I was in the scuzzier part of the downtown core. My cohort and I were checking out a venue of some sort. The main floor consisted of indie gallery and performance nooks, and a lobby that was reminiscent of what it would be like if an old style hotel was repurposed by the art crowd – couches, lamps, ironic classiness side-by-side with kitsch and comfort furnishings.
We found the elevator, and made it up to what I think was the third floor. The front windows looked over the street, with an inspiring view of a mixed-up neighborhood. Little restaurants and shops, people on bike and on foot, cars, sidewalks and alleys, animals and garbage, a perfect city microcosm. At the back, the balcony opened out onto the street, which was at a higher level, and the streets led to a gentle maze of residential lanes and quaint low-rise apartment blocks and houses.
If bohemian literary characters lived in a common neighborhood when they weren’t busy being in the stories they came from, this would be the neighborhood.
I cannot recall what it was I was there to investigate. But I did find a good Holmesian loft, and a couple of interesting businesses that I felt would support my lifestyle if I were to move there.
And this leads me to the realization that my dreams have been exceptionally cooperative lately in supplying me with magical settings, as demonstrated by the images above, with the added benefit that all of it was taking place along the stretch of de Maisonneuve between Atwater and Guy metros – which in '99 was my first home turf in Montreal.
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