Container

My first thought was how ironic it would be to cart off Turcot in containers, but seriously, where would you take all that concrete, can it be reused in a positive manner? Better off where it is if you ask me (wink).

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Oldie

From around 94-95. The “TW Building” and some containers. Little did I realize then….

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Road Test

Don’t know if this was set up by Transport Quebec or whether they were renting the space out but it is the second year in a row I have seen this set up in the west end of Turcot – and the second year in a row I was unable to be around while they were in action.

And by the soon to be demolished Cottrell building.

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Containers On The Landscape

There was an article in The Gazette on Tuesday that opened with this sentence below.

“The eyesore of shipping-container highrises on the north side of Highway 20 in Lachine will disappear if Canadian Pacific Railway gets regulatory approval to build a new intermodal terminal west of Montreal Island.”

Well! Being the oddball type that actually enjoyed seeing Turcot Yards active in it’s intermodal heyday while driving along the 20, I tend to disagree with the “eyesore” label. It was a cool way to “see” the economy moving. Much more fun than staring at the high rise office towers downtown and thinking, “Over there in those buildings the economy is moving”. (They are all probably surfing the net anyway, heh heh).

So it’s all about the view. Anyone who drives the 20 in and out of town has had a spectacular negation of their view on the south side of the highway in the form of the sound barrier walls recently built along Lachine. (I would even be willing to bet there are some people on the other side of that wall who sometimes wish they had their old view back, not to mention people who choose to live besides highways…..another post… ). Luckily, most of the north side of the 20 is businesses of all sorts and the railroads with an airport down the line thrown in for good measure. No need for a sound barrier wall and sparing commuters from having to drive through a tunnel effect. Containers on the landscape is not a bad thing, in fact they are a subtle reminder that things are going well, even if they aren’t.

The rest of the article gushes enthusiastically about CP moving it’s intermodal operations at the Lachine yards off island out near Les Cedres near the possible junction of Highway 30 (a much needed beltway) and the 20. There was a time when one of the major railroads moving a substantial part of it’s operations off island would have caused outraged economic debate. Times have changed. Your shipment from Vancouver can be just as late trucked in from Les Cedres as it can be from Lachine.

I wonder what CP would then do with that land?

Wanted: A Change of Scenery

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Port Terminals

Have I said I would like to find paintings or drawings of Turcot Yards, the Interchange, the Falaise Saint Jacques, and environs? Well, the nice thing about blogging is we can share our dreams (smile) and something that is sort of almost like what we want to see. And thanks to the good folks over at Polar Inertia we have another related set.

This is sort of almost like what Turcot Yards looked like during it’s Intermodal era.

Port Terminals: Strategy Analysis Consumption Network Operations

These images are a series of paintings, drawings and photographs depicting the landscape of the global economy. Port Terminals like these are commerce reduced to its essential form, sites built for efficiency only. They are sites that are immense and empty, seemingly still and unmoving, yet incredible volumes of materials move through daily. These container ports are an abstraction of the infrastructure, underlying our cities and suburbs. They are points of consumption and entry. I see landscapes like these as reflections on the values, needs, and dependencies of our culture. Both on the outskirts and fringes, they are essential to our daily lives. I have been interested in large shipping terminals for awhile. I take photos and create paintings reducing the image down to a simplified, essential gesture
on the landscape. They are about weight density and space. The satellite drawings also draw from an objective source and are a search for pattern and structure.

Matthew Cramer

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