Quartier: Petite-Italie || Intersections: Berri, Jean-Talon
Mise-en-service: 1966 (Ligne Orange), 1968 (Ligne Bleue) || Architectes: Lemoyne, Bland, Edwards & Shine
Artiste: Judith Klein || Autobus: 30,31, 92, 93, 95, 95
Samuel Wood
Teacher, writer
Samuel is a writer and educator who grew up on the northeast coast of Scotland in a rural farming and fishing town. In 1992, his father was sent to Montréal for work. He followed, went to Dawson College and vowed to come back when he left for university at Edinburgh. A job in London and a PhD interfered with his return, but the financial crisis and unemployment brought a renewed desire to revisit life in Montréal.
18 years later, there’s no more Steinberg’s or Eatons, Warshaws is Pharmaprix, the Canadians moved a few blocks east and saw their Forum morph into a movie theatre, Cinéma Parallèle feels gone, and the Expos took their game south of the border and with it left his chance to see a professional team play in a park. He also misses The Mirror and Voir, even if online alternatives have emerged since their fold, “you just can’t pick up a website while waiting for a friend or the bus.”
Other than those losses, the politics still cause whiplash, the people are just as impassioned, and the weather just as volatile. He describes Montréal as still very much being the city of Drapeau and Doré.
To keep himself busy while job hunting, Samuel stared a project to discvoer the history of his new country. historyofcanadabymetro.com studies the personal histories of the individuals métro stations are named after. Their greed, their triumphs and what they were willing to sacrifice in their pursuit of wealth and power.
At Jean-Talon, he appreciates the dancer on stilts among all the other fine buskers, the three level mural, how it surges of people yet often feels empty, and how it feels like a minor labyrinth as he gets lost in its halls.
“Work with what you’ve got. It’s a lot easier than working with what you haven’t got.”
“We are blessed here and I feel a kind of withering pity for people who have to live elsewhere. A bit like I imagine the French must feel towards the rest of the world. I mean, why would you?”