Wednesday, May 25, 2011

NDG turns 100 ( I would have thought it was older)

  Notre Dame de Grâce marked its 100th anniversary as part of Montreal last year.

Today, it’s a subsection of huge Côte des Neiges-Notre Dame de Grâce (official PDF map here), the city’s biggest borough.

N.D.G. still has a distinct history and character but its identity is in flux.

Among things that will help shape the future are the MUHC superhospital now going up. Some in the working-class St. Raymond neighbourhood fear they’ll be inundated with the hospital’s traffic. Meanwhile, other parts of  N.D.G. are being gentrified, displacing lower-income residents.

Lots of fodder in these and other issues for Imagining NDG, a “multimedia community art project” launched this month that explores the N.D.G.’s past, present and future.

Documentary filmmaker and Concordia prof Tim Schwab directed the project, created with graduate students, artists and community residents over the past four years.

You’ll find:

- nice archival photos and maps from the past (though I wish they were bigger, showing more detail). Click on the photos to see them and then click them again to move on.

- slideshows of present-day photos with voice-overs (one voice I recognized was that of long-time city councillor Sam Boskey).

mini-documentaries that focus on the future and that are the highlight of the project, particularly one about a graffitist and another about Hillbilly Night at the Wheel Club on Cavendish Blvd.

1 comment:

Les F said...

So NDG celebrates 100 years of 'being part' of Montreal,I suppose that makes Verdun only 8 or 9 years ,as being part of Montreal,ever since the start of the mega-city deal where all the 'borroughs' became part of one big unit. I wonder if the residents of any of the borroughs really like being under one umbrella ,as it were.? Are things better or maybe not so much ? ~~~ HF&RV ~~~