow, as the Jacques-Cartier bridge was behind me, I started going into the very eastern end of the Gay Village and then that’s when I realized a very small bit of the Village is actually in Sainte-Marie from a technical standpoint (Sainte-Marie extends to Champlain St. at the municipal level but Papineau St. and the Jacques Cartier bridge is probably a more natural divider).  Although as soon as you go past the bridge, you do realize it’s a separate neighborhood with a completely different feel.  Anyhow, I walked up Champlain St. as my walk was starting to be quite long and then I headed towards Parc des Royaux’s dog park.

There I ran into fellow dog owners/neighbours Stacy (who wrote a piece on the dog park last month) and Alain (who sometimes helps me out with house jobs I can’t do myself).  Elliot was happy to be there so we stayed for a good half hour if not a bit longer.  I knew if I stayed outside any longer the coffee urine would come to haunt me so I started making my way back home but I took a slight detour back up to Hochelaga St. to see the unmarked park at the corner of Messier/Hochelaga (this park needs a name, a bench and a little love), then back east on Hochelaga, diagonally through Mederic-Martin park (another park that needs a little love) and then back home.  All in all, Elliot and I were outside for a good 2.5 hours, if not more.  Needless to say, I had a nice nap in the afternoon.

Utopiamoment.ca: Arty Neighbours

Here’s an interesting blog and photos of some recent art events in Sainte-Marie/Centre-Sud from Utopiamoment.ca

Le Coeur du Quartier/Le Coeur de Sainte-Marie a un an!

En marchant dehors dans la neige aujourd’hui, je me suis rappelé des premières fois que je me promenais dans le quartier avec Elliot l’année passé et je me suis souvenu que le Coeur du Quartier a maintenant un an!  Il y a un an je me posais la question sur le nom du quartier.  En fait, le blog se nommait Le Coeur de St-Eusèbe au tout début mais quelques mois plus tard j’ai bien appris que le coin avait bien un nom: Sainte-Marie.  Voici un lien au tout premier blog que j’ai écrit.  Oui j’ai répondu ma question mais il reste beaucoup d’autre chose à découvrir dans la prochaine année… à bientôt!

My visit at l’Écomusée du fier monde

When I write, I try to spend a lot of time on my blog, give it some thought, get research involved, edit, do my best to translate in French and then with all these steps, it takes months to do it or the ideas merely remain in my head.  So sometimes, it’s good to just go back to the tried and true and write a small piece about my explorations themselves…

Ecomusee du fier monde (photo from their website)

Friday and Saturday, my wife seemed to have a nasty flu so we decided to keep our distance and I took on full-time father-duties.  My wife needed all the time to heal and rest and meanwhile we wanted to do our best to make sure our daughter Sabine did not catch this bug (she’s already had two colds in the past month).  So on Saturday, I got Sabine and Elliot (our dog) outside of the house for a usual neighbourhood walk.  Nothing out of the ordinary (we looped around into Hochelaga, stopped at the bread factory on De Rouen, walked underneath the train tracks again to get back into Sainte Marie and walked to Fullum St. and then came back home.  The dog was happy and Sabine was enjoying being outside.

At around 2pm, I had the last minute idea to take advantage of this time with Sabine to go to L’Écomusée du fier monde (a museum about the Centre-Sud neighbourhood and its industrial history) since I’ve wanted to do this for quite some time.  At first, I thought, “I’ll bring my camera and a pen and paper and then I realized, keeping it simple was the way to go this time (I can always go back if I want to after all).  Elliot didn’t really like this idea though because he had to be left behind at home with his sick maternal-master.

We got at the museam around 3pm and stepped into what was once the Saint-Jacques neighbourhood bath house.  The interior design is stunning 20s art-deco (at least that’s what the guy said because I am no expert).  It had a real modern look that made me wonder if they had redesigned it but no, it was the original design.  I let the information just absorb itself naturally like I would at any other museum without really trying to memorize every detail.  It’s a $6 visit ($4 with Access Montreal card) so I will go back in the future.  I did learn that there was even more expropriation in the area than I had originally thought including on the land where now stands Place Dupuis and l’Université de Québec à Montréal.  Plus near the end I saw this really fun photo from 1975 that showed a box-car race for kids rushing down Fullum St.  I wonder if our overly cautious society could handle such a simple youthful boxcar race today.  Probably not; too much risk for the organizers to be scorned in the papers and the city to get sued somehow.  Lawyers would be on-site with a camera ready to stake their claim.  Ok maybe not, but it was a nice photo of a simple activity that I just don’t think would reproduce itself today. 

All this time, I had a very patient and happy little girl in my arms.  Sabine was trying to crawl around in the space a bit, echoed sounds in the hall and she ran into another 9-month old baby whom she got to play with for a few minutes (she didn’t appreciate me walking away though).  It was a calm day and she was well rested so I was very lucky to have a happy and alert baby.

Finally, I bought some pamphlets including one about Sainte-Marie’s parks as well as a book about Centre-Sud’s factories and their histories.  They weren’t too expensive so I was a happy man.  I was happy to find a bit of history on Parc Medéric-Martin since I am member of the park’s committee.   There was nice read in there that residents came together in the 50s to pressure the government to make something beautiful with the Mederic-Martin park space.  Work began in the 60s and well, the space hasn’t really been touched much since as one can probably tell from a walk through the north-end of the park.  Reading this info made me feel good that about 50 years later, residents are coming together again to revitalize the park and bring it back to life.  Anyhow, definitely good research material for future blogs and a great day overall.