Friend of the ruins

>> Artist/activist Philippe Coté defends the architectural ghosts of the grimy Centre-Sud

by JOHN EDMONDS

The Centre-Sud district--the gritty neighbourhood between Amherst, Sherbrooke, the S&L railway and the St. Lawrence River--is best known for its Gay Village, endemic poverty, drug problems and rampant prostitution. But the area was one of Canada's most important industrial centres in the 19th century. And now, according to Atelier du patrimoine urbain founder Philippe Coté, most of the landmarks from this era exist only as rubble or vacant lots.

Coté is a 43-year-old artist who has done several outdoor installations about urban decline and the Ice Storm of 1998. He also participated in some weird social art movements in the 1980s--such as the enigmatic Neoist movement and the information-age-focused Society for the Preservation of the Present.

His current project is slightly less esoteric: to document the destruction of former industrial buildings clustered around the Montreal side of the Jacques-Cartier bridge, an area that he calls "Le Quartier des Patriotes."

The buildings once stood near Place des Patriotes, in front of the Au-Pied-du-Courant prison on Notre-Dame and de Lorimier, where 12 patriotes from the rebellion of 1837 were hanged by the British. It's a fitting starting point for a brief historical tour which is full of ghosts.

"Right there by the Molson building, there used to be the Dominion Rubber Plant, built in 1854. It was the first rubber factory in North America. They demolished that in 1995," Coté says.

Moving up de Lorimier, he points to an empty space beside a Petro-Canada station. "That's where there was an old bathhouse destroyed in 1995--Le Bain Laviolette, dating from 1910. It wasn't really an attractive building, but it was an example of a type of construction which existed in only a few places in North America, and which has been destroyed in almost all of them."

And across the street stands a huge lot filled with rubble. "And here was where Canadian Pacific had its first loco-shop--Atelier de Lorimier--before they moved to the Angus yards in 1904. It was converted to a chemical factory then, and it burned down in 1999," Coté says.

"I was born and raised in the Centre-Sud," says Coté. "But I lived elsewhere for a long time. Then I came back eight years ago. After doing research, I realized that its industrial heritage was being lost."

Coté blames the city's lack of heritage status for the buildings for the decline of the area. "They have a vision of this place as being a service area for the Jacques-Cartier bridge--and the new autoroute they're going to make out of Notre-Dame. Where Le Bain Laviolette was, they'll just expand the Petro-Canada. It's all the same concept: fast food, fast forward."

While Coté also participates in community groups which oppose the gentrification of the district, his passion is to be as a "friend of the ruins."

"I think an interesting question to ask when we are concerned about heritage is: 'Are there more people alive or dead?'" Coté says. :

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