Singed tenderloin

>> A massive fire guts a sleazy part of downtown

SEEN FOR MILES: Fire from the south

PATRICK LEJTENYI

The strip of Ste-Catherine West between St-Mathieu and Atwater was never known for its loveliness, but it still had a certain charm, in a sleazy kind of way. Sharon Davies, for one, loved it. The 25-year-old Pierrefonds native and photographer, who lives on Ste-Catherine half a block west of St-Mathieu, has spent the last three years living in the same apartment across the street from the Sexe Cité boutique and Bar Diana and doesn’t plan on moving. Not even after a massive fire the day before Valentine’s Day completely destroyed the 100-year-old, three-storey wood-and-brick building adjacent to Bar Diana.

“The sirens woke me up at around 10:05 in the morning, and I looked outside and saw three fire trucks,” she says. There would eventually be 40 vehicles involved. She says she saw smoke was coming out of Prêt à Manger, a newly opened Chinese restaurant at 1809 Ste-Catherine W. “About 20 minutes later, fire just burst through the entire second floor... By 10:45, the entire building was engulfed.” Smoke from the fire was visible for miles in all directions, and Ste-Catherine was closed for most of the day, snarling traffic downtown. “I could leave my apartment, but I couldn’t get back in,” says Davies.

The building next to Prêt à Manger and residences above it is a total loss, its interior gutted and roof collapsed. Bar Diana also suffered some damage, although nowhere near the extent of its neighbours.

TOTAL LOSS: 1811 Ste-Catherine W.

Parts unmissed

It was a bad day for a big fire. Two of the 125 firefighters involved suffered minor injuries due to exposure to cold temperatures, which plunged to 30-below, says Sylvain Sévigny, a spokesman for the Montreal fire department (one tenant was treated for smoke inhalation). According to Francis Desbiens, an emergency services director at Sun Youth, 26 single-room lodgings were gutted. The charity provided immediate assistance to some residents, most of whom were uninsured, by handing out clothing like socks, toques, sweatshirts, mittens, other accessories and food. “We helped out 11 people on-site with coupons for supper and breakfast,” says Desbiens. “Since then, we’ve helped many others.”

Davies says she didn’t know anyone who lived in the building, but she certainly won’t miss some of Bar Diana’s clientele. She isn’t the fussy schoolmarm type—she shoots for the Suicide Girls, the soft-core alt-porn site regularly, and is a frequent poster on Stillepost.ca and Rave.ca—but the bar bugged her. “It didn’t have the best clientele,” she says. “It was the sketchiest in the neighbourhood. They had to kick about a dozen people out of there at 10 a.m.” the day of the fire.

Others have complained about the noise at closing time, when patrons were often heard screaming at each other in the street, and have hinted that at least one of the building’s rooms may have served as a crack den and a trysting spot for local prostitutes. (Not that all the recently homeless irritated the neighbours. Among those who lost their apartments are Margo Lane, CKUT’s “weather girl” and host of “Adventures in Music,” and some Concordia students. Jonathan Elston, Concordia’s Student Housing and Job Bank coordinator, is urging any students affected to get in touch with him as soon as possible.)

Damage assessment

The fire department’s Sévigny couldn’t confirm the existence or absence of a crack den, and even if he could, he says he isn’t allowed to divulge that kind of information. “We didn’t know what kind of place it was, if it was boarding rooms or small apartments,” he says. “The damage was too extensive.” He also could not validate Davies’ claim about the Bar Diana evacuees, although he says he arrived on the scene at around 10:15 a.m.

The fire department’s investigation team is currently looking into the cause and original location of the fire, but again, the extent of the damage makes for painstaking work.

As for Davies, the fire won’t make her move, but she is considering getting insurance. “I live on top of a restaurant, and the building’s pretty old,” she says. “I knew the fire wouldn’t reach across the street, but I didn’t know just how far it would go. It was getting bigger and bigger, and I was afraid the whole building would just go up.”