{"id":25511,"date":"2016-01-17T23:13:18","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T04:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/?p=25511"},"modified":"2016-01-17T23:35:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T04:35:31","slug":"25511","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2016\/01\/17\/25511\/","title":{"rendered":"A Legacy of Holes"},"content":{"rendered":"

One summer, when I was a teenager, a life-sized replica of Stonehenge made of compacted trash was erected\u00a0in the empty lot on Sherbrooke & St-Laurent. At the time, there was scaffolding along the western wall of the abandoned Godin building, and people were invited to\u00a0climb up and throw old computer towers and monitors down into the dumpster four stories below.<\/span><\/p>\n

This, we understood even at our tender age, was art.<\/span><\/p>\n

The economic and political instability, which were beyond my grasp as a kid growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, manifested as boarded up store fronts and vacant lots that we assumed were normal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, as the city emerged from\u00a0depression, we felt a confused outrage when the\u00a0holes began to be\u00a0filled in. It\u2019s not that we’d been particularly fond those vacant lots that were littered with empty mickeys and soggy mattresses, but we knew the condo towers and office buildings and hotels that rose in their place\u00a0were not for us.<\/p>\n

The holes, at least,\u00a0had the air of\u00a0an unruly frontier, a sense of possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cJ\u2019ai grandi dans une ville trou\u00e9e,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0urban planner Joel Thibert, in his first post on this blog, “et c\u2019est\u00a0difficile pour moi d\u2019imaginer une ville sans trous.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When I returned\u00a0to Montreal for Christmas last month,\u00a0I stumbled upon one of my favourite bands,\u00a0Bad Uncle \u2014 whom\u00a0I first met\u00a0at some illegal loft-party indie-show \u2014 playing in the park on Mount-Royal Avenue a few\u00a0blocks from my parents’ house. There was an enclosed gazebo on the site to keep the musicians\u00a0warm, a stand selling Plateau\u00a0microbrews, and a fire pit where the fans gathered to roast\u00a0hot dogs on twigs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was thrilled to discover\u00a0more fire pits in touristy Place Jacques-Cartier, along with the see-saws in the Place des Spectacles.\u00a0Could it be, I wondered, that some City official\u00a0took note of the wistful posts\u00a0I wrote years ago about fire in public spaces<\/a>\u00a0and the city as a jungle gym<\/a>? More likely, I decided, that all the glorious grit and whimsy that was infiltrating\u00a0our\u00a0public spaces could be attributed to\u00a0a generation of City workers, community organizers, and business-owners who grew up alongside\u00a0me in the city of holes.<\/p>\n

The same could be supposed about the\u00a0new cohort\u00a0of City journalists and columnists (every paper has adopted one). When the Journal Metro<\/em>\u00a0published a list of 25 projects that marked Montreal<\/a> in 2015, almost all of them occupied the\u00a0city’s gaps\u00a0and fringe-spaces. <\/span><\/p>\n

The series\u00a0celebrated the\u00a0community<\/span>\u00a0gardens, food stands, children\u2019s games, and chaises-longues <\/em>hosted within the city’s various holes; alleyway block parties and BBQs; dance parties under overpasses and on porches; street art under the banner of\u00a0several festivals; and of course this year’s encore of our\u00a0pop-up beach.\u00a0T<\/span>hey even highlighted the organization and web portal,\u00a0Lande<\/a>, dedicated to the occupation and transformation of Montreal’s vacant lots.<\/p>\n

These urban projects that make me feel excited to be in Montreal\u00a0are modest and ephemeral compared to the development projects that I have so hotly contested in my past posts\u00a0(the infamous Projet Griffintown<\/em> was my catalyst, with\u00a0the Quadrilat\u00e8re Saint-Laurent\u00a0<\/em>hot on its heals). These projects feel precarious, or perhaps\u00a0just trendy.<\/p>\n

But those of us\u00a0who inherited a\u00a0crumbling concrete legacy aren’t so\u00a0easily\u00a0seduced by the promises of permanence\u00a0and rigidity.<\/p>\n

When you grow up in a city of holes, you learn\u00a0that it is\u00a0not the not the bricks and mortar that define a place,\u00a0but all that\u00a0can happen\u00a0in\u00a0the spaces between.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One summer, when I was a teenager, a life-sized replica of Stonehenge made of compacted trash was erected\u00a0in the empty lot on Sherbrooke & St-Laurent. 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