The Center of Montreal
THE DECLINE
Christo believes the death knell for the area came in the early ‘80s when sex shops moved into the area, killing business for everyone else. Long before that, though, many of the theatres were no longer able to make money with live music and dancing, and realized that even if people wanted to dance, they were just as happy dancing to records as they were to a live band. Many clubs began bringing in strippers, of not quite the same calibre as Lily St. Cyr. Many clubs still had local jazz musicians playing ‘Harlem Nocturne’ or ‘Caravan’ while the dancers did their thing, but most of these musicians were making much less money doing this than they did playing good jazz in the ‘50s. Eventually, the Crystal (just across from Peter’s) became a movie theatre showing porn and horror movies (see Rick Trembles’ memory of seeing a triple-feature there in FP vol. 1, #2.) Later renamed the Eve, it burned down in the early ‘90s and has been a vacant lot ever since.
André thinks the glory days ended definitively in 1986, when dépanneurs selling beer opened nearby and the Poolroom began serving beer. “The guys who would buy a hot dog and drink two beers here now get the same thing over there. 110 commandes—110 guys per week drinking two beers each—that’s a lot of business lost.”
There were cultural changes as well: “Cops used to drive you home if you were drunk. Now they arrest you.” Old-timer Guy Boisvert interjected (with a slur) that he‘d been driven home by the cops many times. The crackdown on drunk driving, in their view, was bad for business.
André does admit, however, that probably the biggest factor in the decline of liquor sales are the gambling machines. One regular customer used to come in once a month and give André $10 in tips over the course of the night. Now she orders one drink, gives him a 50-cent tip and spends the rest on the gambling machines.
On the other hand, the gambling machines are so much a part of these bars now that André wonders whether they’d have any customers left without them. It’s hard to say, then, whether they’ve killed the old-man bars or saved them. We did agree that it was hypocritical of the government to say that they legalised gambling machines to limit or “control” their use, since there were never so many of them around when they were illegal.
A further factor in the decline is that the customer base for these kinds of bars is dying off, and few young customers are replacing them. You can often find homeless kids or squeegee punks in Peter’s, however, as this is one demographic that also enjoys cheap beer and minimal décor. (Two punks were loudly drinking and playing pool all afternoon one time I was there.)
By 1978, bars and clubs had moved first to St. Denis between Ste. Catherine and Ontario, and then to Bishop and Crescent near Ste. Catherine. The younger crowd went to those places, and the places on St. Laurent began going downhill. After 1978, the area began getting run down.
Yet another factor contributing to the decline was the gradual loss of residential areas surrounding this strip. Until the ‘60s, blocks of triplexes identical to those which fill the Plateau stretched from Jeanne-Mance to St. Denis and from Old Montreal to Sherbrooke. In fact, I’ve met several people who say they grew up in “Jeanne-Mance,” and can’t quite believe the entire district they grew up in is totally gone. Now nearly that whole area is filled with office buildings, hotels, Place des Arts, the Ville-Marie Expressway and the parking lots resulting from Drapeau’s “moral demolitions.” Christo believes the one reason why St. Laurent north of Sherbrooke has become the latest hot strip of nightclubs and restaurants is that it is still surrounded by residential areas. We would all do well to remember the lessons of the past, however, if we want this most recent “hip” area’s popularity to last more than a couple of decades. (Already the building of several large hotels, the eviction of many artists from their cheap lofts and the ever-increasing parking capacity is adding more cars and homogenizing pedestrian traffic. A less diverse pedestrian and customer base will surely lead to a less diverse St. Lawrence Boulevard, not a good thing since its diversity is what attracts so many people in the first place…)
