Someone said it was bleak back then.
I would have to disagree.
It did not seem bleak to me, so I went and looked up the definition of "bleak" on m-w.com to see if it was just another millenial dissing the past, like they always seem to love to do.
The best part about getting old and looking at life in the rear view mirror, is that everyone younger will eventually get old too! And then when you are in your 40s, and you start living in the past, some 19 year old punk is going to diss you too. It's part of life... that is if you make it to your 40s. Some people obviously don't.
In any case...
I lived in Montréal as a 26 year old immature stupid and naïve adult from 1993 to 1995, with trips back in 96, 97, and 98. I fell in love with the city from the moment I saw it. It was a love that has lasted until this day.
The city was my mistress and helped me tremendously while I was going through a divorce.
And I have luckily been back to Montréal many times in the 2000s and the 2010s decades to visit as well.
Each time I love it just as much as the last.
I may even retire there. It's on my short list.
Yes, the economy sucked back then (93-95) as the city had not yet rebounded from economic crisis, and there was the 1995 separatist vote that also was tough.
But you know, life is what you make it, and despite the economic problems the city had back then, and the amazing urban grit, I personally had a fantastic time - and I was so broke too - which proves that money doesn't always buy happiness, right?
I think my annual salary was 14K as a full-time retail salesperson downtown with a wife who wasn't working.
The cost of the transport card was 48 dollars/month or somewhere around there.
And the apartments were so cheap. For part of my séjour, I lived in a studio in one of the few low rent places that could be found on Square Saint-Louis for about 200/month. It was on the corner of Laval & Pins.
But rent was cheap like that all over the place.
Amazing rent deals were to be had everywhere you looked, but of course nobody had any money back then
.
All neighborhoods had deals.
A lot of anglophones were still moving in droves to other provinces, even if it seemed like I arrived during the "aftermath" of the max exodus.
Many anglophones couldn't understand why I loved the city so much.
Many of them thought I was nuts.
Beautiful time of my life overall.
Re: Sports, the Habs won the Stanley Cup. How could life be so bad when the Habs take the Cup?
I managed to see some Expos games and in fact was part of the whole bandwagon of the Expos in 94, when they finished in first place during the strike shortened season. Many of us thought they could have won it all that year.
For another part of my time there, I rented a room with the wife in Pointe-aux-Trembles, and did the bus-metro thing... 70 minute commute each way to work downtown. That was a real trip.
Yes, there were also a lot of video arcades, XXX shops, and strip joints.
My wife worked at one, when she needed the $$$ after I left her.
As a poor boy, I ate a lot of hot dogs, pizza, and poutine.
The Montréal women were crazy, but fantastic at the same time.
We listened to Tea Party, Our Lady Peace, Moist, Daniel Bélanger, etc.
The gym I went to on Sainte-Catherine let me play Snoop Dog & Dr. Dre for all to hear.
All of us smoked a lot of weed.
Great house parties in Verdun.
Most everybody I knew didn't have a cell phone or internet.
My boss and a few of my wife's friends were hooked on steroids, and had biceps about 2 feet thick.
But I had a blast anyways.
It wasn't that bleak. We made our lives during that time and adapted as we got older.
I am very disappointed that the blue line never did get extended all the way into the eastern neighborhoods. They had been projecting that thing even back then
. And the level of corruption hasn't changed either, it's just as bad now as it ever was in the past.
In conclusion, from an Urban Planning/Urban Fabric standpoint, to me it's like anything that I analyze in the past compared to present. Some things about Montréal I like better back then and some things I like better now. It's like that with me on almost everything. That's how life goes, and I am sure many feel the same way. People older than me could say the same thing regarding the huge swath of old historical apartment blocks that Jean Drapeau destroyed in the 60s and 70s, that I never got to see. I was sure that this kind of disrespect for history and historical architecture would never happen again in Montréal, but helas I was wrong. Some of the new condo developments remind me of Miami condos (not really a compliment), another great & interesting city where I lived from 2008-2013.