North Shore News

4 - Wednesday, January 15, [986 -

Bob Hunter

¢ strictly personal e

| FLEW in and out of Montreal last week, and
made an amazing discovery. | have always
thought of Montreal as being Canada’s
Number Two city, after Toronto.

shape of the urban
necklace of the country.
Montreal, in my humble
view, is no longer . the
Number Two city. After
this summer, the Number
Two city in Canada will
undoubtedly be recognized
as Vancouver.

What shocked me about
Montreal during last
week's visit was how
SMALL it suddenly seems.
The mighty phalanx of
towers downtown no
longer seem like such a big
deal. What has happened is
that during the reign of the
Parti Quebecois, Montreal
experienced a slow-down in
nearly every respect, cer-
tainly in terms of the
growth of its skyline.

With big outfits fleeing
to Toronto, it could prob-
ably not have been other-
wise. There was quite an
exodus of corporate
wealth. And who, if not
the corporations, can af-
ford to erect titanic head
offices?

in a way, Montreal to-
day reminds me of
Havana, Cuba, where the
architectural clock stopped
ticking the moment Fidel
and the boys clunked down
out of the hills. Montreal’s
economy didn’t entirely
seize up under Rene
Levesque, but only two
major new skyscrapers
have been built in the last
half-decade.

The city has been
Stagnating, that’s all there
is to it. »

Meanwhile, the cleavage
of Vancouver’s skyline, as
everybody on the North
Shore can see for
themselves, has been
undergoing a metamor-
phosis that not even the
recession seemed to
hamper.

Today, that skyline is far
more exciting to look at
than Montreal’s. There are
more big buildings
downtown, and they are,
not surprisingly, as mod-
ernesque (gung-ho
futuristic, actually) as they
could possibly be.

Comparatively, even a
structure like Montreal's
massive Place Ville Marie
looks out of date.

So there you have the
scoop, and you read it here
first. Vancouver has surged
from behind, as a city of
architectural style and
substance, replacing Mon-
treal. As a visual treat,
Montreal, to put it bluntly,
has become somewhat bor-
ing, wlule Vancouver glows
like a jewel.

It's not any more.

Oh, the place still has a
bigger population than
Vancouver. But it is no
longer impressive by com-
parison. It used to be, in
my eyes al any rate, that
Montreal has a certain sty-
lishness that didn’t exist
anywhere on the West
Coast.

Montreal was a classy
place, to put it simply.
Made me feel like a clod
from the boonies.

The trouble with Van-
couver, I felt instinctively,
was that it was ever so
slightly tacky, to tell the
truth, almost a suburb of
Los Angeles. Urban, not
urbane. Magnificent sce-
nery, natch, but you credit
that to God, not the city
fathers.

It wasn’t very long ago,
after all, that Vancouver's
skyline was little more than
the Marine Building, the
Sun Tower, the Hotel
Vancouver and eventually
the B.C. Hydro building. It
wasn’t until the mid-1960s
that highrises began. to ap-
pear in the West End and it
wasn’t until the 1970s that
the great glass towers
began to appear around
Georgia and Granville.

It was no mystery, by the
way, why both Toronto
and Montreal both have
such a marvellous am-
bience.. The Eastern cities
are. older, and therefore
they have relatively ancient
architecture, the likes of
which you just can’t find
out. here. I love old
buildings. Old is beautiful!

Toronto's red brick
townhouses have a melied
quality. It is as though the
years -have nibbled the
sharp corners’ until now
they are softly: moulded. In
Montreal, the wrought-iron
stepwells spiral down onto
cobble streets with taverns
at every corner.

These things haven't
changed. While we are
celebrating Mancouver’s
100th anniversary, we must
remember that Montreal
has been around almost
three times as long. It is the
most European of Cana-
dian cities. ;

Vancouver could be
described as being ,Edwar-
dian, I guess, since that’s
about as far back as our
oldest homes go. But, until
recently, we have been
more a collection of stucco
B.C. boxes than anything.
Rinky dink, eh?

Okay. Something has
changed. A _ fundamental
shift has taken place in the

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Nova lumber douses smoldering fire

NOVA LUMBER doused a
smoldering problem Sunday
with help from the North
Vancouver District Fire
Department.

At 2. a.m. the North Van-
couver District Fire Depart-
extinguished a fire

ment
which broke out in sawdust
in the green chain area.

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