Sept 28th – Workers replace the gigantic ad on the corner of St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine.
Last year, the borough of Ville Marie joined the city of Calgary as the only places in Canada that allow large-scale advertising on construction sites. But he company that manages these ads is knocking on borough doors across the island, trying to convince them to follow suite. Vancouver allows construction sites to be “camouflaged” – covered in canvases that mimic the building’s original architecture.
In an article headlined “payant pour la ville” the Journal de Montréal uncovered that the borough will make about $200,000 from ad revenues this year. Personally, I consider this amount scandalously low given the impact that ads of this scale have on the character of our downtown neighbourhoods. Further revenues are collected by building owners and can be used to help offset the cost of renovations.
A citizens group called Reclaiming the Main is calling for the removal of the mega ad from a building on historic St-Laurent street.
17 comments
This is my week of lost causes on Spacing Montreal, I guess: these temporary scaffold ads don’t bother me.
Isn’t this St. Laurent at Sherbrooke?
I think mega ads are not such a big deal, they do this in Europe and it doesn’t have any impact on the “character” of the neighborhoods. Maybe they could have regulations on the design of the ads if that bothers them so much.
I say graffiti tags, chewing gum and litter have a much bigger impact. They should create a citizen group to “reclaim” the main from those. I would call it “uncovering the main” lol.
I have to agree with the commenters, they are actually not an eyesoard, it’s better than any scaffolding and someone is making money out of it, so it’s not city-prostitution.
De plus, il ne faut pas oublier que la première enseigne qui fut installée à cet endroit était une réplique de la façade !
Étant donné que les travaux ne semblent pas progresser, il est normal que celle-ci soit changé de temps à autre.
I sold my soul for rock’n’roll, which is a good thing, but as for selling our city’s soul for 200 large, that’s a shame and scandal.
Is there anything ad revenue won’t corrupt?
Fight back!
Where are grafitti vandals, culture jammers, and the monkey wrench gang when we need them?
No I am not suggesting that independent action is a solution for this problem, right? Right.
Right.
Yeah, I’d agree with Adolfo about graffiti on a historic church, or even someone’s house, but not these cancerous eyesores.
But there is something deeply wrong if Calgary is the only other place in Canada that allows such things.
I certainly haven’t seen many in Europe. In Amsterdam I’ve observed buildings under renovation with false façades (no ads) atop them.
Scafolding:
1) Ugly to everyone.
2) No money for the owners. Slower progress in renovations.
False facade:
1) Looks good.
2) No money for the owners. Slower progress in renovations.
Big ads:
1) Ugly to a lot of people (and apparently offensive to the political/personal views of the author of this article and some commenters).
2) A lot of money for the owners. Faster renovations.
My solution:
Those who find the ads offensive, should raise money to help the owner of the buildings with the renovations and use a false facade.
I still think people should have the right to do whatever they want with their facades.
And I insist that “citizen groups” should be first concerned about much more important urban image issues before complaining about this.
I would disagree that it causes faster renovations, I would argue that it actually causes renovations to go slower as when the job has finished, the ads come down and gone is the ad revenue. The corner of St-Laurent and Sherbrooke is a good example of this; ads have been taken down and replaced many times but little actual work has been done to the building.
Actually none of us have the right to do whatever we want with our façades – we have to respect a host of regulations when renovating.
You are right about this particular case Chris. I wonder if they do not really care about doing the renovations but just about the money they get from the ads, as the city doesn’t seem to regulate the duration of the renovations. I don’t know if it does actually make for faster renovations in other cases, as I don’t know the details of other cases.
A regulation could be made on property owners that decide to use the ads, so that they can’t keep them for too long, and the renovation work must end faster.
I insist that the ads don’t bother me at all. It is still better than scaffolding, and unlike the false facades, they are provided for free by the advertising company. I like what they do in Italy, of using a false facade with the ad occupying part of it, the way they did with the first ad on this location.
What I really insist on is that in terms of urban image, this city has much much bigger problems than this (do I have to list them here?). It is not like these ads are destroying anything (in which case I would understand the concerns). This is not Europe, but for some reason all those “citizen groups” complain about the same problems they would complain in European cities, and skip all the more important more basic problems.
I have in only one occasion seen people in Montreal fixing something public that was damaged (they placed some missing bricks on the cobblestone paved ground in Chinatown, yes, the residents did it). In that occasion I told the person that was with me, that it was the first time I saw such an involvement in Montreal, which was very common in the other cities I had lived in or visited. He said he thought the same (blaming socialized culture for the let-the-government-do-everything attitude, but that’s another subject). I have never seen a citizen picking up garbage here (I know some people do, I just have never seen them). Shouldn’t these people be doing that instead of complaining about some big ad? Is that against hipster culture? (sorry for my ignorance). What about protesting about people throwing their cigarette butts on the ground despite all the efforts by the city to stop this (please look at the UQAM main building (on Ste Catherine)’s back yard, believe or not, right under all those cigarette butts, there is a turf!). Wouldn’t that be “cool” and “new”? I mean, protesting against other citizens for a non-discriminatory good cause?
I hope you could read my comment from the outside, with the city and its problems in the background, and would understand what I mean.
We NEED to mobilize citizens against this corporate abuse of our historic site!
The hipocrisy here is that the Borough Mayor Helen Fotoopolis, of the Plateau, has recently inagurated a pro-First Nations mural at the Maison de L’ Amite on Duluth, while Ville-Marie’s spokesperson Jacques-Alain Lavallée says of the monstrosity on The Main historic site: “the sign is perfectly legal, thanks to a new bylaw permitting large-scale advertising on scaffolding that was passed this summer.” (http://www.montrealmirror.com/2008/080708/news1.html)
While Ms. Fotoopolis has claimed, rightly so, that the Billboard in question is in Benoit Labonte’s territory of Ville-Marie, she has done nothing to prevent the putting up of such corporate spam up in our historic site, despite the fact that she was Montreal’s “Minister of Culture” for many years.
Please disseminate this message far and wide, and help reclaim our historic site from further corporate abuse! Merci!You can read more about the “Reclaim the Main” campaign here:
http://www.optative.net/reclaimthemain/index.html
I have to say, I’m with Adolfo’s last comment. It would be nice to see the same indignation channeled into picking up garbage, detering graffiti tags, cleaning up the alleys, etc. We tend to rail against the City with so much vigour, but blithely pass by the garbage in our own alleys. Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve been picking up the junk in my alley and on my sidewalk for years and the ONLY other people I see do that are the old Greek and Portuguese ladies. Us “hipsters” are oh so too cool for that.
I live in Montreal, and I need $200 000. so where’s MY cut?
I don’t get one.
I’m surprised they haven’t painted the very streets with ads, and wrap every building in the city, blocking every window with advertising, and let’s not forget about those sky satellites that would advertise every time we’d look up to try to get a break from it. forced advertising tattooed to people’s foreheads, and… never mind,
IT’S ALRIGHT, WE TOLD YOU WHAT TO DREAM!*
(Waters, Gilmour, Mason, Wright)
Thanks Leila. I wish there were more people like you. I know this has nothing to do with the article but… it would be nice if blogs like this would organize garbage pick up days or something similar in different neighborhoods. I would definitely participate. Do you guys know if anyone does that in Montreal?
The latest info:
http://www.optative.net/blog/?cat=36