I was delighted last year when Montreal created a monument for the 37 victims of the Bluebird Cafe fire downtown.
The same now should be done for the 28 victims of the LaSalle Heights blast at 377 Bergevin, which is now a field with a parking lot where the three storey-building once stood.
I propose a beautiful water fountain to remember the victims, because water is a great symbol of life, something that the many children and adults killed in the blast might have found delightful and enchanting, something all people would just look at with some appreciation and the names of those killed by the gas explosion could be listed at the base.
11 comments:
Like everyone else in NDG, I remember the explosion, it shook our house, and the subsequent pillar of smoke that arose afar out our kitchen window.
I asked my Mother if I could go to the top of des Erables hill in Montreal West/VSP and see where the smoke was coming from, but was not allowed.
It was soon on CJAD.
Anyway, a memorial would be appropriate, but, maybe fore go the water and the fountain??
There is a water fountain and pond near here, and, in summer, people dump a shop-lifted gallon jug of liquid soap into it and thus create a windblown tsunamis of suds that waft away hither and yon, or yawn, on the winds.
Other kids piss into the pond, or break glass bottles and throw them in, too.
Could solid dog residue some how be conveyed to the lapping, sparkling pool?
What about dogs jumping thru and the bacteria thriving on hot summer days?
Just a matter of time until some drunk falls in and drowns, possibly held under by others in some grudge or other??
Worse yet, a small child falls in and dies.
Who shoulders the Liability?
Water hazards are not exclusively found on golf courses.
I suppose it IS difficult to spray paint graffiti on a water surface.
Memorial YES, Water, No.
Thank You.
Anyone who has ever visited Paris and other major European cities can't help but be impressed by their spectacular fountains.
So what does Montreal have to compare? Nothing worth mentioning really.
Sure, there's the small one next to City Hall, but the older ones in St. Henri are more quaint and picturesque. Then there are the recently installed "stream-sprayers" in Victoria Square and opposite the west side of the Convention Centre.
How about putting one in front of the old CPR railway station on Jean Talon--proposed long ago but never built.
Certain older apartment buildings on Queen Mary Road used to have those attractive fountains in front: the nymphs holding umbrellas, etc., but they had been removed following "renovations".
There is no excuse for Montreal to have so few fountains. After all, aren't we supposed to be the "Paris of North America"?
UrbanLegend, there's a pretty spectacular fountain standing outside Marché Maisonneuve.
I'm with Urban Legend.
Montreal needs 10 times more water features in public spaces.
The water is chlorinated so I'm not too worried about people getting sick drinking it.
And I've never heard of a vagrant drowning in a fountain either here or anywhere else on the planet.
They are quite beautiful, especially when they have coloured lights on them at night.
Furtz
I remember that day. It shook our house on 49th Ave in Lachine. For sure, some sort of memorial should be on the site.
A memorial is a great idea.
My father and I drove by that place in heavy traffic about 10 minutes before the explosion, we were just crossing the Ville St. Pierre bridge when it happened.
I lost a classmate in that explosion, Gordon McGuigan, I vowed I would never forget his name. We lived on 90th avenue and felt that blast from there.I think a memorial would be wonderful.
Below is a partial re-post from an earlier date within this blog, relevant as it is to natural gas leaks as well as potential leakage from the underground fuel tanks of gas stations:
Another long-forgotten incident [explosion] occurred on December 1, 1932 in the north east end of the city centering around St. Denis and Belanger, but also as far north as Gouin Blvd. when the sewer system became infiltrated by fumes due to an apparent service station gasoline tank leak.
Multiple explosions which residents at first believed to be an earthquake resulted, and flames shot 30 feet high into the air from manhole covers which flew like deadly missiles. One building located at what is now the Rosemont Metro and bus station at
the southwest corner of Rosemont Blvd. and St. Vallier collapsed into rubble, burying their residents. Miraculously, nobody was killed!
In 1958, the company that is now called Gaz Metropolitain introduced the sulphur-like smell ingredient mercaptan into their network in order to reduce and presumably even eliminate instances of death by accident and suicide.
There was another one in a home on Beaconsfield Avenue in NDG in the 60s. Initially the father was charged with murdering his family but was later exonerated.
Newsreel footage: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/apartments-explosion-many-dead/query/montreal
Included are a couple of scenes where you can clearly see some of the rescuers were wearing navy uniforms.
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