{"id":13423,"date":"2012-02-28T17:52:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T22:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=13423"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:47:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:47:42","slug":"montreal-lit-crescent-street-and-cheap-vancouver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2012\/02\/28\/montreal-lit-crescent-street-and-cheap-vancouver\/","title":{"rendered":"Montr\u00e9al Lit: Crescent Street and Cheap Vancouver"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Spacing Montreal is pleased to present this column exploring Montreal’s literary landscape, written by Gregory McCormick, Director of Programming for the\u00a0Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a kind of permanence to downtowns that isn\u2019t real. The heavy stone buildings, the skyscrapers, the motion and grime of certain corners. And it\u2019s that way with the downtown areas of most cities. But downtowns, like cities generally, have a slow and steady kind of transitory existence and they change over several generations.<\/p>\n

This is what struck me when I read a collection of Mavis Gallant stories called Montreal Stories<\/em>. Gallant, who will be 90 in August, has lived most of her adult life in Paris, but the stories she writes about her younger life in Montreal are definitely from a bygone era.<\/p>\n

\u2018[Mac\u2019s] out in Vancouver now. It\u2019s a big change from Montreal.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019ll crawl back here one day, probably sooner than he thinks,\u2019 said Mr. Fenton. Something had made him cranky, perhaps the talk about souls. \u2018I consider it a privilege to live in Montreal. I was born on Crescent and that\u2019s where I intend to die. Unless there\u2019s another war. Then it\u2019s a toss-up.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Crescent\u2019s a fine street,\u2019 said the doctor. \u2018Nice houses, nice stores.\u2019 He paused and let the compliment sink in, a way of making peace. \u2018He\u2019s buying a place. Property\u2019s cheap out there [in Vancouver].\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a long way off,\u2019 said Mr. Fenton. \u2018They can\u2019t get people to go and live there. That\u2019s why everything\u2019s so cheap.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Not being married, he doesn\u2019t need a lot of room,\u2019 the doctor said. \u2018It\u2019s just a bungalow, two rooms and a kitchen. He can eat in the kitchen. It\u2019s a nice area. A lot of gardens.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Sure, there are stores on Crescent now, but they\u2019re high quality,\u2019 said Mr. Fenton. \u2018I could sell the house for a hell of a lot more than my father ever paid. Louise wants me to. She can\u2019t get used to having a dress shop next door. She wants a lawn and a yard and a lot of space in between the houses.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Mac\u2019s got a fair-sized garden. That won\u2019t break his neck. Out there, there\u2019s no winter. You stick something in the ground, it grows.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018My father hung on to the house all through the Depression,\u2019 said Mr. Fenton. \u2018It\u2019ll take a lot more than a couple of store windows to chase me away.\u2019<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s certainly true that Montrealers in general prefer our city to Vancouver, it\u2019s almost laughable to think now that once that western city was considered so cheap because no one wanted to live there. It\u2019s also clear, given the nature of Crescent Street today, that Mr. Fenton ultimately was chased away from the street where he was born and raised. There must be at least some residential housing there (though it must be extremely limited and very loud!) but that area is most certainly an extension of the downtown core now and one that we don\u2019t associate with residential living.<\/p>\n

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          Spacing Montreal is pleased to present this column exploring Montreal’s literary landscape, written by Gregory McCormick, Director of Programming for the\u00a0Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival. There\u2019s a kind of permanence to downtowns that isn\u2019t real. The heavy stone buildings, the skyscrapers, the motion and grime of certain corners. And it\u2019sContinue reading “Montr\u00e9al Lit: Crescent Street and Cheap Vancouver”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5075,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[6883,7064,6137,7065,125,704,28,6343,148],"class_list":["post-13423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spacing","tag-director-of-programming-for-the-blue-metropolis-international-literary-festival","tag-fenton","tag-gregory-mccormick","tag-mavis-gallant","tag-montreal","tag-paris","tag-spacing-montreal","tag-the-blue-metropolis-international-literary-festival","tag-vancouver"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMontr\u00e9al Lit: Crescent Street and Cheap Vancouver - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2012\/02\/28\/montreal-lit-crescent-street-and-cheap-vancouver\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Montr\u00e9al Lit: Crescent Street and Cheap Vancouver - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"          Spacing Montreal is pleased to present this column exploring Montreal’s literary landscape, written by Gregory McCormick, Director of Programming for the\u00a0Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival. 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