Before & After : church on Gordon street - Verdun

Here's an update on the demolition of the church on Gordon street in Verdun. The condo project is almost completed.

Link and link of previous posts

Before & After : Small house on Rielle - Verdun

The Before & After of the small house on Rielle street in Verdun which is now a small condo building.

Link of previous post.

Update : corner LaSalle blvd and De L'Eglise - Verdun

The Esso station on the corner of Boul LaSalle and De L'Eglise was demolished in June 2012. Today, the land is still empty. No banner or billboard advertising what will happen there.

Link of previous post.

Horse Palace is no more - Griffintown

The stable and the small house behind the triplex on Ottawa are gone. It was there just a few weeks prior, as the bottom photo shows but since that photo was taken and posted here they demolished the Horse Palace.

Building on Murray st. - Griffintown

A building for a business on Murray st in Griffintown was painted over in yellow to advertise about the new condo project that's going to replace it.

(image above: Google streetview)

Peel & Ottawa - Griffintown

The two top photos were taken last November and shows all the buildings/structures being demolished for new condo projects while the other photos were taken a couple of weeks before. The Corlab building was reportedly sold last year.

New buildings next to Olympic Village - Hochelaga-Maisonneuve

New construction of condos next to the Olympic village in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The photos were taken last September. I'm certain the folks living in the OV buildings are happy that their view has been blocked.

The construction is on the left hand side of the Olympic village buildings. This Google Maps view shows the empty space (and parking lot) which was replace with the new buildings.

Long-abandoned lobster restaurant on Mackay - Montreal

The long-abandoned lobster restaurant on Mackay in downtown Montreal was still there last summer when I took these photos. Quite amazing when you consider all the action which has been going on in Montreal in the past couple of years.

New building on rue Centre - Pointe-Saint-Charles

This piece of land on the corner of rue Centre and De La Sucrerie in Pointe-Saint-Charles has been empty for a long time and was once a parking lot as well but construction started in spring 2012 (above) and the building was well on its way to be completed August 2012 (below) when I took these photos. The building will be a retirement home.

Update: Alstom factory - Pointe-Saint-Charles

A big chunk of the Alstom plant in Pointe-Saint-Charles is now gone. Here's a simple visual presentation.

Summer 2008 (35mm)

Summer 2009

A big fire gutted a huge section of the plant.

The big structure is completely gone. When I mean it's gone it's all gone. Only the section in the back remains

Winter 2013

Summer 2008

The red brick building in the foreground is still there today. It's simply not framed in the photo directly below.

Winter 2013

Summer 2008

The building on the left is totally gone as seen in the photo directly below

Winter 2013

Blog notes + small house demolished on Wellington st - Verdun

Well, it's almost the end of 2012 which was a busy year here at Vanishing Montreal. I've compiled a lot of stuff (and still have loads more from 2012 to upload) which was fascinating and heartbreaking and sometimes even uplifting. Things might change a lot though for the blog as Google has recently updated their Google Maps and Streetview with new images captured back in April 2012. This will make my job that much harder to figure out changes going on here in Montreal. I started this blog in 2009 and by chance Google Maps captured most of Montreal in 2009 and the condo boom, which has really exploded during the past 3 years, all helped me in creating this blog. It was perfect synchronicity. One of the reasons why I decided to do the blog was because I had taken tons of photos of the city for the past 10 years prior to 2009 but as things went on that year I noticed that several spots which had laid dormant and decaying for decades were quickly being replaced with condo projects which prompted me to create this blog in order to catalog all of these major changes going in our urban landscape.

It's technically impossible for me to know which building is set to be demolished (unless there's a big sign stating so) and to photograph all of Montreal. This is where Google Maps became vital for the blog. It was easy to see a new construction going on somewhere and then just checking out how it looked like back in 2009 with Google Maps but with the new 2011/2012 updates, it's gonna be hard to continue doing the same thing I've been doing for the past 3+ years. I've checked many areas, mostly in Saint-Henri, just to see how extensive the updates are and there's still a few places with images from 2009 but most of it was captured in 2011 and April 2012. This means that I can only really monitor any new changes starting from 2011 or from this year and knowing how extensive the condo boom has been going on in the city, it's going to be almost impossible to keep up or figure out what's going on or to do "Before & After" anymore. So the blog's future is sorta in the air. I'm going to spend some time trying to figure out a work around or maybe make some changes to the way the blog is designed but from now on the blog's updates will decidedly slow down considerably. I'm not stopping the blog but the updates probably won't be as frequent as they used to be.

Anyway, thanks for all the supporters and those who provided me with photos or tips.

I won't be updating the blog until next year so until then happy holidays, merry Christmas, joyeux Noel, happy Hanukkah and have a happy new year.

John
VM

(image above: google streetview)

This small duplex was demolished on Wellington street in Verdun for a new triplex project. The photo below was taken last summer. I haven't been there since to see if the construction has now been completed.

Esso station corner LaSalle blvd and De L'Eglise - Verdun

The Esso on the corner of blvd LaSalle and De L'Eglise in Verdun closed back in early spring this year and when I took the first and third photos, which was in June, the grounds were being dug up and dug out. The Esso was a busy place so this was surprising. This is near the old Hollywood Cafe (see post below) which was also demolished. No construction going on as of this writing.

(image above: google maps)

Demolished cafe and apartments on De L'Eglise - Verdun

The Hollywood Cafe and apartment unit around it were totally razed to the ground on De L'Eglise in Verdun. This one is quite surprising. The place looked clean and not neglected and yet the entire structure was demolished. There are a lot of restaurants and a Tim Hortons, St-Hubert and a McDonald's in the same area so I guess competition is tough there but it seems a bit drastic to demolish everything. No construction going on as of this writing.

(image above: google streetview)