“If you look for the truth outside yourself,
It gets farther and farther away.
Today walking alone, I meet it everywhere I step.
It is the same as me, yet I am not it.
Only if you understand it in this way
Will you merge with the way things are.”
– Tung-Shan
The Point gets more familiar as I walk it yet it continues to surprise with its architectural diversity and urban beauty.
Started off at Charlevoix and Wellington in front of the old Dominion Glass plant, now run by an American company.
Headed along Charlevoix. Lovely porch.
Yet another interesting take on the Montreal triplex.
Little green space on the corner.
Corner of Rozel and Charlevoix. This was the Vogue Theatre. I used to go with a friend when we were around 10 for the Saturday afternoon triple feature – 3 b movies for 55 cents and it had one of those fantastic self serve popcorn machines that was only 10 cents for a good bag and looked something like this.
Connie’s Pizza on the corner of Coleraine, excellent pizza but don’t bother with the vegetarian unless you are seriously into onions.
And on the opposite corner, Paul Patate, excellent hot dog stand with home made spruce beer.
Good looking yard.
Unusual windows on the second floor.
Balconies are not automatic in the contemporary world.
Turning down Ryde this is the University Bible Fellowship Missionary Church. And more here.
I wonder how often those steps have been changed?
Just when you think you have seen it all. That basement apartment doesn’t look too inviting from this view.
And the street ends at Parc Sammy Hill.
It’s a fair sized field on this side but not really set up for anything.
Corner of Butler and Coleraine.
Former business? Seems to really stretch back there.
Different take on the witch’s hat.
Talk about stairs that go straight up!
Repeat worthy because, well, who needs balconies anyway?
Nice little front yard.
Wondering if only one side of the stairs gets shoveled in winter?
I have to admit, I do not believe I have ever actually gone up and entered a place that had staircases like this, even though they are common enough throughout the city.
Beresford is a very short street.
Feeling funny about this shot , which does give you a feel for this stretch of Rushbrooke street, because it just looks like a car ad.
Again, wondering how long those stairs last?
It almost looks like some buildings were removed, house seems sort of slim to have so much room around it.
I did not date my walks but this was in early August and by the lighting you can already sense that autumn is coming.
I almost feel like knocking on a door.
Wonderful mixture, not sure of the purpose of this green space but looks good.
Good in so many ways.
An old timey looking shutter that actually opens!
Doesn’t look like the Point, but now I know it can.
The late summer/early autumn light is awesome but you have to be careful on city streets as it gets very contrasty.
Coming up to Hibernia.
Hibernia and Wellington, Marguerite Bourgeoys Park.
Kind of snazzy. Bed and Breakfast.
Let’s take a step back…
Dormer windows almost always look nice.
The gate may be superfluous but it all looks elegant anyway.
Can’t stress enough how much I like that green stuff coming up from the cracks.
Off the wall, so to speak, but I love this approach (or is it just incomplete?).
Yep, sometimes it’s just the lighting, ask any poet, ask anyone who has ever been in love….
Back up towards Hibernia once again.
Home of The Point Saint Charles Art School.
Might be unique in that you have an exterior staircase that actually turns back in towards the building.
I wasn’t kidding about the contrast of this time of year, it will be very bland come late overcast November…so hold on…
And this was mid August…
Otherside of the school building.
Could use a little work.
Former Hogan’s Bath on Wellington, now condos.
Originally a Baptist church this became Gurudwara Sahib Quebec .
House angled away from the street.
And a really strange looking deal back in there.
What the sign says…
Nice wall.
Love the lane on a diagonal.
The wall on Knox.
Moving along Charon.
Could use some finishing touches…
Mount Zion Seventh Day Adventist Church on Wellington. Originally the Centenary United Methodist Church the church was rebuilt after a fire in 1950. The Adventists bought the church in 1990.
Pizza joint on the other corner.
The Point could use more local shopping and while I am sure these apartments on Wellington are quite fine, it is potential commercial space getting used up (never thought you would hear me say that, did ya?).
Heading up Bourgeoys.
Coming up to the tracks.
Taking the lane back down to Charon.
Perhaps not a “scene of a crime” but almost Agetish.
A particularly bland building with mediocre attempts at art on the side ( I guess I have always wanted to say that, somewhere, sometime lol).
Traffic cone conspicuous by its absence. Yep, it’s been that kind of a year in 2016.
A+ for preserving the spirit of the buildings.
Almost random shot of the back of a church.
Rue de Paris, best I can do this year 🙂
This place is all entrance, all the time.
Grace Church, sure seems weird to see plywood where one would usually expect to see stained glass. Also home to the Share The Warmth Foundation.
Strip of slim homes on Fortune.
Better view from straight on.
Back on Wellington a beautiful mural about Les Filles du Roy. Astonishingly, Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, and Madonna are all considered descendants of les filles du roy.
Part of Ecole Saint Gabriel.
I have to admit, I do get curious as to what these places look like on the inside.
House at Dublin and Hall. You can see it was an empty lot in this circa 1947 picture.And you can also see the bandshell at the back of the park that was torn down in the mid 70’s.
Coming up on the Maison Saint Gabriel museum and historic site.
Nice willow tree on the property.
Housing project to the west on Place Dublin.
Corner store, known as Depanneurs in Quebec.
The long and winding staircase.
Almost the suburbs.
Yonder lies Le Ber Park.
Montreal Filipino Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Back on Wellington, looks like a former doctor’s residence.
Everything at an angle.
Must be easy for getting out to shovel snow without letting a blast of cold in.
Back at Charlevoix and Wellington. And I think I will sit down here and wait for the bus.
The Point is awesome. These walks have two dimensions, the actual walk which is experiential, if not out and out spiritual, and the blogging of the walk which is more interpretive, theoretical, and mainly an exercise in story telling.
Show and tell.
🙂
Some of you may notice that I have included a lot of silly, fun, goofy, you get the idea, links with each picture. This was a simple experiment to try to place random connections between words and images and whatever Google might throw up. Sometimes it works, other times, not so much. All I can say for sure is that it is very time consuming so it’s unlikely I will do it on this scale again. But, one never knows, maybe the concept just needs some tweaking…
Up next? The exciting finish in my quest to walk every street in Point Saint Charles. Until then, take care!
PostArctica 
Grace Church used to have some great rummage sales in the mid-’80s. I would always get something fun then sit down and have tea and cakes that the Ladies’ Auxiliary would prepare. There was a retired police officer who was, I think, a parishioner. I’d recognize him at the table with his tea and I’d plunk myself down and we’d chat about police life in and around that area and Griffintown after the war.
That whole area for me is all about the rummage sales and which church had the good ones and when they’d be (and how to get there by bus and how to prioritize the rummage sales if there were a few on the same day at the same time). I’ve been schlepping my St. Clements Church centenary celebration mug with me over multiple moves and across the country since 1997 so part of the Point is always with me, I guess.
You’d also get the best down-low lesbian/masher pulp books at St. Willibrod’s rummage sales, too. Amazing stuff. Except every time they’d have the church raffle, it seemed to be entirely made up of booze. I used to tell the guys there that people were noticing the bishop seemed to be winning a lot of the raffles and they should mix it up a bit so someone else could win once in a while (not true, of course).
And then I’d head off to Stilwell’s for candies before heading back into town. Or Muirs if a Cornish pasty was beckoning.
Every time you go for a walk, I head on over to realtor.ca to see what the housing prices are like in the area your walk covered.
Boy, did a lot of sellers manage to rip out anything historical or interesting in some of the classic buildings… .
Still, who cares about that when I just go along for the walk outside through your camera, right?
Keep on keeping on!
Thanks for the memories, Betty!!
I felt in humanized street view 🙂 How many kilometers did you walk?
I know it’s so long since you posted, but just wants to say I love these pics! I grew up on Rozel St., barely a third-of-a-block from Studio Tempo. I was one of the neighbourhood kids were earned a few bucks helping to paint the outer walls of the place when it re-opened in the early 70s. The corner was our default hang-out spot (if we weren’t in Maggy Boogy Park or Butler Park at Coleraine & Butler) and we often saw fancy cars pull up with the likes of April Wine and Leonard Cohen, Harmonium, Beau Domage, etc. My earliest memories of the old Vogue Theatre are the Saturday mornings watching an old man hunched over a piano keeping up with the silent shorts that played between the cartoons.
Ahhhh …. Connie’s Pizza. Spent so many hours then when they opened in the mid-70s inhaling piping hot all-dressed pizzas that tasted like heaven. A small pizza and a coke cost $2. Speaking of $2, mom used to make burgers for us kids every Saturday at 5 p.m., in time for the Bugs Bunny show. It was my task to dash over to Paul Patate for a huge $2 bag of the greasiest, plumpest, best hot fries in the world. $2 bought a ton of fries. On the western corner, across from the studio, is a little store that will forever be known as “Jerry’s” to those of us of a certain age. For some reason, one vivid memory is how the front door always let out a mighty squeal when opened and how the old wooden floors creaked. Many nights at closing time (11 p.m.), it was not uncommon to see the owner walk across Charlevoix to his car, nervously looking around, as he carried a bag of money in one hand and a pistol in the other. Thank-you for the trip down memory lane! All the best!