Les
Guy
THANKS for stopping by, I do my best to acknowledge when someone leaves a comment,you do not have to be a member here & everyone is welcome. Ps: This site is monitored but not actively posting on a regular basis. Mostly these are stories & some photos saved from a defunct site known as Verdun Connections which was on MSN Groups initially then on a social network called Multiply.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Three Arch Building
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22 comments:
Really makes you wonder ,why a lot of today's buildings don't last 40 years, never mind a Hundred...
Were the workman / tradesman more conscientious?? Were materials better ?? I believe we still have some talented tradesman,but perhaps the bigger the business,the more room for a 'just get it done & get paid' attitude.who knows,
In any-case Guy, I hope you find that building,actually your right about any of the buildings around Verdun having those neat looking arches I seem to Remember some around the Woodland & Wellington area??? HF&RV
I seem to remember a "3 arch building" at the corner of 5th and Verdun. (south east corner). I think there used to be an insurance agent that worked out of the home living there.
Bill,
I'll check it out, maybe saturday.
Guy
Materials are much different. It s all more or less cinder blocks with gyp rock today. Remember that buildings like most of us grew up in Verdun were done from top to bottom by specialists such as a plasterer - think of the ceilings. It's a joke that installing plasterboard is considered a trade compared to what those guys could do. Nothing is built to last today, because no one expects anything to last. Our standards and expectations have been completely altered. Because we have become a nation of migrants we totally accept whatever is where ever we move to. People follow the money and if quality still existed anywhere we wouldn't recognize it. We look for comfort in things like McDonald's arches, shopping malls, anywhere but where it might be real. Like James Howard Kunstler says in his book, The Geography of Nowhere,
" The mobility that Americans prize so highly is the final ingredient in the debasement of housing. The freedom to pick up and move is a premise of the national experience. It is the physical expression of the freedom to move upward socially, absent in other societies. The automobile allowed this expression to be carried to absurd extremes. Our obsession with mobility,the urge to move on every few years, stands at odds with the wish to endure in a beloved place, and no place can be worthy of that kind of deep love if we are willing to abandon it on short notice for a few extra dollars. Rather, we choose to live in Noplace, and our dwellings show it. In every corner of the nation we have built places unworthy of love and move on from them without regret. But move on to what? Where is the ultimate destination when every place is Noplace?"
Ken McLaughlin
If we can figure out what that big sign on the left way down is..betcha we nail it...at first I thought it was New Verdun...
Lad
I have checked out the corner of 5th and Verdun ave. There is a 3 arch second floor at the corner but this is not the one as it is facing the Notre Dame de Lourdes Church and across the street on the same side a is an elementary school. I am told that it may be at the corner of Verdun and Beatty wich someone is checking for me.
Guy
Hi Guy
I know that building that the lady is in front of..its driving me nuts more than usual where I know it from.I thought it was down near Beatty too...
Lad
It is that Billboard that is bothering me. I remember seeing it and for the life of me I can't remember where. Somehow i thought it was more east. Somewhere east of Woodland. I walked from 122 Third (Wellington )to up to Woodland School
Willie
can't make out the whole billboard can you see what is on it?
Lad
I can't see, other than the car ad. I remember it because of the lattice woodwork at the bottom. (it was green). I used to run around it and hide behine it on the way to school. It was a free standing billboard, as you see the two boards were slightly offset, but connected. If this keeps up I'll have to take another trip into Montreal - LOL
Hey Lad:
Wasn't that sign for a drug store near Manning or Moffat?
George
George
I thought of that too..after it was not 5th..where was the bill boards...that bldg with the woman in front of it really looks familar..really does...if I get that one...
Could be the drugstore..wasn't there a carpet store or hardware store down Verdun towards Egan..
Man this is driving me nuts..
Lad
Look to the top of the photo left hand side..is that a radio tower of some kind..it almost looks as high as the sign...would that be Osborne and Verdun?
That is probably the tower that was on the roof of the fire station in between Osborne and Beatty. Therefore the billboards were down by Richard and Brault. When I lived on Verdun Avenue ,at Osborne I use to walk down to the end of Verdun Avenue towards Ville LaSalle and remember passing those signs towards the end of Verdun Avenue. Previously, I had mentioned that I thought there was a bowling alley in that building. If you notice the door is opened in the picture.
Also George on the sign the word Acadamy can be seen,...could that have said Bowling Academy ??
The only other billboards on Verdun Avenue that I know of, were two right at the corner of Rielle & Verdun Av SE corner ( using the river as S,)
WillieMck ( Bill) could you have been thinking of the Billboards I mentioned ,? because those would be closer to the old Bannatyne School ( the Protestant school as we called it)
I know these billboards well, as kids we used to climb to the top of them and look over them,.proabably had a smoke or two up there, that we would have bought from Paul's store a little store beside the laneway that ran directly off Verdun Av towards Wellington btwn. Rielle & Gordon .
Les:
Thanks for shaking some cobwebs from this old noggin. I also climbed the billboards at the corner of Rielle and Verdun as a kid; usually on my way to or from Bannantyne school. I had forgotten those billboards.
Lad:
In reply to your question Binnette's Hardware was in between Egan and Osborne. I lived upstairs and Donna's husband lived behind me ,on Egan, on the other side of the laneway.
Thanks
when did u go to Bannantyne...?
I think the question is directed to Les, but i went to Woodland School 1959 - 65 (grades K-6) and then Bannantyne School for 65 - 66 (balalnce of 6 & 7). Verdun High (not the Annex) for 1967 - 71
Still trying to picture that Billboard? A friend of Mine (Gary Hodgson?) lived over the Hardware Store near Beatty on Verdun Ave as well.
Hi Lad:
I went to kindergarden at the old LaSalle Road School in 1950,I believe. At the end of that year they closed the school and I was transferred to Bannantyne School from Grade 1 to Grade 7. Mr. Laroque (spl?) was the Principal. If I remember correctly Miss Mather or Miss Martin was my Grade 7 teacher.
George
Hi George
Thanks you too Willie...
Happy to see I haven't lost all of my memory. Thanks Guy for verifying where it is located.
George
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