MONTREAL. Myeh!

Maybe it was our blitzkrieg bus tour.  On off.  On off.  Endless driving around neighborhoods and downtown buildings.  I kept looking for the Montreal of my imaginings.  This is as close as I got:

Yeah, it’s blurry.  The bus was moving.  This was the only French-feeling sight in the whole city, and this was imported from the real deal.  I thought Montreal was supposed to be this charming place of endless boutique businesses and French atmosphere.  Well, not from what we saw.  We could have been in any major city in the U.S. and it would have looked and felt the same, except for the signage.  Big disappointment.  I liked all the other cities on the tour better than Montreal, even Toronto!

Our guide for this city tour was one Robert, passionate about Montreal, but a bit of a cypher.  Not a native.  Born in Algeria to an Italian father and ? mother; moved to Provence in France as a child, then emigrated to Montreal, where he’s been for forty years.  You could cut his accent with a cleaver.  Surely there’s English language programming in this place?  Hasn’t he ever been to Ontario?

After cruising around the downtown high-rises, we stopped at Montreal’s Notre Dame basilica.  It sits on a large square.  The original wooden chapel dated from 1657, shortly after the founding of the city in 1642.  It was replaced by a stone church built between 1672 and 1683.  This lasted until the early 1800’s, when the faithful began overflowing to the point where many had to listen to mass from outside.  This basilica was built between 1823 and 1829.  It was designed by James O’Donnell, an Irish protestant from New York, who converted to Catholicism during the construction and died promptly after the completion.  Called to his reward?  The towers, however, were built later, in 1843.  The one on the left is named Perseverance and houses the great bell;  the right one is Temperance, and houses the carillon.  The center roof is Sidney.  I wonder if any other churches name their towers? 

On the other side of the square is some municipal building, with a statue of Paul de Chomedey, sieur (lord) de Maisonneuve, the founder of Montreal, looking triumphant in the center.  Robert checked out the inside of the church, and hailed us in.

The interior is, well, different.  A little too baroque for my taste, but very colorful, if blue hues are your thing.  It allegedly is inspired by the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (the link goes to my blog entry on St.-C), and I suppose it does echo the blue stained glass found there.  It was designed by Victor Bourgeau, the diocese’s architect, and not completed until around 1880.

The altarpiece was designed by a Frenchman, Henri Bourgeau, who imagined a centerpiece illustrating the Eucharist.

Behind this altar is a separate Chapel of Notre-Dame du Sacre-Coeur, originally built between 1888 and 1891, but almost totally destroyed by fire in 1978.  It was rebuilt and dedicated in 1982.  There’s a massive bronze panel sculpture at the front which symbolizes the march of humankind towards the Holy Trinity (only a portion is visible in the left picture below).  The balance of the chapel is almost all carved wood, with beautiful spiral staircases.

After the church, we got back on the bus and cruised the old Olympic Games area, featuring the stadium with the retractable-roof-that-never-worked (and nearly bankrupted the city) and the old Olympic Village, housing for the athletes that was converted to condominiums. 

The stadium was designed by French architect Roger Taillibert.  The roof was to be opened and closed by a huge 574 ft tower – the tallest inclined structure in the world.  Problems plagued the stadium from the time it opened for the 1976 Olympic Games, when it was only half built due to problems with the unusual design and strikes by construction workers. During the Games and for several years afterward, the stadium did not have a tower or roof. Both the tower and the roof, made of over 59,000 sq ft of Kevlar, stood unfinished until 1987.  Even then, the proved difficult to retract, and could not be used at all in winds greater than 25 mph. During baseball season, whenever rain was accompanied by high winds, this resulted in the unusual phenomenon of a rain delay in a would-be covered stadium.  It was also torn during particularly windy conditions.

The Expos played baseball here until 2004, and since then it is only occasionally used for one-time events.  The original construction cost estimate was C$134 million;  when it opened for the games, unfinished, it had cost 264 million.  They’ve been paying it off for over three decades.  In mid-November 2006 the stadium's costs were finally paid in full, and totaled (including repairs, renovations, construction, interest, and inflation C$1.61 billion, making it the second most expensive stadium ever built (after Wembley).  The most charitable characterization by the locals is to call it a white elephant, but The Big Owe, Uh-O or The Big Mistake.

The thing has been a continuing danger in addition to the cost.  In the 80’s, a large fire set the tower ablaze, causing damage and forcing an Expos home game to be postponed. In 1986, a large chunk of the tower fell onto the playing field during another Expos game.  Shortly after the Kevlar roof was installed in 1987, it ripped on several occasions due to a design flaw. In the months that followed, it was plagued by further rips and leaks during rain storms, bringing water down into the stadium.

In 1991, support beams snapped and caused a 56-ton concrete slab to fall on to an exterior walkway. No one was injured, but the Expos had to move their final 13 home games of that season to the opponents' cities.  In 1999, a nearly 4,000 sq. ft. portion of the roof collapsed, dumping ice and snow on workers.

The city fire department warned in August 2009 that without corrective measures, including a new roof, it might order the stadium closed. A contract for a new permanent steel roof was awarded in 2004, with an estimated $300 million price tag.

A slab of concrete measuring approximately 8 by 12 metres fell from the roof of the stadium's underground parking facility on March 4, 2012. There were no injuries.

White elephant?  It’s the black hole of Canada!

After viewing this debacle, we took the high road up to the hill that overlooks the city for a nice panoramic view, with the elephant raising its useless snout.

Back down in the city, Robert waxed endlessly about the “unique” architectural quirk of Montreal housing --- external stairways.  Huh?  I think he just wanted to show off the neighborhood he lived in.  The stairs are a bit challenging in the winter when they are covered with ice.

Before going back to the hotel, we stopped off at the Restaurant du Vieux Port, a place in the older historical district (which, nonetheless, wasn’t particularly photogenic).  I think we all had the steak tonight.  Whatever, it looks like Mom licked her plate clean.

We finally got to go to the hotel to check in.  This Fairmont was not a classic old building, but rather a mid-century bland structure.  But our room was huge.  It was very long.  I’m taking this shot from a small side room that housed a desk and chair;  to the immediate right is an anteroom that holds the closet.  Back by Loni is the entrance to the bathroom, which was very large.  Behind her is a seating area with a couple of easy chairs.  This shot doesn’t do justice to the length of the thing.

One day and night was enough for Montreal.  I’m sure there were some neat areas hidden somewhere, but that’s the point.  The overwhelming majority of the city is just urban blah.  The next morning we took off for the states, via a New York entry on the way to Niagara Falls.  Despite the fact that traffic was very light, they made us sit on the bus for nearly half an hour before processing us in a totally perfunctory fashion.   Welcome to the U.S.  “Stop” was indeed the operative word.