Montreal Monday: Density advertising, aqueducts, whitewater, Lower Main and Plateau

Each Monday, we bring you some of the popular posts from our sister blog, Spacing Montréal. We’ll keep an eye open for topics and discussions that are pertinent to current public space issues in Toronto.

• Andrew Emond traces the history of Montreal’s historic Aqueduct, an 8km open canal completed in 1856, which continues to look and work much like it did when it was first built. Emond explores the island city’s longstanding relationship to water in his first installment on Montreal’s Waterworks.
• The Lower Main street (see photo above) is inching closer to redevelopment. Alanah Heffez uncovers the past of the 7 historical buildings that will be reduced to facades under the new plan.
• The kayakers and surfers who today play in Lachine Rapids aren’t the first groups to run these deadly waters passing alongside the city. As Cecilia Chen tells us, these local rapids captivated figures as old as Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain, whose companion died while running the whitewater.
• Alanah Heffez follows up on her March post on “What is a neighbourhood?” as she continues to patch together the past of the diverse Plateau District.
• Olivier Plessis looks at how the City of Montreal has used advertisements to promote increasing density on the island and curb the flight of people out to the suburbs.

Photo by Alanah Heffez