September 15, 2009 Features

Save the Main

Development project on St-Laurent threatens the local culture

by Laura Beeston

Locals say the proposed office tower would destroy the culture of their neighbourhood. GRAPHIC VIVIEN LEUNG

Onscreen a woman enters the room, breasts exposed. In an armchair beneath her shadow sits an old man with his package ready, looking both excited and terrified.
The clicking of her high heels is painfully slow as she walks towards him before putting her nails to his scalp, pulling his greying head back and throwing up in his open mouth.

A member of the audience faints.

Though not your typical forum for municipal politics, the film was created by one the many artists that came together on Sept. 4 for Contre Courant, an evening of fetish films, burlesque and belly dance in support of Montreal’s “boulevard of dreams.”

Breaking out their bustiers, chains, leather and whips for the occasional spanking, the kinky spectators and organizers banded together to preserve the legendary Lower Main, the stretch of St-Laurent Boulevard between Ste-Catherine and René Lévesque, and raise awareness that its future has reached a literal crossroads once again.

A federal heritage site, the Main is at the heart of Ville-Marie, minutes from the Old Port, Chinatown, the Gay Village and mere blocks away from the city’s $2 billion nightlife project, the Quartier des spectacles.
There is dynamic potential, not to mention over a century’s worth of character below the gritty surface of neglect that currently plagues the neighbourhood, stressed the participants in Contre Courant. If the Main gets revitalized rather than built upon, one of the most original and storied communities in the history of Montreal could have another stab at greatness.

The Main in Danger

Late last spring, the Société de développement Angus, backed by Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s administration, unveiled a bold $167-million plan to revitalize the block by deconstructing eight turn-of-the-century buildings and creating a 12-storey office tower for Hydro Quebec by January 2012.

As reported to The Gazette in June, Tremblay announced his plans to move forward “as quickly as possible” with the project, explaining that he and his executives were “not going to procrastinate anymore but […] not going to stop because a minority says it might effect [sic] certain things that are important to Montreal.”
This “minority” continues to question the SDA’s speedy processes and the apparent lack of planned space for transgressive performance arts and local businesses that have deep roots in the neighbourhood.

“They excluded us,” said Johnny Zoumboulakis, owner of the Café Cléopâtre, a drag and danseuses bar on St-Laurent at the corner of Ste-Catherine.
“The city has invested so much money and effort to promote this area [with Quartier des spectacles], yet one of the oldest and most original venues on site is the one they want to destroy in the name of an office tower that can be built on any other vacant lot within the vicinity!”

Over the summer, the plans for development were met by a storm of public critique, consultations, petitions and written briefs. The SDA was sent back to the drawing board with 51 pages worth of recommendations from the Office de consultation publique de Montreal on July 27.

Notably missing in the development scheme, according to the OCPM, was a dialogue with the people that already live, work and own businesses in the area.

“This is a class issue. One group is trying to be the arbiters of good taste and control what will be allowed to take place within the Quartier des spectacles,” said Velma Candyass, founder of the Dead Dolls Cabaret and one of the performers spearheading initiatives to save the Main. “[The Main] is already a theatrical breeding ground. There has been a total absence of consideration for the people who are already here.”

Locals aren’t the only group affected by the city’s plans to redevelop.

“This actually concerns all citizens,” said Viviane Namaste, an associate professor at Concordia University’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute. “The lack of democratic dialogue in these consultations and the lack of transparency as to how decisions are being made at a municipal level is a pretty major issue.”

Developmental problems

St-Laurent has a long history of weathering the whims of large-scale planning and vote mongering on the part of developers and city councils.

According to the history books, the first wave of big plans for St-Laurent rolled in between 1890 and 1915. Slated to become Montreal’s own Champs-Élysées, St-Laurent was rebranded as a boulevard in 1905.

The ostentatious proposal for gardens and fountains began with the immediate bulldozing of huge sections of the street, championed by the city under a “pretext of development.” It became clear years later that the levelling of land was part of the municipal agenda to kick crime and “migrant inhabitants” to the curb.

Strongly opposed to this demolition, citizens and entrepreneurs in the vicinity resisted the plans for years before a French-inspired facelift was finally stalled by the outbreak of the First World War.

In the 1950s, after two world wars, prohibition and an overflow of open-minded entertainment that established St-Laurent as the hottest spot on the Eastern seaboard, things took a turn for the worse. Sex, drugs, gambling and a complacent police force led lawyer-turned-mayor Jean Drapeau to vigorously shake the “vice” from the neighbourhood and clean up the corruption.

Essentially razing entire city blocks and venues within the community, Drapeau’s initiatives catered to urban renewal trends of the time, leaving behind a legacy of concrete and vacant lots.

More recent examples of hasty development negotiations, such as Hydro-Quebec in the late ‘80s or the Faubourg St. Laurent Residential complex proposed in 2000, were also meant to be “progressive” advances for the area. The attitude to build despite the cost to the urban fabric seems to be as old as the street itself.

Vive la Main!

Many on the Main have managed to withstand the tests of time and government.
When asked what the best solutions for the latest round of redevelopment in their neighbourhood would look like, many members of the Contre Courant agreed: anything but an office tower.

“The Main should continue to exist,” said Candyass. “One business occupying a whole city block does not work, especially in the designated Quartier des spectacles. Making sure that a variety of show bars and venues of different scales and types [survive] should be encouraged and supported.”

The Main may be seen as an expendable culture in the eyes of reigning political bodies, but its history of hosting the kinkiest calibre of alternative performers and its influence over Montreal stubbornly remains.

“We are a part of the community!” said Zoumboulakis, before being taken onstage by one of his adoring drag queens. “Our place on the boulevard should never die or have to hide away. It should be restored. The Main and Cléopâtre—the Queen of the Main—should live on!”

The SDA is scheduled to reveal another draft of planning at the Ville-Marie Borough council meeting on Sept. 21. For more information, check out savethemain.com.

—with files from The Gazette and The National Post