Walk # 2 Part 2

“Cities have always offered anonymity, variety, and conjunction, qualities best basked in by walking: one does not have to go into the bakery or the fortune-teller’s, only to know that one might. A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Picking up where we left off in Part 1.

Fire station on the right from Parc des Pompiers.

Look back at Notre Dame de Guadaloupe.

A symphony of stairs.

Interesting little house on Lariviere.

Lariviere and Bordeaux.

Grafitti art on de Rouen.

Taking de Rouen a block east to de Lorimier and Parc des Royaux or Royals Park. This  green space is located just north of the spot where once stood Delorimier Downs, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers Triple A team, the Montreal Royals, most famous as the team for which Jackie Robinson broke the “colour” barrier in major league baseball.

Dog run.

Construction everywhere this year, even in the parks!

Turning back up Bordeaux. This company was quite prolific on the island with sidewalk contracts and you can still find these embedded plaques here and there.

Hommage to Martin Luther King with cat.

Sherbrooke street, southwest corner of de Lorimier. Church converted into Circuit Est, Centre Choregraphique.

And on the northwest corner the Institut de Physiatre du Quebec.

Sign in front of Sherbrooke street building basically says do not walk on red carpet.

Headed back up Bordeaux and turned left at Gautier heading towards Lafontaine park

. Passed this pet friendly place on the way.

And of course the park entrance here is blocked by road repairs as well.

It’s an awesome city park with something for everyone. Would require it’s own blog post to justify it really.

 

From the park headed north on Lanaudiere.

Nice, symmetrical, but seems unnecessary to have two staircases there.

Early evening light can be pretty nice this time of year.

Both the elementary schools my father and I attended are torn down and built over so it is nice to see schools still sitting importantly in different neighborhoods. Ecole Lanaudiere.

Hard to get a good shot but just east on Marie-Anne is this building which looks like it used to be a school but could be a housing coop today.

Headed west on Marie-Anne and took Chambord up to Mount Royal.

Classic view of Olympic Stadium tower.

View back before continuing north on Chambord.

Obligatory Friedlander style self portrait.

Very pleasant streets in this part of the city.

Traffic calming device prevents through traffic on Gilford. Building on the left is Les Habitations De Lanaudiere, seniors’ social housing.

Along Gilford and back to Lanaudiere.

Rear view of massive church, Paroisse Saint Stanislas.

Out on to Saint Joesph boulevard. Not sure what this building is and google is no help – Academie des SS. Ances (at least that’s how it looks to me).
(edit: one reader pointed out to me that the “Ances” could be “Anges” and sure enough I recognized the building in a picture so here is the link to Academie des Saints Anges – apparently a housing coop since 1982 and also a big part of a  book by Michel Tremblay, Thérèse et Pierrette à l’école des Saints-Anges – scroll down).

Saint Stanislas from the front.

Hard to get a clear through shot from across the street but I kind of like this one, almost like a building trying to hide behind a mask…

Then took Garnier up to Laurier. The west side of Garnier has three or four buildings with these huge wrap around balconies that go all the way toward the rear of the house.

These are huge flats.

Looking east at Laurier.

West over to Laurier Park where the fountains are already working. Another awesome city park that deserves a much closer look than this basic drive by…

Pretty big pool and it looks to have a couple of diving boards (beats the Natatorium in Verdun in that regard, ahem!).

Baseball in full swing with the old des Carrieres incinerator in the background.

Hard to beat mixed gender community baseball.

I liked the light.

Great parks must have some art.

Back on the street, mural in schoolyard of Ecole Laurier.

And that is that. It was a great walk, and, as always, I could have spent more time in some places. Better weather sure helps. Not sure what is next right now but thinking of just heading north from where I left off here. Catch you next time says the photoflanneur!

And here is a 95% accurate map of this walk!