{"id":2859,"date":"2009-05-30T20:22:46","date_gmt":"2009-05-31T00:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=2859"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:46:13","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:46:13","slug":"what-happened-to-rue-st-norbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/05\/30\/what-happened-to-rue-st-norbert\/","title":{"rendered":"What happened to rue St-Norbert?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spacingmontreal\/3576941692\/in\/set-72157618973003050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3640\/3576941692_cf2686a43e.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"327\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My friend recently picked up a copy of the book &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.conundrumpress.com\/nt_pictureThis.html\">Picture this! Posters of Social Movements in Qu\u00e9bec (1966-2007)<\/a>&#8220;.\u00a0 While leafing through the pages of posters from various social causes and movements from over the last few decades, the above image caught my attention.\u00a0 The hand-drawn poster, with what are presumably St-Norbert residents at one side of the block of typical downtown row of houses with it&#8217;s massive human fist punching a back-hoe, a cop, and what appears to be perhaps politicians, lawyers, developers, landlords, or any combination of greedy, powerful people looking to demolish the block and put its residents on the streets.\u00a0 The resident&#8217;s sign beckons readers to take their right to housing and the caption at the bottom declares an occupation and a &#8220;squat-in&#8221;.\u00a0 The poster is credited to the Comit\u00e9 de citoyens de St-Norbert.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the posters in the book provide no follow-up as to how successful the campaigns were or what kind of effect they had on society as a whole.\u00a0 It is left up to the reader to decipher, based on current conditions, what kinds of successes and failures activists of the past endured, or what fights are still being waged today.\u00a0 For example, posters in the book demanding better rent control may have eventually led to the very tenant-friendly regulations of the current R\u00e9gie du logement and we know the results of the book&#8217;s posters from both the &#8220;oui&#8221; and &#8220;non&#8221; sides in regards to the question of independence of Quebec.\u00a0 The St-Norbert poster is different, however.\u00a0 A few pages into the book, this poster appears:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spacingmontreal\/3576943324\/in\/set-72157618973003050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3357\/3576943324_8eaf68057b.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"315\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sadly, the fight to save St-Norbert failed and activists, promising to remember and continue the fight, staged a demonstration at the site of the demolition ten years after.<\/p>\n<p>When I first saw the posters, I had no idea where St-Norbert was, which is excusable, the street being a narrow quiet residential street only a few blocks long. It feels more like an alley for Ontario and Sherbrooke between St-Laurent and H\u00f4tel de Ville than an actual street.<\/p>\n<p>The first poster says that the plan was to demolish the houses and turn the block into a surface parking lot.\u00a0 This may well have been the case for many years but it appears that the block has recently been rebuilt with luxury condos which look to have been built sometime in the last few years:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spacingmontreal\/3576129755\/in\/set-72157618973003050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3282\/3576129755_e33639392f.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was curious, what happened to rue St-Norbert?\u00a0 Why was the block demolished?\u00a0 What kind of opposition did the demolitions face and what tactics were used by residents and housing activists to try to save it?\u00a0 To look for an answer, I turned to newspaper coverage from the day of the protest in 1985 and around the days of the demolition ten years prior in 1975.\u00a0 Sadly, looking through microfilms from <em>The Montreal Star, The Gazette, Le Devoir, <\/em>and <em>La Presse<\/em>, I failed to come up with much information.\u00a0 Perhaps I could have searched through the weeks and months leading up to the demolition in the 1975 archives but, I haven&#8217;t the time nor the ambition.\u00a0 What I did come up with was a photo from the September 25th edition of <em>Le Devoir<\/em> in 1975 showing the devastation of the demolition with a pole covered in posters in the foreground.\u00a0 The caption reads &#8220;Rue Saint-Norbert nature morte \u00e0 la fa\u00e7on montr\u00e9alaise avec st\u00e8le et souvenirs des chambres de bois&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spacingmontreal\/3576139701\/in\/set-72157618973003050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3616\/3576139701_b4f7375430.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"473\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>La Press<\/em> in 1985, the day after the protest, ran the headline &#8220;Montr\u00e9al n&#8217;a pas tenu ses promesses rue Saint-Norbert&#8221;.\u00a0 The article briefly describes how the block was just one of many casualties of the Drapeau-era demolitions and alludes to large demonstrations, arrests, and court injunctions ten years prior.\u00a0 Not much more detail is given.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/spacingmontreal\/3576139225\/in\/set-72157618973003050\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3379\/3576139225_a61d621808.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"148\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Finally, although it is not related to St-Norbert directly, I was amused to find this cartoon in <em>The Gazette <\/em>from 1975.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3660\/3576934188_2678a3c662.jpg?v=0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3660\/3576934188_2678a3c662.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"482\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So, having come up with very little about what happened concerning this small piece of Montreal history during the months and days leading up to September 25th, 1975, I turn to SpacingMontreal readers to give any insight as to what happened.\u00a0 Anyone who was around at the time, do you remember what happened?\u00a0 Was there a squat?\u00a0 What happened at the demonstrations and why the arrests?\u00a0 What was on this lot before the newly built condos?\u00a0 Anything that can be shared would help satisfy my curiosity and give us a bit of insight concerning urban development during those turbulent years under Mayor Drapeau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My friend recently picked up a copy of the book &#8220;Picture this! Posters of Social Movements in Qu\u00e9bec (1966-2007)&#8220;.\u00a0 While leafing through the pages of posters from various social causes and movements from over the last few decades, the above image caught my attention.\u00a0 The hand-drawn poster, with what are presumably St-Norbert residents at one<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/05\/30\/what-happened-to-rue-st-norbert\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;What happened to rue St-Norbert?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5014,"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":[7830,7831,7837,15,7839,29],"tags":[48,1008,14,265,486,346,125,536,23,292,69,3733],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-community","category-history","category-housing","category-neighbourhoods","category-streetscape","tag-downtown","tag-drapeau","tag-historical","tag-la-presse","tag-le-devoir","tag-mayor","tag-montreal","tag-ontario","tag-posters","tag-quebec","tag-social-trends","tag-the-montreal-star"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What happened to rue St-Norbert? - 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\/2009\/05\/30\/what-happened-to-rue-st-norbert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What happened to rue St-Norbert? - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My friend recently picked up a copy of the book &#8220;Picture this! Posters of Social Movements in Qu\u00e9bec (1966-2007)&#8220;.\u00a0 While leafing through the pages of posters from various social causes and movements from over the last few decades, the above image caught my attention.\u00a0 The hand-drawn poster, with what are presumably St-Norbert residents at oneContinue reading &quot;What happened to rue St-Norbert?&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/05\/30\/what-happened-to-rue-st-norbert\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-31T00:22:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-21T16:46:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3640\/3576941692_cf2686a43e.jpg?v=0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Erb\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chris Erb\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/05\/30\/what-happened-to-rue-st-norbert\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/05\/30\/what-happened-to-rue-st-norbert\/\",\"name\":\"What happened to rue St-Norbert? 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