Wrecking ball over Ontario Street

>> East-end strip to be demolished to improve view for car travellers

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Carl Pelletier might have the nicest Montreal apartment you'll never see. The sprawling flat features eight-foot-wide hallways, gargantuan skylights and impeccable plaster detail, all created for a long-gone shopkeeper downstairs and his ne'er-do-well brother. Nowadays the $1,600-a-month, heat-included space on Ontario E. has all its old-fashioned charms plus a DJ room, a spacious computer room and a rooftop deck built last year for $5,000. Pelletier says he and his four roommates paid for the deck with cash they raked in from one of the production crews that frequently ask to use his stunning apartment to shoot TV and film projects.

But Pelletier and the apartment are on the way out. Like everything south of Ontario to Disraeli, and between Dorion and de Lorimier, his home is being bought by the city and will be demolished within the coming weeks.

Also slated for demolition is a tattoo parlour downstairs where the old-time owner poses in happier times in a photo display featuring such inked local celebrities as former TV reporter Ralph Noseworthy. Doomed too is a laundromat featuring 18 washers and 10 vintage dryers that stood "for at least 30 years," according to its ageing female attendant. Also slated for the wrecker's ball is an apartment building on de Lormier from which a worried-looking Chihuahua has been known to lean perilously over the window sill to watch commuters approach the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. At La Friperie, an English-speaking store attendant laments in a rich African accent the impending loss of his vintage clothing store. And it's good-bye also to a corner store, a copy shop, a city garage and a furniture store, among others.

Theories abound

The demolitions will cost the city $13-million, most of which will be obtained through a special grant from the province. Few of the affected residents and merchants appeared to understand exactly why the area is being razed. Many believe that the block is being demolished to improve access to the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. Others think the nearby Six Flags amusement park has a secret clause to use the land either for a hotel or a parking lot for buses used to ferry tourists to the amusement park currently called La Ronde.

Pelletier himself believes these theories and also thinks that the city wants to get rid of the troublesome former Rock Machine clubhouse, which will be one of the first buildings to go. "After the city announced a plan to put a police station there, it was attacked for the third time," he says. "If the gang can't have it, they won't let anybody else have it either."

He also thinks that the city wants to knock down the blocks so passing cars and their occupants will have a better view of the church opposite his home. And city official François Lemay confirms it. "The demolitions are part of a beautification project to make a more interesting view for the 120,000 cars that come through there every day. We want to give them something better to look at than the back of a municipal garage."

Similarly, in 1964 Mayor Drapeau wiped out an area called Goose Village at the foot of the Victoria Bridge to improve the vistas for bridge travellers for Expo '67. But even Drapeau never confessed that the controversial move was to improve the view for bridge travellers. And Lemay points out that the Ontario Street demolition planning included a democratic process. "There were consultations. Our service did studies, groups in our sector did studies and a committee worked with citizens to evaluate different scenarios," he says.

A park for starters

Lemay also denies that the land where the homes and stores now stand will be used to widen the roads to increase bridge access. "In the first phase, it'll be transformed into a park. Then we'll see if there's possible development in the sector."

"We had public consultations," says Serge Lajeunesse, the local Bourque Team councillor now in his third mandate. "Half wanted a park and half wanted social housing put there afterwards. But there's no money available for that, so it's going to be a well-lit park."

And the South-Central Housing Committee agrees, according to representative Carine Guidicelli. "The city handled this with the most transparency. Residents wanted green space and although the committee fought for more housing, the majority decides."

Pelletier, who will receive three months rent to compensate the loss of his unique home, will lament the section of the Ontario strip. "I don't see the point in creating a park that's going to be designed to be nice to look at when you drive by. I just want to keep living where I'm living."