by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

I went swimming outdoors downtown for the first time Sunday. It was a nice day except for the minus-14 degrees and the winds blasting down. I brought my two oldest daughters who fearlessly leapt into the water. Within seconds of sticking your head up you’d feel your hair turning into icy, brittle clumps.

I’m not sure many people know, but yes, we have a fine outdoor swimming pool that bravely stays open year-round.

The pool sits outside the entrance of the Hilton Bonaventure Hotel. It’s been there for a long time.

You’ve got to be a hotel customer to use the pool and it seems pretty much impossible to sneak in. I managed to negotiate a freebie by making a series of phone calls which required me to change tone from polite to whiney to demanding until I was finally told that I’d be permitted to go on Sunday morning.

When I got there, a strapping young attendant named Maurizio cocked a suspicious eyebrow and pointedly told me that my name wasn’t on the guest list.

He eventually, kindly, agreed to let us swim and guided us through an intricate protocol dictating the exchange of locker keys and the handing out of towels.

The entrance to the pool is a six-by-six square foot space with a low arch in the wall. Once you swim under, you’re splashing in the forbidding winter air. Annika was the first to dare to leap into the water and soon she was testing out newly-invented races and contests with older sister Livia.

The water is heated by steam sent in by pipeline from the city of Montreal. It’s pretty warm.

On a cold day, steam shoots off the water surface, making it impossible to see forward. But upwards offers a panoramic view of the city’s skyscrapers. I recounted a history of the various buildings and told of how a UFO once hovered over the pool, but the girls preferred to play an anxiety-inducing game that involved them running around outside the pool in the cold air.

After an hour we cleared out and I left saddened, thinking how such an amazing jewel of a resource could be so hard to access.

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More city notes: The Egg Roll House building is staying. The former Chinese restaurant on Notre-Dame in St-Henri where Trudeau once made a famous speech sits near a field where a large new IGA is planned. But owner Peter Sergakis reassures me that they’re keeping the building. Sergakis, who just unveiled a big new building on nearby Rose-de-Lima, is keen on Notre-Dame but predicts a big housing meltdown in the near future.

David Bowie and his Thin White Duke tour came to the Forum 30 years ago. Prior to the show cops found a bomb in the garbage. It didn’t go off and the bombers were never found. Who did it? The Mosquito Gang. Westmount teens had attached wires and a battery and a cigar tube. They hoped a small explosion would distract staff and allow for some turnstile jumping. It failed. They didn’t get in. Yet it was said that my acquaintance Ricky Rowe made it in because he was skinny enough to fit through the bars in the metal barriers.

Local legend has it that until the mid-’70s, rape victims were examined at the city morgue as this was the only place with the equipment and the specialists to gather forensic evidence.

Peter Lancz has the okay to put a duplicate of Tenderness, his father Paul’s white statue at Peel and Sherbrooke, at Richmond and Jarvis in Toronto. The city agreed and he’s trying to raise corporate bucks.

Roger Legault’s father Gerard owned the Jacques Patates restaurant for 30 years at Bannantyne and Argyle as well as an adjacent laundromat. The two places recently closed for a few months, and when Legault tried to reopen, Verdun forbade it. Their policy is to force such small businesses to transform into housing. The places now sit empty, filthy and covered in graffiti.

Michaëlle Jean, who I like plenty, addressed prisoners at Bordeaux February 15. The visit can be heard at www.souverains.qc.ca.

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