The first banner was incongruous enough: “Avenue du Parc,” it read in a vaguely Hellenic font, set to a pale blue background. Underneath was the logo of the City of Montreal. Then, a couple of days later, I noticed other banners, these ones much more inscrutable: each featured a portrait of someone that was pulled up in the lower left corner, like a page being turned, to reveal part of a Greek flag. The city still seemed to be in the process of installing of them, and as far as I could see, there were only two kinds of portraits, one of a thirtyish man of Southern European appearance and another of a little Asian girl — not usually the kind of person you imagine when you think of someone Greek.
Earlier this year, the city announced that it would spend $50,000 to polish Park Avenue and emphasize its Greek heritage. Flowers would be planted, more benches installed and banners erected. I guess this is the fruit of those efforts (and dollars). Unfortunately, they reek of compromise — the worst kind of compromise that is unsatisfying and underwhelming to everyone involved. For years, Park Avenue’s Greek merchants have pushed to have the street declared a Greektown or “Quartier hellenique” that would have the same symbolic value for Montreal’s many Greeks as Little Italy does for its Italians and Chinatown for its Chinese. More importantly, the merchants reason, it would be an opportunity to consolidate their resources, promote the street and draw more outside shoppers.
After a brief spate of investment in what might be called “ethnic infrastructure” — former mayor Pierre Bourque’s administration invested heavily in sprucing up Chinatown and Little Italy, and it built new community-themed parks like Portugal Park on the Plateau and Athena Square in Park Ex — the city has shied away from recognizing the city’s ethnic and cultural communities in any significant manner. The idea for a Quartier hellenique on Park Avenue is just one of several ethnic theme districts that have been proposed by shopowners in recent years. In the area around Jean Talon and St. Denis, where dozens of Vietnamese-owned businesses are located, one merchant has advocated the creation of a “Vietnamville.” North African businesspeople on Jean Talon east of St. Michel are now pressing for the creation of a “Petit Maghreb.” Each of these movements has been met with the same indifference from city officials.
In 2006 and 2007, though, mayor Gérald Tremblay’s attempt to rename Park Avenue angered so many people that his administration is still cleaning the muck off its face. City Hall must have felt that it had political capital to regain among those who had protested loudly against the name change, so it committed itself to investing more heavily in Park Avenue. Many took that to mean than it would finally support the creation of the Quartier hellenique but, as the $50,000 it has decided to invest in flowers and benches indicates, it is simply not willing to go that far.
Naturally enough, many merchants are disappointed. The rebranding of Park Avenue as an officially-recognized Greek neighbourhood would certainly give its shops and restaurants a boost. In 2005, a study by researchers at the University of Toronto concluded that branding neighbourhoods along ethnic lines — “ethnic packaging,” as they put it — drives up real estate values and encourages gentrification. In this sense, the Quartier hellenique would be a good thing for those business owners who would stand to capitalize on an up-scaling of Park Avenue, but perhaps not from the people who live nearby or those shopowners who wouldn’t contribute to the Greek theme.
From a cultural and historical standpoint, though, the Quartier hellenique does make some sense. Beginning in the 1950s, thousands of Greek immigrants settled on Park Avenue and in the surrounding neighbourhoods, and Greeks formed a plurality along the street in the 1960s and 70s. Even as younger generations of Greek Montrealers decamped for outlying neighbourhoods, many of them settled in areas not far from Park Avenue’s sphere of influence, like Cartierville in north end Montreal and Chomedey in Laval. Today, a large proportion of Park Avenue’s businesses are still Greek-owned, and its Greek bars and restaurants draw many people from outside the neighbourhood every night. When Greece’s national football team won the 2004 Euro Cup, Park Avenue was flooded with people.
Even if it is a street with considerable Greek influence, though, Park is far from being an entirely Greek street. In fact, it is one of Montreal’s more multicultural thoroughfares, with shops owned by and catering to people with hugely diverse origins. On my block, there is a Greek radio station and several Hellenic social clubs, but also an Argentine restaurant, Haitian café, kosher fishmonger and several Hasidic Jewish homewear stores. In fact, Park Avenue’s Hasidic Jewish presence represents the biggest challenge to the concept of the Quartier hellenique: dozens of stores catering to that community are concentrated on and around the street, including three kosher grocery stores and the city’s best kosher bakery. I think you were to analyze the ownership and patronage of its retail stores, you’d find that Park Avenue is actually more Jewish than it is Greek.
That might be one reason why the city seems so uncomfortable with the notion of declaring Park Avenue to be a Greek quarter. That might also explain the “Greek-yet-multicultural” message of the recently-installed banners. Unfortunately, the city’s effort seems half-hearted at best, and it contributes little to the well-being of the street. It combines the worst aspects of ethnic packaging (lame and clichéd imagery that reeks of tokenism) with none of the best (streetscape improvements and more attention to the quality of the pedestrian experience). Planting a Greek flag on Park Avenue, so to speak, won’t do anything to improve the street. Its Greek heritage needs to be recognized, but what is needed more are concrete investments in its viability as a commercial street, not merely as an ethnic quarter.
10 comments
Park Ave. is so multicultural I find it verges on cultural arrogance to declare this “Greek Town”. Compare to the overwhelmingly Greek Town in Toronto (Pape and Danforth)to see what I mean. As much as I appreciate a need to commemorate cultural origins, I think in this case it would have to be done in a subtler way… a piece of art, perhaps, near the mile End library? Those banners, I agree, don’t cut it. A waste of taxpayer’s money.
haha the 80.
is there a place for a jewish quarter on du parc? on the side, a bit to the west? maybe they could partition off if du parc becomes greek.
there should be some explicit criteria for conferring official status on ethnic neighborhoods, perhaps. for instance, if a clear majority of du parc wants to be greek, they can renegotiate their status with the city.
if the city builds a giant parthenon on du parc, doesn’t that fix the “greeks” to assigned notions of greek-ness?
“go over there,” the city says. “and be greek.”
Encore un autre ghetto ethnique de plus…
I would think the (historic) Jewish Quarter would be The Main.
I’m new here, but my impression of the difference between Montréal and Toronto (gratuitous rivalry hotbutton-pushing, I know – oh, sorry, there IS no contest ;-) was that Toronto tends to have much more distinct mono-cultural “towns” and Montréal is much more mixed even within neighbourhoods, making Petit Italie and Chinatown more the exception than the rule. (and I’m not sure Little Italy is all that predominantly Italian any more, either.)
When I walk through the nearest big park in this neighbourhood on a sunny day I see at least a half a dozen ethnic groups in any one part of it, and often more.
Petite Italie is very multicultural now, with a very strong Latin American presence. What has remained very strongly Italian is the string of businesses along St-Laurent in particular between St-Zotique and Jean-Talon – a very short and concentrated stretch. The entire area around Jean-Talon Market has several small concentrated areas of shops of different ethnicities, such as the once Lebanese and now mostly Maghrebi businesses on Jean-Talon there, the Sino-Cambodian businesses on St-Denis between Bélanger and avenue de Castelnau, the Latino businesses on Bélanger east from St-Denis…
I don’t think recognition of ethnic areas is necessarily a “ghetto”, but it can get too gimmicky…
Parc seems to be a stronghold of the Chassidic community, but that group tends to want to stay apart from larger society, Jewish or not.
I feel very uncomfortable with the desire to name Parc as Greek from a municipal standpoint. The truly Greek sector of Parc really only spans about two or three blocks and it’s not without representation from literally every other culture.
Along Parc between Fairmount and Van Horne, there are multiple Italian, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Kosher, Eastern European, South American, French and generic North American restaurants compared to only a few more Greek haunts. The ownership of the businesses on Parc is not dominantly made up of one culture. There’s an Italian mercerie, a Hassidic toy shop, a Greek flag/tailor shop, fruit markets with delicious South Asian pastries and a dep with Chinese characters on the sign.
Although there are aspects of Parc that strongly benefit from the Greek community such as the exciting atmosphere during important soccer matches, the smell of grilled meat wafting out of restaurants and a great deal of other wonderful things, I think that on the whole, Parc is much too multicultural to need to be branded as uniquely Greek.
Mile End itself could be branded as a Sesame Street of sorts where everyone comes together and is represented, especially when you look just East or West of Parc or up to Parc Ex. I think this money is best used to get some more planters, trees, benches and pretty street lights. If they want to honour the Greek community, I agree with Brian that they should put something up near the Library or something like that.
The signs are kind of creepy. The fact that the Greek flag is lurking under the surface makes it look somewhat sinister. Not to mention the fact that you can easily miss the Greek flag element. My boyfriend didn’t see it until I pointed it out, at which point he has weirded out.
The blue/Hellenic writing signs look like someone in Montreal’s design team doesn’t know a lot about fonts. If they explained that they’re trying to brand Parc as Greek on the signs, they’d be too wordy. As it stands, they’re completely ineffective at conveying any kind of message.
They’re just kind of a trainwreck. I feel like the municipal government should just try to stay away from Parc/Mile End and not mess with a good thing. It’s charming, colourful and Multicultural and everyone seems to like it that way.
The well-meaning expenditure to build the gates around Chinatown end up ghettoizing Chinese-oriented businesses. Though they look nice and tourists seem to love taking pictures of them, it definitely creates a “be Chinese in here only” zone.
To argue the other side of the coin, while these state- sanctioned ethnic enclaves do end up leaning heavily on crude, essentialist readings of otherness (should I have to live in a neighborhood marked by a giant statue of liberty, with smith & wesson statues everywhere and, worst of all, with other americans?) — in moments of exceptionalist wonder about the “diverse mix of people and cultures on rue X” we forget that this is not really that unique or interesting among big cities.
It falls into the familiar (Trudeauist!) trap of not admitting the existence of anything meaningful between the level of “individual” and “everyone” ; ultimately a pretext for more market atomism.
If there are disproportionate numbers of people of Greek origin someplace in the city, this IS inherently interesting, and it’s something for the city to use to sell itself abroad. But monuments could, for example, better represent the contemporary greek expatriate experience instead of adopting hackneyed and clichéd versions of Grecque-ité
Tthe city’s best kosher bakery? Eek. It’s not even remotely close to being the city’s best kosher bakery — just the only one left within reasonable proximity to hipsterdom. The baked goods at Adar, Homemade, and, at a whole other level, Giorgi’s wonderful cafe on Queen Mary (Exception 2, next to Chez Benny) are all in a completely different class than Cheskie’s.
I would think the (historic) Jewish Quarter would be The Main.
Depends when in time, really. At the time all the Greeks starting moving in, this area was very heavily Jewish. The city’s most significant Jewish institutions were clustered around Park Avenue, including the Jewish library and old folks home (on Esplanade looking onto Fletchers Field, just south of Mont-Royal), the Jewish Y (on Mont-Royal, just north of Fletchers Field), Talmud Torah (now Collège Rachel, on St Joseph), two of the largest synagogues in the city (now Ukrainian Federation and Collège Français buildings, on Fairmount), and so forth.