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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Photo du Jour – Skinny House

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skinny house

Photo taken Sept 19th 2008, in St-Henri.

This skinny little clapboard house is squeezed between St-Augustin street and the train tracks, where they cross St-Ambroise. It makes me think of the house that they move into in “Bonheur d’Occasion” (which I recently bought here, and just finished reading), the one that Rose-Anna knows right the family will never be happy in.

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15 comments

  1. It is my firm belief that this house reinforces unrealistic societal pressures about body image. Body Beautiful, poopers.

  2. Actually,a lot of the places in Bonheur d’Occasion are based on real locations in St-Henri, this may very well be the place Roy herself was thinking of. I’ve been told by several locals it definitely is, but I can’t vouch for their credibility.

  3. i think it’s so awesome!
    I’d love to see inside
    I’ve seen similarly sized houses on the home and garden network, one in particular called the ‘alley house’ it was built between two houses in an alley. pretty neat!

  4. I saw this house two weeks when hunting down a korean restaurant in St-Henri.

    Go Skinny house!

  5. I’ve walked by a few times, it is really nice indeed and I would most definetly like to see inside!
    however it is right on the train track so I am guessing everything shakes rather often =S

  6. That place is quite near where I live and while definitly cute those are the main Via/CN tracks into the city center. The sounds of the ‘elephants’ going by -as my neighbour calls them, would definitly be enough to drive you batty. Though I suppose if you have lived there long enough you would get used to it. Hopefully the place doesn’t ever burn down because there is no way in heck that they would let them rebuild.

  7. The house is wedge-shaped. The other end is about 20 feet wide.

  8. A friend of mine lives in another house nearby — an old, entirely wooden duplex on Ste-Marguerite that looks like something from the Wild West — that’s also mentioned in the book. I’ll see if I can dig up some pics and Flickrize them.

  9. ” It makes me think of the house that they move into in “Bonheur d’Occasion” (which I recently bought here, and just finished reading), the one that Rose-Anna knows right the family will never be happy in.”

    I’m sure the author of the article simply stumbled upon this house and it, out of the blue, reminded her of the family’s second house in the book, without regard to local folklore, or, god forbid, Wikipedia.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Flute

  10. There’s another skinny house in St-Henri that no one seems to know about, but it’s even skinnier than this one (or at least I seem to think so, but maybe it actually isn’t). I’ve been waiting for spacing to show a picture of it.
    It’s a block away from St-Henri metro, on the north side of St-Jacques street.

  11. Dooper,
    I hadn’t actually seen that article in wikipedia – like i said, i just read the book last week. But it’s great to know that others have also looked at the geography of local literature – this is a topic that intrigues me a lot.

    When i was reading the book, i pictured the house being further north, near Notre Dame, because they are near the train station. Also, at one point in the novel, Florentine ventures down to St-Ambroise street to try and find her lover, Jean. She never mentions that her family moves into his neighbourhood afterwards.

    When I said that this house reminded me of the fictional place, I was refering to the fact that it isa rare detached home in that neighbourhood but, as Pablo said, it probably shakes quite often.

  12. NO!

    This isn’t and was never a house! It was an office/shelter for the railway workers who took care of the swiching. There are old photos of this place on flickr and in books.

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