Ode to the nighttime metropolis

Kate at Montreal City points the way to a nice essay in today’s Guardian on the pleasures of nighttime wandering. Writer and “confirmed nightwalker” Kate Pullinger even has some nice passages about Montreal:

I’ve always loved the city at night, even before I knew what it was like. I come from a rural suburb of a small town on the west coast of Canada and I spent my adolescence dreaming of cities in the dark. To go anywhere when I was a kid you had to drive; there was no public transport. And when you got there, wherever There was, there wasn’t anything to do, except drink. I knew that when I finally made it to the city the night would sparkle and shine and pulse and that when I walked down the street, night music – Roxy Music, the Velvet Underground, Curtis Mayfield, Ultravox even – would accompany me.

My first ever city was Montreal, where I spent a dissolute 18 months struggling with the concept of university. Montreal at night was always romantic but bipolar: a continuous street party during the summer – hot sweaty nights in cafes and bars that spilled on to the streets; phenomenally cold, encased in ice, in the winter. I would bundle up in multiple layers before heading out. In January and February I would wear both my coats. Montreal at night involved a lot of trudging, carrying your party shoes in a bag, stamping the snow off your boots. Falling snow at night in the city is irresistible; it squeaks and crunches beneath your boots on the pavement and comes to rest on your eyelashes and cheeks like glitter, only even more precious, more fleeting.

Walking by myself through Montreal at night was to feel a kind of freedom that was completely new to me – the people are sleeping, the city is mine, all mine. Through the frozen air I could hear and see myself breathing – walking at night always makes me feel more aware of my own physicality somehow; it’s the unexpected silence, the unsolicited peace – and my joy at escaping the suburbs was complete: I’m alive, I’m my own person, and I’m at home in the city.

Pullinger, who now lives in London, goes on about the fear with which so many English women regard the city at night. “When Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, said at the weekend that she wouldn’t walk at night in Hackney, or Kensington and Chelsea, she was just being honest, despite her aides’ subsequent attempts at spin,” she writes. “Our levels of fear bear little relation to the statistics – Smith was right that crime rates have fallen, too – but we are told to be afraid, so many of us are, both despite of and because of our experience. But not me.”

Since moving here, I’ve noticed that many women in Montreal seem less fearful of wandering alone than women in other cities. That’s a great thing because the nighttime is one of the best times to explore the city. Without the roar of traffic and the rush of pedestrians, everything becomes more intimate, more accessible; the city, for once, feels like it belongs to you and you alone.

Some of my most memorable walks have taken place late at night. I remember a wintertime walk through Griffintown and Old Montreal, the Farine Five Roses sign blinking langourously in the distance. Outremont, absolutely dead after midnight, is a perfect place to wander well after most of its inhabitants have gone to bed. The borough’s well-manicured parks and playground are open for exploration; it’s odd if an adult plays on the swings during the daytime, but there’s nobody to give you odd stares at night.