Quote:
Originally Posted by kool maudit
In spite of my disappointment this summer, I do think Montreal is doing all the right things. I think I may have been premature in some of my expectations; much of what I had been curious to see is still in the creation stage.
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I think your expectations may have been unrealistically high, and based on what you were reading and hearing without much of a hands-on experience of what the true impact was on the ground. When you're in the city or close to it like me you have a better idea of the evolution.
Construction projects on main streets as others have said have had a big impact on Montreal. Rue St-Denis was severely impacted and I was almost in tears a year or two ago at the sight of it as it's one of my favourite streets. I noticed this summer it was rebounding though.
Montreal had a lot of faded and even desecrated beauty in the 80s and 90s and a lot of it has been or is in the process of being rehabilitated. I do think that the turrets and other fineries on older Montreal buildings when all gussied up outgun the bay and gable features of Toronto (that never declined it is true) in terms of uniquness and charm.
But perhaps there is still a lot more work to be done than I thought in restoring the fineries that adorn Montreal's streets. Again, this could just be me looking at things incrementally, and seeing how far things have come there since... I dunno, 1998.