[Only The Lonely..]

Every city has its share of painted murals, cool public works of art (sculptures / monuments) or interesting graffiti.

Feel free to post picts of your favourite pieces.


In Winnipeg...

http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/downtown.bmp
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/disraeliGuitar.jpg
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Main0436A.jpg
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Main0847A.jpg

[Only The Lonely..]

Graffiti Art from Winnipeg..

Inside the abandoned St.Charles Hotel
More interesting stuff can be found at: http://winnipeg.urbex.ca/manitobaindex.htm
http://winnipeg.urbex.ca/Charles/exterior.jpg
http://winnipeg.urbex.ca/Charles/0024.jpghttp://winnipeg.urbex.ca/Charles/003.jpghttp://winnipeg.urbex.ca/Charles/0056_1.jpg

[Boris2k7]

This is some of the stuff right beside the Hop n' Brew Pub (not in picture), a favourite location for many Calgary forumers.

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/1871/beltlinealleywv8.jpg
http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/5263/beltlinealley2uh0.jpg
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/7636/beltlinealley3gj8.jpg

^^^
These pics are mine

These pics are not
vvv

The mural on the side of CUPS
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/5274/6acupsnv8.jpg

Another one in the Downtown Core
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/5753/11apeteclubdt2.jpg

[Coldrsx]

wicked pics......there is plenty here, one of us should go take pics.

[Only The Lonely..]

Some other Winnipeg picts of various murals

This one pays tribute to the Guess Who and their old music shop
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage1349A.jpg

A mural paying homage to the history of Polo Park and Assiniboia downs.
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage0831A.jpg

Billy Mosienko Bowling Lanes in the North End
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Main1136A.jpg

[Only The Lonely..]

Winnipeg: from inside the abandoned Avenue Building

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ips_rich_content/03b1_avenue.jpghttp://winnipeg.urbex.ca/Avenue/46.jpg

[gilpel]

Some pics from Quebec City...

http://www.muralecreation.com/images/accueil/monde.gif

http://imagineressources.linternaute.com/document/image/540/rue-artere-neige-architecture-trompe-902469.jpg

http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060910203044.jpg&maxsize=600

http://www.muralecreation.com/realquebec/real3/GabrielleROY.jpg

http://www.muralecreation.com/realquebec/real4/Hopital.jpg

http://www.haypocalc.com/quebec/photos/quebec_amelie/illusion_optique.jpg

http://www.muralecreation.com/imageactu/limoilou.gif

http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060910161316.JPG&maxsize=600

http://www.quebecurbain.qc.ca/archives/royale.jpg

http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060911105528.jpg&maxsize=600

http://photos.globetrotter.net/imgPhoto/concours/00065/gf/20060910202931.jpg

http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060911110747.jpg&maxsize=600

http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060911110538.jpg&maxsize=600

http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060911110049.jpg&maxsize=600

http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060911105921.jpg&maxsize=600

http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060911105743.jpg&maxsize=600

[softee]

Here's some North Bay graffiti i photographed.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/Softee/q.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/Softee/CN_Station_2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/Softee/CN_Station_1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/Softee/r.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/Softee/s.jpg

[ÉricdeMtl]

^Hey bravo gilpel, tu as mis le paquet, il y en avait plus que je pensais. :D
___________________________________________________________________________________________________


Quelques unes de Sherbrooke , Québec / Here's a few from Sherbrooke,Qc.

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/2825/muralederuestalexandresqe3.jpg
http://img274.imageshack.us/img274/8379/muralessherbrookeqcnc0.jpg
http://img437.imageshack.us/img437/9876/muraillesherbrooke02tm9.jpg

[Boris2k7]

http://img274.imageshack.us/img274/8379/muralessherbrookeqcnc0.jpg

Say whaaaat?!

That's one of the coolest murals I've ever seen. Bravo!

[Only The Lonely..]

Here's some North Bay graffiti i photographed.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/Softee/CN_Station_2.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/Softee/CN_Station_1.jpg


Nice picts..is this your old railway station i presume? Looks like it was once a nice building.

[Only The Lonely..]

Some pics from Quebec City...
http://photos.globetrotter.net/includes/sendBinary.asp?path=\imgPhoto\concours\00065\gf2\20060911110747.jpg&maxsize=600


Cool..

[Ruckus]

Some quality murals you have in Quebec City. We have an assortment of artwork in Saskatoon (I should get some pics), but I am still quite envious.

[keninhalifax]

Wow, Quebec City sure has some impressive murals.

[someone123]

Some from Flickr:

http://static.flickr.com/61/182885478_f8d85577e5_o_d.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/14/15140562_1a12f18984_o_d.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/9/11526795_7ba8036aaf.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/21/32756824_97b2dfd933.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/60/207587351_434dce73e6.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/26/41593455_1189efa4d7.jpg

[Kilgore Trout]

here is some of the street art (not just graffiti) i've found around montreal.

http://static.flickr.com/103/261996727_dbcf66e334.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/99/257809501_6b33b298a0.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/111/253087681_d4c7cbea50.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/118/262558568_b07760845e.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/58/229661890_3130bd2ca8.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/89/262558378_4d978eb42f.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/42/103701924_bb07e7263b.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/29/103701925_0e8031625c.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/120/257812481_8ce249c1eb.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/107/309255094_8997e96ef5.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/100/284342459_bdd971a0a0.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/79/284371675_4995c110a8.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/112/275666266_cd4639e9f2.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/99/271700192_7dd4ae1bd1.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/81/257810810_4e1d4a9531.jpg?v=0

(this is arcade street, from which the arcade fire takes its name.)
http://static.flickr.com/117/257810060_d684c75938.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/80/257806419_980a52ff70.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/104/257806124_043f9d98eb.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/90/257806819_bb19cad40f.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/108/257803815_d63f8a8dff.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/80/257803403_cd0ea9df4e.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/108/253087639_b27e2ab666.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/84/253087374_0b031f7627.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/41/107807089_bcf9a8e47d.jpg?v=0

and, just to wrap things up, some images of roadsworth's work, which flourished in 2004 but has mostly disappeared (he is now doing commissioned work for the city and various other organizations):

http://www.woostercollective.com/images2/roadnew2.jpg

http://www.woostercollective.com/images2/roadnew3.jpg

http://www.woostercollective.com/images2/rodrr1.jpg

http://www.woostercollective.com/images2/rodrr2.jpg

http://www.woostercollective.com/images/moreroad4.jpg

http://www.woostercollective.com/images/road2.jpg

http://www.woostercollective.com/images2/roadw4.jpg

[Arriviste]

/\ Those are inspiring, at least to someone who dables in the urban arts.

[Only The Lonely..]

The work of L'Atelier national du Manitoba.

Nobody really knows too much about this underground artistic group; Except that their posters magically appear over night, usually on top of empty buildings

Winnipeg: Murder Capital
with portrait of former Winnipeg mayor Bill Norrie (1979 - 1992)
http://www.terminus1525.ca/files/artwork/art-22101.jpg

Burton Cummings
http://static.flickr.com/77/173715613_ca63f0b75e.jpg?v=0

The Mayor of Main Street: Nick Hill
(a well known Winnipeg furniture salesman made famous by his cheezy commercials)
http://www.citynoise.org/upload/13366.jpg

[rgalston]

Near the Louise Bridge
http://static.flickr.com/72/199056811_ea99ea5e3a.jpg

Side door of the Royal Albert
http://static.flickr.com/97/205274717_514c3f4f40.jpg

Fort St
http://static.flickr.com/67/224833117_f5911581ce.jpg

More Burton Cummings iconography
http://static.flickr.com/114/258094973_f8b7103da7.jpg

On a roof in the Exchange District
http://static.flickr.com/110/303143346_f4614aaa06.jpg

[Taller Better]

^^^ OMG I remember the Royal Albert! I think that was the place we used to sit and watch shakers dance, and drink draught beer! LOL!

[Only The Lonely..]

^^^ OMG I remember the Royal Albert! I think that was the place we used to sit and watch shakers dance, and drink draught beer! LOL!

http://www.themanitoban.com/2006-2007/1004/images/113.Live.at.the.Albert.gif

Doesn't every Winnipeg boy drink his first pint at the Albert? I think I was all of 16 the first time I went inside that place. Mind you I was pretty nervous being a cowardly lad from the suburbs.


It's a great place. As long as your tall enough to see over the counter your considered an adult.

[Taller Better]

Doesn't every Winnipeg boy drink his first pint at the Albert? I think I was all of 16 the first time I went inside that place. Mind you I was pretty nervous being a cowardly lad from the suburbs.


It's a great place. As long as your tall enough to see over the counter your considered an adult.

LOL ain't that the truth? I remember in the early 80's when they gussied it up and tried to make it more trendy, but the same beer swilling crowd came every day to watch the shakers!
My favourite place was just south on the street: "Wellington's", or "Wellies" as we called it. It was a basement location, and I believe it closed around 1983 and I don't know if they ever re-opened the space. The waitress'
name was Thelma and she always had the torn tee shirt look from FlashDance! :haha: They kept a big stock of ice cold Miller for us, and they loved us because we tipped!

[Only The Lonely..]

LOL ain't that the truth? I remember in the early 80's when they gussied it up and tried to make it more trendy, but the same beer swilling crowd came every day to watch the shakers!
My favourite place was just south on the street: "Wellington's", or "Wellies" as we called it. It was a basement location, and I believe it closed around 1983 and I don't know if they ever re-opened the space. The waitress'
name was Thelma and she always had the torn tee shirt look from FlashDance! :haha: They kept a big stock of ice cold Miller for us, and they loved us because we tipped!

Wellington's is even a bit more legendary than the Albert. City metal fans will know that Metallica through a show there in their early days when they were still an up-and-coming act. I used to drink upstairs in the Charles until the health department condemned the building (see post # 2)

As far as the Albert goes there's tons of great graffiti inside the mens room, unfortunately it looks a little strange if you truck up to the urinals with a camera in hand.

They kept a big stock of ice cold Miller for us, and they loved us because we tipped!

You guys actually tipped the bar staff!?! Every vagrant in the room musta been eyeing the big spenders.

[1ajs]

i think my mother was a bar tender at the royal alber back in the day...

heres some more peg
at the point in point douglas hiden away
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/829/daubsup0.jpg
http://www.pointdouglas.com/plugins/p17_image_gallery/images/635.jpg

also this on the side of my house theres another one in the back also
http://www.pointdouglas.com/plugins/p17_image_gallery/images/630.jpg

[Only The Lonely..]

Interesting little PSA for the youth of West Broadway. (Winnipeg)

http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Broadway0619A.jpg

[SpongeG]

here's one from vancouver - in an allwy just off west hastings

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v62/spongeg/nailstoo014.jpg

[ReginaGuy]

Here's one in Regina that I happened to already have on my computer (I think I stole it from CCF). I'll try and look for some others later

http://img290.imageshack.us/img290/7818/422ww2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[softee]

Nice picts..is this your old railway station i presume? Looks like it was once a nice building.

Yes, that's the former CNR Station downtown, although it's been more than 2 years since i took those photos and the building is now undergoing a complete renovation. The former CPR station has also been renovated and is now a museum.

[Taller Better]

Wellington's is even a bit more legendary than the Albert. City metal fans will know that Metallica through a show there in their early days when they were still an up-and-coming act. I used to drink upstairs in the Charles until the health department condemned the building (see post # 2)

As far as the Albert goes there's tons of great graffiti inside the mens room, unfortunately it looks a little strange if you truck up to the urinals with a camera in hand.



You guys actually tipped the bar staff!?! Every vagrant in the room musta been eyeing the big spenders.


" I used to drink upstairs in the Charles until the health department condemned the building"

Damn those idiots all to Hell. How on earth is your health going to be threathened by chugging back a couple of dozen Old Stock with a few friends (known as More Bang for your Buck)? It was an institution, and should have been protected by the Historical Society against the likes of the Health Department.


"You guys actually tipped the bar staff!?! Every vagrant in the room musta been eyeing the big spenders"

Oh yeah. I learned early in life that a big tip ensures Prompt Service! :whip::cheers:

This was back in the 70's, but I particularily loved Wellies as it had satellite radio stations for the music in the afternoon, and a reasonably good sound system as it was at that time a "disco" (as well as a showplace for strippers). The waiter called it
"Black People's Music"! LOL!

[Only The Lonely..]

Damn those idiots all to Hell. How on earth is your health going to be threathened by chugging back a couple of dozen Old Stock with a few friends (known as More Bang for your Buck)? It was an institution, and should have been protected by the Historical Society against the likes of the Health Department.



Shit, the urinals at the Charles were history. I probably pee'd into the same contraption that Charlie Chapplin himself pissed into 80 years earlier.

The place had a lot of character to say the least..and was one of the few places where a man could drink in solitude on Easter or Xmas day (illegally of course).

I'm sure at some point in your life you found your way into the Oxford across the street (now the Gentlemans Club)?

[Holden West]

A picture I took in the mid 1980s of a Downtown Victoria alley (today a fashionable shopping arcade).

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j142/Theoldvictorian/Victoria_Alley_grafitti.jpg

[Only The Lonely..]

The back of 510 Portage Ave.

http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage0510A.jpg
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage0510A1.jpg
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage0510A2.jpg

[Taller Better]

I'm sure at some point in your life you found your way into the Oxford across the street (now the Gentlemans Club)?


Oh yeah... it was a real dump. Ranked right down there with The Ox (The Occidental) as the nadir of lounge entertainment. Funny, but was a Gentleman's Club probably as far back as history goes.. unlikely many women stumbled into that dive! (aside from the strippers, that is).

[Only The Lonely..]

Mural for a pet store on Portage Ave.

http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage1333A.jpg

[Only The Lonely..]

Oh yeah... it was a real dump. Ranked right down there with The Ox (The Occidental) as the nadir of lounge entertainment. Funny, but was a Gentleman's Club probably as far back as history goes.. unlikely many women stumbled into that dive! (aside from the strippers, that is).


It was a nice touch how the plastic table clothes were tied down with an elastic band. Makes it nice and easy for the bar staff to clean up after you've blown your load.

As far as the quality of the strippers at the old Oxford goes, it left alot to be desired. I witnessed more than a few shows where the girls had to wear a cloth to cover the scar from their C Section.

[Only The Lonely..]

Can anyone tell me why shithole bars always have the most regal names?

In Winnipeg:
The Royal Albert, The Occidental, The Oxford, The Yale..etc

[Kilgore Trout]

i think that's a prairie thing. in montreal we just get straight to the point and call them things like "pussy corps" and "taverne (bienvenue aux dames)".

oh, and you can't forget the "restaurants sexy serveuses" where you can get your bacon and eggs with a side of (fifty-year-old) T&A.

[Only The Lonely..]

Sounds like good eats..

[WHISTLERINMUSKOKA]

Toronto

http://static.flickr.com/131/318851587_2d880b4995_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/115/256134365_44498f1311_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/120/307358785_4f64e2d040_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/2/2067890_4feb9e1115_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/91/238345027_b173db8175_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/95/219475856_6a14bc03d1_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/95/238950264_9236bf5448_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/95/225101153_58cdd2cc16_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/80/224041040_0270d10083_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/74/224041041_887b7ce8d6_b.jpg

(This one says Mont Real in it, located at Queen and Spadina)
http://static.flickr.com/78/219684358_3cac2fe4ac_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/87/242761941_eeecf5e9df_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/107/307920025_00e2e73f9c_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/109/307902464_3ebbadf402_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/96/246141353_04218fbd29_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/99/307937321_70cd29dc0e_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/85/209687659_8bb3294824_b.jpg

[Taller Better]

i think that's a prairie thing. in montreal we just get straight to the point and call them things like "pussy corps" and "taverne (bienvenue aux dames)".

oh, and you can't forget the "restaurants sexy serveuses" where you can get your bacon and eggs with a side of (fifty-year-old) T&A.


Oh yes, Pussy Corps is one of the finest names ever.. my personal alltime fave is the Caleche du Sexe, on Ste Catherines near the gay village. They used to have the tackiest plastic sign on earth, advertising
"Stripteaseuses a Go Go"!!! I could kick myself for not getting a photo of it
before it was "modernized" with a new, character-free sign.

[rgalston]

Here's the Chinatown headquarters of l'Atelier du National du Manitoba, the film group responsible for the Stand Tall, Murder Capital, and Discount Everything stencils and posters. Notice the homage paid to Winnipeg icons: the Nutty Club man, Clifford's Department store, and Winnie the Pooh
http://static.flickr.com/119/297691629_e5953bd17c.jpg


Also, getting to the hijacked topic of this thread, Winnipeg's sleazy hotels, here is a brilliantly-written story written by one Ted Allan, which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press 25 years ago:

Sept. 2, 1981

Hotel's rakish youth set its style
Great and eccentric shared Royal Albert's lively past

By Ted Allan
It was The Prince Of Steel, I suppose, who most fully appreciated the nuances of the Royal Albert Arms Hotel, many years and social postures before its development as a trendezvous for the Hip Minority.

The Prince chose the Royal Albert Arms Hotel as the seat of his ministry, rather than a hut on the headwaters of the Ganges or, say, the Clarendon Hotel.

Few of us had the temerity to challenge a guy who would shove surgical needles through his cheeks, ear lobes, nostrils, tongue and other fleshy parts to underscore his arguments.

The Prince--a rotund, melodramatically detached East Indian expatriot of Trinidad who never revealed his birth-name--performed a wonderfully disgusting intermission act between country 'n' western sets in the beverage room of the neighboring St. Charles Hotel.

This was in the early '60s when the St. Charles and the Royal Albert were favored spas for inchoate tokers, professional vessels of lust, the Lysol martini set and parapsychology groupies.

Solemnly and with some elegance, he contorted on a requisite board of nails, chewed burning cigarettes, writhed on broken beer bottles and generally made a helluva mess of the room. he capped his performance by prostrating himself on the nail bed and inviting the audience to smash a slab of Manitoba Tyndal on his chest with a 10-pound sledgehammer.

The drunks loved him, the management appreciated his purgative effect on the belligerents and the staff hated cleaning up afterward.

This he did for a living. Professional self-mortification. His calling, though, was converting unenlightened North American urchins of privilege into hordes of dutiful yogins.

He lived and held court in the Royal Albert Arms, third floor front. There, in his spartan but wretched room, he prattled at length to the assembled on the truths of "self-collectedness" from the hoary texts of the Yoga-sutras. Unknown and unnamed guests, weird and distracted, conventional and self conscious, drifted in and out of the room at all hours like tableaux from a misdirected circus parade.

He greeted them all with the same fashion, often with a needle still through his ear or nose. "Welcome to the Princes' ashram, my boy," he said, regardless of evident gender.

The Prince had other noteworthy tendencies. He burned enormous quantities of of incense. He begged for whatever spare change he could. And, when someone irritated him by displaying less than rapt attention or a reluctance to cough up four-bits, he stubbed cigarettes out on his forehead for dramatic effect.

For no apparent reason, The Prince Of Steel, whatever level he now inhabits, has lodged himself in my mind as emblematic of the Royal Albert Arms, a sometime refuge for the truly quirky and the harmlessly bent.

Now, though, the future of the 68-year-old hostelry is uncertain. Since its most recent owner, Bob Axworthy, bellied up in July, the hotel's three secured creditors have been scrambling for a fiscal foothold. However, bankruptcy trustee Tom Copeland says, "I'm almost certain the Albert will be retained as a hotel, despite the fact that there were no bids at all when tenders for sale were advertised across the country the beginning of August."

Danny Koren, one of the secured creditors whose family owned the hotel before Axworthy, admits "the odds are we'll be back there running the hotel to protect our investment. Though," he adds glumly, "we'd rather not do it at all. We'll certainly do it better."

Still, one fears for the continuity of genuine Winnipeg eccentricity the Albert provided.

The Royal Albert, never too tony in its finest hour, was, nonetheless, clean, sensible and inexpensive. Its first newspaper advertisement noted that each of the 54 rooms had phones, hot and cold running water, outside exposure and cost $1.50 and $2, while the businessman's luncheon went for 50 cents. It was designed for the travellers and salesmen who worked out of the Albert Street warehouse district.

It's name in Winnipeg is more than a century old.

It opened for business Dec. 13, 1913, the same year as the St. Charles Hotel and the Pantages Theatre (now The Playhouse). It replaced a 2 1/2-storey wooden auction gallery, the original Royal Albert Hotel, which opened Jan. 7, 1879.

The Royal Albert soon became the theatrical epicentre of the Prairies, a kind of informal booking agency, convention centre and boarding house for strolling players.

Bert (Red) McDonald, a retired railroader living in Vancouver, tells of an encounter with Harry Houdini in the lobby of the Albert just after The Great War.

"I didn't punch him," Bert says, "but he did let me fell his stomach. It was like a washboard. Houdini used to let lost of people punch him, though. He was very proud of his stomach."

As a schoolboy, Bert would hang around the Albert to observe his heroes, collect autographs and possibly pick up trade tricks.

"I used to think the lobby was so grand, you know. Very romantic. There was an oak front-desk that was 40 feet long. The oak panelling on the walls was higher than your head and there were marble baseboards and plate glass mirrors everywhere."

"And, there were always pretty women around. They were hookers, but what the hell did I know then? They looked so damned glamorous. Later, when I learned a little about life and was buying my booze from a bootlegger on the third floor, I got to know some of them."

In addition to nourishing rakish residents, the Albert was a hub of illicit liquor transactions during Manitoba's period of prohibition from 1916 to 1923, taking its rightful place alongside such legendary local hootie-houses as Aunt Mary's Tearoom and Mamma Trossi's Restaurant. Its backrooms were frequently scenes of decorous, middle-class, illegal bouts of drinking to excess.

By the '50s, an A. Ferrari and J. P. Grogan, the original owners who commissioned architect E. D. McGuire and built the hotel at a cost of $85,000, had long gone. So had its whiff of bohemian but respectable nightlife.

The '60s saw it regain a degree of sangfroid, with actors working the Manitoba Theatre Centre, starving artists wearing their integrity on their ragged sleeves, visiting jazzmen and folkies playing local clubs living fraternally with parchment-faced old men, brown-bag winos and creatures of the night who spoke to themselves in thunderous soliloquies.

One archetypical guest of the time was folksinger Gale Garnett, now an actress-director and sometime consort of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The daughter of a New Zealand circus carny, Garnett demonstrated her staggering command of colonial English colloquialism one afternoon after reading the reviews of her opening night at a Kennedy Street club.

Over the years, the Albert changed hands and clientele repeatedly, acquiring new owners in '52, '70, '71, '74 and finally, in the fall of 1979, when rapidly aging Young Liberal entrepreneurs Bob Axworthy and Reg Alcock [yes, the future Winnipeg South MP] took their bankruptcy-bound steps to restoring its cachet.

Winnipeg writer Charlie Wilkins was in residence during this period, holed up in the third floor front that the Prince Of Steel had occupied more than 15 years earlier.

It wasn't that he was courting the muse of the Albert's ambience, although the bitch goddess enabled him to crank out a children's play for the Manitoba Theatre Workshop, a couple of other plays and a CBC radio series. But the price ($150 a month) and location were right.

Just about everything else wasn't.

"The setting was actually prohibitive to writing," Wilkins says. "There was a certain kind of trendy quality there at the time, but it didn't extend above the main floor."

Wilkins remembers his room as being "minimally habitable," featuring a solitary overhead lightbulb, "loosey-goosey maid service," non-existant ventilation, "generations of underwear smells," purple plastic wallpaper, a reasonably new carpet that covered a host of residual artifacts and plenty of scalding hot water.

"In winter, I'd run a hot bath twice a day just to moisten the air and I kept my food between the windows." His fellow residents included Axworthy and Alcock, musicians Tom Jackson and Bob Fuhr and "the old men."

One old man, his immidiate neighbor, was a patriotic Czech with a heavy drinking habit. "He'd play these Czech records, anthem-like things, at full volume at night when he was drinking and I was working. Evidently, he left the tonearm open, because he'd pass out and the damned things would play over and over. I'd pound on the wall and his door and bellow at him."

Another veteran resident would frequent the hotel's restaurant, 48 Albert St., raging noisily at himself and breaking wind. "It was like punctuation," Wilkins says. "You could hear him all over the restaurant."

Wilkins finally abandoned the Albert, a casualty of its innate character. "I think it was a combination of things, all noisy. There were screaming, raging arguments that rolled along the hall like waves. In the street below my window, there were fights, people crashing through the sanded glass door, and active trading for the street prices between $40 hookers and guys in Buick Wildcats."

"But, the sound system in the pub was really intolerable, it was cranked up so high. Even on the third floor, despite brick and steel walls, the mirror on my wall would actually shake. The melody came up on the pipes, the rhythm on the radiator."

Whatever policy Danny Koren embarks on in his latest, reluctant embrace with the Dear Old Party of Albert Street, one hopes the Royal Albert Arms will always be distinguished by its metaphoric sounds:

Old men with flatus, scatological folk singers, the astonishing explosion of right-hand cluster notes of barrel-house pianists such as Roosevelt Sykes and the stratospheric decibel work of Winnipeg jazzmen like Dan Pelfrey and Ron Paley.

The Prince Of Steel, bless his student visa and horny skin, would doubtless approve and that's good enough for me.

[Kilgore Trout]

rob, i've used a couple of your photos for a post on my blog about the atelier. i hope you don't mind!

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2006/12/18/i-hate-winnipeg/

[Only The Lonely..]

Bert (Red) McDonald, a retired railroader living in Vancouver, tells of an encounter with Harry Houdini in the lobby of the Albert just after The Great War.

"I didn't punch him," Bert says, "but he did let me fell his stomach. It was like a washboard. Houdini used to let lost of people punch him, though. He was very proud of his stomach."

As a schoolboy, Bert would hang around the Albert to observe his heroes, collect autographs and possibly pick up trade tricks.

"I used to think the lobby was so grand, you know. Very romantic. There was an oak front-desk that was 40 feet long. The oak panelling on the walls was higher than your head and there were marble baseboards and plate glass mirrors everywhere."

"And, there were always pretty women around. They were hookers, but what the hell did I know then? They looked so damned glamorous. Later, when I learned a little about life and was buying my booze from a bootlegger on the third floor, I got to know some of them."



Great story..

[rgalston]

rob, i've used a couple of your photos for a post on my blog about the atelier. i hope you don't mind!

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2006/12/18/i-hate-winnipeg/

Not at all. That's an excellent post.

[Nouvellecosse]

The back of 510 Portage Ave.

http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage0510A.jpg
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage0510A1.jpg
http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~cschulz1/Portage0510A2.jpg
Nice! Too bad Winnie never built that subway...

[malek]

my personal alltime fave is the Caleche du Sexe, on Ste Catherines near the gay village.

did you know that building is owned by the university next door? hehehe:cool:

[crazyjoeda]

Winnipeg has some really neat stuff.

[Darkoshvilli]

Montreal

http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti6.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti4.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti8.jpg

http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti14.jpg

http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti15.jpg

http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti16.jpg

Damn. For some reason they arent coming out. Any idea why?

[Only The Lonely..]

Montreal

http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti6.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti4.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti8.jpg

http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti14.jpg

http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti15.jpg

http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7-27-04montrealgraffiti16.jpg

Damn. For some reason they arent coming out. Any idea why?

I had the same problem with the first set of pictures I posted. The only way i was able to correct it was by saving the picts and uploading them to my own webspace.

I guess it has something to do with the host.

[Darkoshvilli]

The only way i was able to correct it was by saving the picts and uploading them to my own webspace.
I was gonna do that but I thought the pics arent worth all the time it would take to upload them...

[Wishblade]

Heres a link with some graffiti in Halifax:

http://www.lounge37.com/thumbs.php?category_id=297&show=839&current_page=1

[raggedy13]

EDIT: nevermind, not working anymore