Montreal has lost a lot of neighbourhoods over the years, thanks mostly to postwar mega-projects. In 1964, Goose Village, a working-class Italian neighbourhood that was also home to many English, Irish, Polish and Ukrainian families, was bulldozed for Expo ’67 parking. 330 families were displaced. Around the same time, the slow death of Griffintown was encouraged by Mayor Drapeau, who had never liked the area or its councillor, Frank Hanley.
In 1966, the old village of Longue Pointe made way for an approach to the Louis H. Lafontaine Bridge-Tunnel, even though it could have been built in one of the open fields that bordered the village. A few years later, in 1973, the Faubourg Ste. Marie — commonly known as the Faubourg à m’lasse — was demolished to make way for the Maison Radio Canada.
Thankfully, the wholesale demolition of entire neighbourhoods ceased to be common practice in the 1980s and 90s, when urban renewal fell out of favour. Oddly, though, it now seems that we’re about to take up the practice once again: some are worried that Turcot Village and Les Tanneries, two small neighbourhoods in the far west end of St. Henri, will disappear as the giant Turcot Interchange is reconstructed.
Since the plan is to build a new surface-level interchange to replace the current elevated structure, some expropriations would appear to be necessary, but the Ministère de Transports du Québec isn’t clear on just how much property would be taken. In the Gazette, an MTQ representive claims that “only small pieces of land” from front or back yards will need to be bought. But on Walking Turcot Yards, one commenter fears that a large loft building and as many as twenty triplexes might be demolished for the new interchange.
Displaced residents would be offered the equivalent of three months’ rent; those who stay will have to deal with up to six years of construction. Neath, who writes Walking Turcot Yards, is outraged. “Something just isn’t right in this process,” he writes. “Maybe in the 1960’s it was still okay to operate this way with Drapeauvian zeal for the mega project, to view it all as the inevitable side effects of ‘progress’, but I would sure like to think we have grown up as a society since then and have also become a little more intelligent (and possibly even more sensitive?!?) in our approach to things, but we have chosen to repeat old methods, antiquated solutions, tunnel vision, and, yes, arrogance.”
Throughout Montreal’s history — and indeed, the history of any city that suffered large-scale urban renewal in the 1950s, 60s and 70s — there is a common thread that runs through neighbourhoods that were demolished. They were poor, marginal and treated with contempt by city and provincial officials. Turcot Village and Les Tanneries are no different. Don’t let them disappear.
4 comments
The second photograph says a lot! The people behind the project are the same people who have not even been doing a good job of maintaining Quebec’s highway overpasses over the last 30- 40 years. Is there any reason to believe that they have suddenly become competent?
And recent polls suggest that Mayor Tremblay is doing not so bad which is really sad considering that he came in with the “Megacity” concept and development is just surging all over the island at a time when we really need to be preserving as much green space and creating sustainable corridors as possible.
There is no vision happening. It is the same old thing over and over and over. The “future” is being destroyed for short term political gains. We desperately need new young leaders who can see this and are able to work outside the box!
Building projects are fine but we have to re-examine the philosophy behind all the development projects. We need to be city-building in the old sense of the term. That is, maintaining street grids and creating them where they don’t exist and where we have mega blocks. The best examples I can site are Les Jardins/Terraces Windsor. The city should have at the very least put a street in the middle of that mega block and encouraged apartment blocks in the tradition of the 1920’s and 30’s. I see that development and cringe: not only are they uninspiring buildings architecturally but the concept is entirely out of place downtown. I fear the same fate for Griffintown.
Am I the only one amused by the king-size Hummer parked in this relatively not-so-well-off neighborhood?
I mean… a big part of the reasons why infrastructures like the Turcot Interchange are of major importance is because people insist on driving such monstrosities.
I’m just trying to make a case for our lacking public transit in the city… Imagine a Montreal with a 21st century public transit system… what need would we have for an interchange to be able to withstand the abuse of about 100,000 vehicles per day? Turcot was built in 1966. So let’s say this new Turcot lasts about as long… We’re setting ourselves up to pay up another few billion dollars in about 50 years while we spend pennies on solutions that could improve the lives of every citizen right now…
Containers don’t take the metro.