HUMAN WRECKAGE

I Knew a Place (and a Time)

There’s a tiny, almost anonymous, little street in the west end of Montreal’s downtown. Towers Street is an urban planning afterthought, the necessary space between the short sides of two rectangular city blocks. Towers connects two major thoroughfares, St. Catherine Street which runs one-way east and de Maisonneuve Boulevard which runs one-way west. Towers hosts a smidgeon of residential addresses, but it’s mainly an avenue to the back alley service doors of its bustling neighbours, a rung on a ladder.

My CBC news app this week featured a story on 1423 Towers, a Victorian greystone with a mansard roof and a stained glass transom window over the front door. I recognized the heritage home before I read the photo caption or a word of the story. I’ve walked that insignificant block thousands of times in both directions. Staggered along it too.

1423 abuts a bland, multi-storey pale brick edifice that could house either small offices or apartments. Nothing is obvious except the space between the buildings was easily filled with mortar. My friends Daniel and Tim lived in the blonde box. They were casually acquainted but I don’t recall their leases overlapping. I lived around the corner on de Maisonneuve in what my landlord’s classified ad described as “a charmingly renovated older townhome.” Essentially a tenement populated with eccentric loners losing their sanity in the single rooms they shared with cockroaches. My heritage building neighbour was the red brick Wray Walton Wray funeral home at the corner of Towers and the penultimate resting place of numerous relatives.

What has since become of 1423 Towers strikes me as deceptively clever. Reassuringly, there are still some thoughtful people at work on behalf of the public. Montreal’s transit authority (STM) acquired the property. The company painstakingly restored its street façade. But there’s nothing inside its four walls, the interior was gutted. 1423 doesn’t even have a proper roof. 1423 Towers is a ventilation station along the Metro system’s Green line. All that lies beyond its front door is a stairwell descending some 18 metres into the transit tunnels.

A staircase is an easy metaphor. One must go somewhere, somewhere else. 1423 Towers is more than just a gateway to Montreal’s underworld. In my imagination it’s something of a time portal. Forty years ago a Great A&P grocery store occupied an entire block of St. Catherine between Fort and Towers. My part time job there was a hop, skip and a jump away. Daniel, who worked there too, could skip the hop. I generally worked in the produce department. Back then every customer’s every purchase had to be weighed and priced for the cashiers. My most important tool was a blue medium point Bic pen. I had regulars; one elderly lady insisted I was actually Mitch from Another World; she adored me.

Most of the staff took their coffee breaks two doors east at The Tower Restaurant. It was a licensed premise, a dim narrow space with a counter and two rows of red leatherette booths, each with its own jukebox. It seemed like there were thousands of these places in Montreal: steak, pizza, cheesecake. It was owned and operated by a pair of Greek brothers who did not appear to be overly fond of one another. They both had jet black hair; Tommy favoured pomade while Denny was strictly Gillette's dry look. While the menu never changed, it was important to know who was in the kitchen. Tommy and Denny each had their specialties. Tower was actually run by Helen, their no-nonsense waitress. The custom was provided by locals, all of whom shopped at the A&P.

The president of our United Food and Commercial Works local and a queen bee in the Quebec Federation of Labour was a bear of a woman given to Cuban cigars. Every time the collective bargaining agreement came up for renewal her cry was always the same: Parity with A&P’s Ontario employees, English bastards that they are! Ultimately the union dues skimmed from my part time wages bought me a strike.

While our customers were put out, they were generally supportive. Still, I found walking the picket line waving a stupid placard humiliating. The strike pay was a token amount, enough to keep me in beer, cigarettes, newspapers and an issue of Rolling Stone. But I had to put in the marching time to earn it. I was relieved to be young and not the primary wage earner of a household. Still, rent (under $200), Bell Telephone (under $15) and another semester’s university tuition (under $800) loomed. It didn’t take long for the lark of a walkout to wear thin. One or two days without pay is manageable even though those wages are lost forever. As the strike dragged on day by day A&People were starting to sweat the price of coffee at Tower Restaurant; Helen did not miscalculate bills.

I said to Daniel, “Why don’t we open up our apartments?” If I recall correctly, he was our store’s shop steward at the time. We spent our years as friends vehemently arguing about music, socialism and separatism. And we liked each other outside of our constantly conflicting opinions. He was an audiophile and we used to spend our free time together recording mix tapes. And arguing.

I figured if I was herding groups of strikers up and down Towers Street I’d be spending a lot less time on the picket parade. My argument was simple: access to a toilet and a comfortable space to sit and enjoy a cigarette or a cup of instant coffee. Daniel bought in. He wasn't overly enamoured of his sworn duty either. Solidarity, brother!

The A&P took over the lease of a Toyota dealership. The retail banner eventually changed to Provigo. The building has since been demolished for what I understand to be another car dealership. The Tower Restaurant is long gone. I don’t know what became of Tommy, Denny and Helen. They must be dead. The façade of Wray Walton Wray was incorporated into a condominium development. My old apartment is still beside it, as shabby as ever although its red door has since been painted black. I lost touch with Daniel sometime before I moved to Alberta in 1990. I don’t remember a falling out; we just drifted apart. Tim lives in Calgary now; we continue to gossip like old ladies.

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of urban planning since 2013. The novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com for links to purchase it in your preferred format from various retailers.